Lead List Qualifier - Contact, Hiring & Tech Signals
Pricing
from $8.50 / 1,000 domain scoreds
Lead List Qualifier - Contact, Hiring & Tech Signals
Prioritize company domains with transparent contact, hiring, technology, and SEC-name signals. Get score contributions, evidence confidence, identity gaps, and a review action - not invented buyer intent.
Pricing
from $8.50 / 1,000 domain scoreds
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Tim Zinin
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1
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20 days ago
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Lead List Qualifier — Domain Hotness Scorer
Score a list of company domains for outbound-readiness. Four built-in scanners run in-process for every domain — tech stack, active hiring, funding mentions and contact reachability — and combine what they find into one transparent hotness score. No child Actor is invoked and there is no second Actor charge.

What you get
- One hotness score (0-96) per domain, with a full text breakdown of exactly which signals contributed and how many points each one added — never a black-box number.
- Signals combined: contact info found on the site, hiring momentum + role keyword matches, ecommerce/sales-tool detection, and SEC funding-filing mentions.
- Honest about uncertainty: a guessed hiring-board token is checked against the board's public owner signal when one is available. A confirmed mismatch is shown for diagnosis but contributes no score; unavailable evidence stays explicitly unverified rather than being silently promoted to a match.
- Domains with zero signal from all four sources come back free (not charged) — you only pay when we actually found something to report.
- Runs on Apify: call it from the API, export to JSON/CSV/Excel or push straight into your CRM/outreach pipeline.

How to run it
- Click Try for free — no card needed on the free plan.
- Paste up to 25 domains into Domains to qualify.
- Optionally set Role keywords (e.g.
sales,marketing) to flag domains currently hiring for those roles. - Hit Start and pull the scored list from the dataset.
Pricing
Pay-per-event: $0.005 per run start + $0.01 per domain scored. A domain with zero signal from all four sources, or one we couldn't check at all (all four sources unreachable), is returned but never charged. 10 domains scored cost about $0.11 (the one-time start fee plus 10 billed rows).
Input
| Field | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
domains | yes | Up to 25 company domains to score, e.g. "stripe.com". |
role_keywords | no | Words to match against open job titles (default: ["sales","marketing"]). |
company_name_overrides | no | {"domain":"correct-slug"} — override our guessed ATS token/company name for specific domains (see limitation below). |
{"domains": ["stripe.com", "shopify.com"],"role_keywords": ["sales", "marketing"]}
⚠️ Important limitation: guessed company identity for 2 of the 4 signals
Two of the four signals (contact info, tech stack) work directly off the domain you
give us — no ambiguity there. The other two (hiring activity, funding mentions) need a
company NAME or ATS token, not a domain, so by default we guess one from the domain
itself (stripe.com → stripe). This guess can attach an unrelated company's data to
your domain. Verified live: qualifying example.com (which has no real hiring-board
presence at all) returned "strong hiring, 21 open roles" — because some UNRELATED
company happens to sit under the token example on one of the three job-board
providers we check. Similarly, querying "stripe" against public funding filings
surfaces real SEC filings that merely contain the word "stripe" in an unrelated fund's
name (e.g. "Rockefeller Stripe LP"), not Stripe Inc. itself.
Every row tells you the input path via matchBasis ("guessed-domain" or
"buyer-override") and the hiring ownership result via attributionConfirmed
(true, false, or null) plus attributionEvidence. A false hiring match is
excluded from scoring. null means the public board did not expose enough evidence,
not that ownership was confirmed. If you know the real ATS token or legal name
for a domain, pass it via company_name_overrides to remove the guesswork for that
domain — though even then, a name match on public filings is never proof of identity
(see matchedFundingFilings — always check it yourself before treating funding
mentions as fact).
Output
Full signal found (real output, live run 30.07.2026):
{"domain": "stripe.com","found": true,"hotnessScore": 78,"scoreBreakdown": ["contact info found on the site (+15)","aggressive hiring (+38)","113 open role(s) matching your keywords (+15)","11 SEC filing(s) mention \"stripe\" — UNVERIFIED (+10)"],"reachable": true,"emailsFound": 1,"phonesFound": 3,"hiringMomentum": "aggressive hiring","openRolesCount": 540,"matchedRolesCount": 113,"techStackCount": 2,"ecommerce": null,"cms": null,"fundingMentionsCount": 11,"fundingConfidence": "low — name-substring match on public SEC filings against a guessed slug, NOT a verified link to this domain; see matchedFundingFilings","matchedFundingFilings": [{ "company": "Pantera Opportunities Fund LP Stripe", "filedAt": "2026-07-24", "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2147228/000090266426003236/0000902664-26-003236-index.htm" }],"companySlugUsed": "stripe","identityConfidence": "guessed","matchBasis": "guessed-domain","attributionConfirmed": true,"attributionEvidence": { "method": "greenhouse-board-name", "requestedDomain": "stripe.com", "signal": "Stripe", "detail": "greenhouse's board name matches stripe.com." },"techStackChecked": true,"contactsChecked": true,"hiringChecked": true,"fundingChecked": true,"partial": false,"partialReason": null,"error": "","summary": "stripe.com — hotness 78: contact info found on the site (+15); aggressive hiring (+38); 113 open role(s) matching your keywords (+15); 11 SEC filing(s) mention \"stripe\" — UNVERIFIED (+10).","checkedAt": "2026-07-30T10:36:08.928Z"}
No signal found (real output, live run 30.07.2026 — free, not charged):
{"domain": "zzqfakenonexistentdomain999999.example","found": false,"hotnessScore": 0,"scoreBreakdown": [],"error": "","summary": "zzqfakenonexistentdomain999999.example — no signal detected from any of the four sources (checked: techStack, contacts, hiring, funding).","checkedAt": "2026-07-30T10:39:46.032Z"}
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
found | true only when hotnessScore > 0 — the billable outcome. |
hotnessScore | 0-96 heuristic index, sum of the components in scoreBreakdown. Not a percentage or a guarantee. |
reachable, emailsFound, phonesFound | From the built-in contact scanner. |
hiringMomentum, openRolesCount, matchedRolesCount | From the built-in public job-board scanner, keyed on companySlugUsed. |
techStackCount, ecommerce, cms | From the built-in website technology scanner. |
fundingMentionsCount, fundingConfidence, matchedFundingFilings | From the built-in SEC filing scanner — always check matchedFundingFilings yourself, see the limitation above. |
identityConfidence | "guessed" or "override" — see the limitation above. |
matchBasis, attributionConfirmed, attributionEvidence | How the ATS token was chosen and whether the board's public owner signal matched the requested domain. null is unknown, not confirmed. |
techStackChecked/contactsChecked/hiringChecked/fundingChecked | Whether that source's own call succeeded this run (independent of whether it found anything). |
partial / partialReason | true when some (not all) of the four sources failed to respond — the score is still computed from whatever did answer. |
error | Empty string when the check completed (including "nothing found"); non-empty only when ALL FOUR sources failed to respond. |
Other tools we built
Related tools
Related tools for adjacent workflows in B2B lead generation and data enrichment.
| Actor | What it does |
|---|---|
| B2B Lead Enricher | Pair it in the B2B lead generation and data enrichment workflow: Turn a list of company websites into sales-qualified lead cards: detected tech stack, a rough revenue... |
| Company Profile Lookup | Pair it in the B2B lead generation and data enrichment workflow: Turn a domain or company name into one unified company card: website tech stack (CMS, ecommerce, key tech)... |
| Intent Signal Aggregator | Pair it in the B2B lead generation and data enrichment workflow: Is this company in-market right now? Combines public hiring activity (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby) and recent... |
| Counterparty Risk Rollup — Sanctions, Courts, Registry, Hiring | Pair it in the B2B lead generation and data enrichment workflow: One call, one row per counterparty: sanctions screening (OFAC + EU), legal-entity registry (GLEIF),... |
| Company Hiring Radar | Pair it in the B2B lead generation and data enrichment workflow: Pull every open role a company is hiring for from its public job board (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby) and turn... |
FAQ / Limitations
Why is my score lower than I expected? Check partial first — if some sources
didn't respond this run, the score only reflects what did. Then check
identityConfidence — a "guessed" slug for a distinctive company name usually still
works; a common word as a domain label (like "example") is where guesses go wrong.
What this is NOT. This is not a verified company database and does not confirm that a domain and a matched hiring board or funding filing are the same legal entity — see the limitation section above. It is a prioritization heuristic, not proof.
Found a bug or need a custom scoring weight? Issues on the Actor's page.
Commercial guide: Lead List Qualifier — Transparent Multi-Signal Domain Prioritization
Rank a bounded domain list with in-process contact, hiring, technology, and public SEC-name signals while exposing every contribution, confidence penalty, and identity gap.
This guide is written for buyers, operators, analysts, and automation builders. It explains what the Actor observes, how to turn the Dataset into a controlled workflow, and where human verification remains mandatory.
The decision this product supports
Which submitted domains deserve the next unit of human research, based on observed public signals rather than invented buyer intent?
The Actor reduces collection and first-pass triage work. It does not remove responsibility for source verification or authorize an external business action. The commercial value comes from a structured, repeatable evidence layer: stable identity, observation time, source evidence, confidence, gaps, recommended action, and failure semantics travel with the raw facts.
Who uses it
| User | Value |
|---|---|
| Founder-led sales teams | Prioritize a small account list before spending time on manual company research. |
| B2B agencies | Create an explainable first-pass queue for client-approved target domains. |
| Sales operations | Keep weighted signal strength separate from evidence confidence and route incomplete rows correctly. |
| Marketing researchers | Compare public contact, hiring, technology, and filing-name observations across a bounded cohort. |
| RevOps builders | Insert a deterministic scoring layer before enrichment, verification, and human qualification. |
| Small businesses | Decide which potential partners or accounts to research first without buying a black-box lead database. |
Input contract
| Input field | How to use it |
|---|---|
| domains | Required list of up to 25 company domains. Each domain runs four bounded in-process source checks. |
| role_keywords | Optional words used to highlight matching open-role titles. They influence the observed hiring signal, not proof of purchase intent. |
| company_name_overrides | Optional domain-to-company-token mapping that reduces domain-derived guessing. It does not turn name-substring funding evidence into verified issuer identity. |
Recommended first Input
{"domains": ["stripe.com","shopify.com"],"role_keywords": ["sales","marketing"],"company_name_overrides": {}}
Start with this bounded example, inspect every Dataset field, and only then expand the scope. Input limits are product controls, not inconveniences: they make cost, completeness, and error handling visible.
Field dictionary
| Field or group | Meaning |
|---|---|
| entityId, domain, inputRef, observedAt | Stable domain identity and observation context. |
| hotnessScore, qualificationBand | Weighted public-signal strength and routing band. The score is not confidence and is not a probability. |
| signalContributions, scoreBreakdown | Structured and readable explanation of every score component. |
| sourceStatus, sourceEvidence | Completion and evidence summary for contacts, hiring, technology, and funding-name checks. |
| confidenceScore, confidenceBand, confidenceRisks | Evidence quality after source failures, guessed identity, attribution uncertainty, and unverified filing-name matches. |
| attributionConfirmed, attributionEvidence, identityConfidence | Whether a public hiring-board owner signal supports the requested domain and how the lookup token was chosen. |
| fundingMentionsCount, matchedFundingFilings | Public SEC filing name mentions that remain explicitly unverified as issuer-to-domain identity. |
| partial, failureType, retryable, negativeSignals | Operational and evidentiary gaps that prevent a clean automated routing claim. |
| recommendedAction, actionPriority, safeToAutomate | Bounded next step. Automatic outreach remains disabled. |
Common decision fields
| Field | Operational meaning |
|---|---|
| recordType | The semantic row family. Use it to distinguish a business result from an advisory or terminal record. |
| schemaVersion | Version of the additive decision-intelligence contract. Pin or validate it in strict consumers. |
| entityId | Stable entity identity for deduplication and joins. It is not necessarily a legal identifier. |
| inputRef | The relevant submitted input reference after normalization. |
| observedAt | When the Actor observed or finalized the evidence. It is not necessarily the source publication time. |
| firstSeenAt and lastSeenAt | Always-emitted observation boundaries. Stateful monitors use the compatible baseline/current boundary. Stateless rows set both equal to observedAt for the current run; that equality does not establish historical tenure. |
| freshness | A structured statement about evidence age or availability, not a prediction. Its basis and age unit follow the source-specific field definition. |
| eventId | For monitors, the stable identity of one observed transition or monitor outcome. It is distinct from entityId. |
| before and after | For monitors, the bounded comparable snapshots used for the decision. Null means that side of a comparison was not honestly available. |
| changedFields and changeFlags | Machine-readable monitor deltas and normalized change labels. Empty arrays mean no supported changed field was established, not that every possible real-world fact stayed constant. |
| materialityScore and materialityBand | Magnitude of an observed monitor change when the Actor can calculate it. Materiality is separate from evidence confidence and may be unknown when the source lacks the required facts. |
| confidenceScore | Evidence support on a 0–100 scale. It is separate from materiality, lead score, or business value. |
| confidenceBand | Readable high/medium/low/unknown grouping of evidence support. |
| confidenceReasons | Observed facts that raise confidence. |
| confidenceRisks | Missing, partial, ambiguous, inferred, or conflicting aspects that reduce confidence. |
| confidenceConflict | Explicit consistency warning when structured evidence does not reconcile. |
| sourceEvidence | Source-linked observations supporting the row. Preserve this during export. |
| dataGaps | Important evidence the Actor did not observe or cannot establish. Keep these gaps visible in CRM, spreadsheet, and automation exports. |
| negativeSignals | Machine-readable risks or gaps. A negative signal is not automatically a negative business outcome. |
| recommendedAction | Bounded review label produced from the available evidence. |
| actionPriority | Suggested queue priority, not urgency guaranteed by the source. |
| actionReason | Plain-language explanation for the recommended action. |
| safeToAutomate | Whether the narrow recommended action is deterministic enough for automation. Organizational policy still applies. |
| failureType | Normalized terminal or partial failure classification. Null means no classified failure. |
| retryable | Whether a later retry may legitimately change an operationally incomplete result. |
| recommendation | Human-readable handling guidance, especially for terminal rows. |
Evidence, confidence, and honest boundaries
What the evidence supports
- The hotness score is the deterministic sum of visible contributions, not an opaque model output.
- The four source checks run in-process; no hidden child Actor bill is introduced.
- Hiring ownership mismatch is excluded from scoring rather than silently accepted.
- A funding mention is disclosed as a name-substring observation, not a verified funding round for the domain.
- Partial source coverage lowers confidence without rewriting the observed weighted score.
What this Actor never claims
- The Actor does not prove buyer intent, budget, urgency, authority, or product-market fit.
- It does not verify that a filing issuer and a domain are the same legal entity.
- It does not guarantee a detected public contact is deliverable, consented, or owned by a decision maker.
- It does not interpret hiring as a confirmed need for the user's product.
- It does not recommend automatic outreach; every positive result remains a research lead.
Reading data gaps correctly
A data gap is part of the result. Nulls, partial flags, confidence risks, source failures, and unavailable fields must survive export. Removing these fields makes the remaining facts look more complete than they are. When two sources conflict or a required identity cannot be proven, lower confidence and keep safeToAutomate=false.
Source evidence is not permission
A public source proves only that a value or statement was observable at the recorded time and URL. It does not establish consent, contractual rights, legal status, accuracy after observation, or authorization for a downstream action. Your organization remains responsible for source terms, privacy rules, outreach policy, retention, and human review.
Decision policy and action routing
| Action | How to use it |
|---|---|
| PRIORITIZE_MANUAL_REVIEW | Research high weighted-signal domains first, but verify identity, fit, contacts, and source evidence. |
| ADD_TO_RESEARCH_QUEUE | Keep the account in a medium-priority queue and close the most important evidence gaps. |
| LOW_PRIORITY_REVIEW | Spend limited research effort because only a weak observed signal is present. |
| REVIEW_PARTIAL_QUALIFICATION | Restore missing source coverage or resolve identity ambiguity before routing the lead. |
| NO_SIGNAL_DETECTED | Treat the result as no signal in the bounded checks, not proof of a bad account. |
| RETRY_SOURCE_CHECKS | Retry after technical source failure without treating the failure as negative account evidence. |
Confidence is not attractiveness
confidenceScore answers “how strongly does the available evidence support this factual classification?” It does not answer “how valuable is this lead, property, account, or address?” A high-confidence negative fact may be commercially uninteresting; a low-confidence positive signal may deserve research but not action. Keep the concepts separate in dashboards, exports, and CRM fields.
Why safeToAutomate is conservative
safeToAutomate is intentionally false whenever the next step could amplify an uncertain inference. It may be true only for narrow deterministic actions explicitly supported by the row, such as suppressing an email with invalid syntax. A true value does not waive legal, privacy, consent, contractual, or organizational rules.
Retry policy
- Retry when
retryable=trueand the failure is operational, such as a temporary source or DNS problem. - Do not endlessly retry deterministic invalid input, policy refusal, or confirmed absence.
- A retry must preserve the original input reference and must not create duplicate downstream actions.
- Budget exhaustion is not negative evidence about the entity. Resume only the unprocessed scope with an authorized budget.
- A failed Actor run is an operational event. Never transform it into “no listing,” “no contact,” “bad lead,” or “invalid email.”
Commercial use-case playbooks
1. Founder account triage
Goal. Score a handpicked list, inspect contribution and confidence side by side, then manually research the strongest evidence-backed accounts.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
2. Agency prospect research
Goal. Use role keywords relevant to the client offer, keep guessed identity rows in a separate lane, and require source review before CRM import.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
3. RevOps staging table
Goal. Store hotnessScore, confidenceScore, recommendedAction, and sourceEvidence in separate fields so downstream users do not confuse signal with certainty.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
4. Hiring-led campaign research
Goal. Filter matching role activity, then verify the board owner and business relevance. Hiring is context, not a buying declaration.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
5. Technology-led segmentation
Goal. Use observed ecommerce or CMS fields to form a segment, then confirm the current site implementation before personalization.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
6. Filing-name research
Goal. Open matchedFundingFilings and resolve issuer identity manually. Never label the domain funded merely because the name appeared.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
7. Data-quality exception queue
Goal. Route partial, low-confidence, guessed-identity, and attribution-null rows to an analyst before any campaign action.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
8. Scoring experiment
Goal. Export signalContributions, compare outcomes in your own CRM, and change business policy downstream rather than pretending the built-in score predicts conversion.
Recommended runbook.
- Define the submitted cohort and write down why it is in scope.
- Start with the smallest useful Input and preserve the exact run ID.
- Inspect the Dataset overview before exporting anything.
- Check
failureType,retryable, completeness indicators, andconfidenceBand. - Open the relevant
sourceEvidenceor source URL for material rows. - Apply the recommended action as a review label, not as an instruction to contact, buy, delete, accuse, or publish.
- Record the analyst's final disposition in the destination system.
Do not skip. A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
Integration recipes
All examples use placeholders. Keep the Apify token in a secret manager and never write it into a Dataset, README, screenshot, or client-side application.
cURL: start a run and wait briefly
curl -sS -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/zinin~lead-list-qualifier/runs?waitForFinish=60' \-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \--data '{"domains":["stripe.com","shopify.com"],"role_keywords":["sales","marketing"],"company_name_overrides":{}}'
The run response includes defaultDatasetId. Read clean JSON rows with:
curl -sS "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/$DEFAULT_DATASET_ID/items?clean=true&format=json" \-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"
JavaScript with apify-client
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });const input = {"domains": ["stripe.com","shopify.com"],"role_keywords": ["sales","marketing"],"company_name_overrides": {}};const run = await client.actor('zinin/lead-list-qualifier').call(input);const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems({ clean: true });for (const row of items) {console.log({entityId: row.entityId,confidenceBand: row.confidenceBand,recommendedAction: row.recommendedAction,safeToAutomate: row.safeToAutomate,failureType: row.failureType,});}
Python with apify-client
import osfrom apify_client import ApifyClientclient = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])run = client.actor("zinin/lead-list-qualifier").call(run_input={"domains": ["stripe.com","shopify.com"],"role_keywords": ["sales","marketing"],"company_name_overrides": {}})for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(clean=True):print({"entityId": row.get("entityId"),"confidenceBand": row.get("confidenceBand"),"recommendedAction": row.get("recommendedAction"),"safeToAutomate": row.get("safeToAutomate"),"failureType": row.get("failureType"),})
Apify MCP call
{"name": "call-actor","arguments": {"actor": "zinin/lead-list-qualifier","input": {"domains": ["stripe.com","shopify.com"],"role_keywords": ["sales","marketing"],"company_name_overrides": {}}}}
Generic webhook consumer policy
- Trigger on a terminal Actor run event.
- Confirm the run status is
SUCCEEDEDbefore reading business rows. - Retrieve rows from
defaultDatasetId. - Reject or quarantine rows whose
failureTypeis non-null unless your policy explicitly handles that failure. - Send
safeToAutomate=falserows to a human-review queue. - Store
entityId,observedAt,sourceEvidence, confidence, action, and the Apify run ID together. - Make retries idempotent by keying the destination on the stable entity ID plus the intended observation or event identity.
Where this fits in a practical stack
| Destination | Recommended pattern |
|---|---|
| Apify Console | Use the visual Input form, start the run, then open the default Dataset overview. This is the fastest path for a one-off review and the best place to inspect evidence before automating anything. |
| Apify API | POST JSON input to the Actor run endpoint, wait or poll for completion, then read the default Dataset through the URL returned by the run object. |
| JavaScript client | Use apify-client from a Node.js service, pass the same JSON object as the Console Input, and preserve the returned run and Dataset IDs in your own audit log. |
| Python client | Use apify-client in a Python enrichment job, iterate Dataset items, and route rows by recommendedAction, confidenceBand, failureType, and retryable. |
| Make | Start the Actor from a scenario, wait for the run, retrieve Dataset items, filter unsafe or low-confidence rows, then insert review-ready rows into the destination application. |
| Zapier | Use an Apify run action or webhook trigger, fetch Dataset items, apply a Filter step, and send only review-approved fields into the next sales or operations step. |
| n8n | Use HTTP Request or Apify nodes, branch on failureType and retryable, keep a manual-review lane for safeToAutomate=false, and write sourceEvidence together with the business fields. |
| Google Sheets | Export the Dataset directly or append rows from an automation. Keep stable entityId as a hidden key so reruns update the correct record instead of creating ambiguous duplicates. |
| Airtable | Map entityId to a primary or deduplication field, store confidence and evidence in separate columns, and expose recommendedAction as the triage view. |
| Webhook | Configure an Apify webhook for terminal run states, retrieve the Dataset after SUCCEEDED, and treat FAILED or TIMED-OUT runs as operational events rather than negative business evidence. |
A safe automation shape
The Actor is a collection and decision-support component. A production workflow should keep raw evidence, decision metadata, and business action in distinct layers:
- Collect: run the Actor with explicit bounded input.
- Validate: require a successful run and schema-valid Dataset rows.
- Triage: branch on
failureType,retryable,confidenceBand, andsafeToAutomate. - Review: open source evidence for rows that may affect a person, campaign, investment, compliance decision, or customer record.
- Act: execute only the action approved by your own policy and authorized operator.
- Audit: retain run ID, Dataset ID, observation time, input reference, source evidence, and the final human decision.
This separation prevents a common automation error: turning “data was observed” into “a business action is justified.”
Operating guide
Before the first production run
- Write the business question in one sentence: Which submitted domains deserve the next unit of human research, based on observed public signals rather than invented buyer intent?
- Confirm every submitted input is within your authorized scope.
- Use the prefilled small example and review all returned row types.
- Map stable identifiers, confidence, evidence, actions, gaps, failure, and retry fields into the destination.
- Establish a human owner for review exceptions.
- Set a run budget and output bound appropriate to the test.
- Verify that secrets are stored only in the platform or workflow secret manager.
After every scheduled run
- Check terminal run status and logs.
- Compare the number of submitted entities, produced business rows, and advisory rows.
- Review partial, unknown, conflict, and low-confidence buckets.
- Inspect a sample of source evidence, including at least one positive and one negative result.
- Confirm the destination deduplicated on the intended stable key.
- Verify that no downstream action was triggered from an error row.
- Track cost per useful reviewed row rather than cost per raw request alone.
Production monitoring signals
Monitor source-unavailable rate, partial-row rate, low-confidence share, missing evidence, retry volume, run duration, Dataset row count, and spend. A sudden shift may indicate source drift, input drift, or an upstream outage. Stop automation and investigate before accepting a new pattern as business truth.
Cost control
Begin with two to five known domains and compare the score explanation against your own understanding. Expand only after confirming that the source mix fits your targeting policy. Use the live Apify pricing panel for authoritative current rates.
Use maxTotalChargeUsd when calling a monetized Actor if your workflow supports it. Treat a buyer-set cap as a hard safety boundary. If the cap stops work, the unfinished items remain unprocessed; they do not become negative results.
Review templates and quality reporting
Row-review worksheet
For every material row, an analyst should be able to answer the following without relying on memory or an unstated assumption:
- What submitted entity or query does this row refer to?
- Is it a business result, a baseline/advisory row, a partial observation, or a failure?
- Which exact source evidence supports the headline fact?
- When was the evidence observed, and is there a different source publication time?
- Which fields are direct observations, which are normalized, and which are deterministic derivations?
- What important evidence is null, missing, partial, ambiguous, or conflicting?
- Does confidence describe evidence support only, or has someone incorrectly treated it as business value?
- What recommended action is present, and what additional verification does its reason require?
- Is the narrow action marked safe to automate? If yes, does organizational policy also permit it?
- What final human disposition was made, by whom, and from which run and Dataset item?
Field-group review prompts
1. entityId, domain, inputRef, observedAt
Contract meaning: Stable domain identity and observation context.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
2. hotnessScore, qualificationBand
Contract meaning: Weighted public-signal strength and routing band. The score is not confidence and is not a probability.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
3. signalContributions, scoreBreakdown
Contract meaning: Structured and readable explanation of every score component.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
4. sourceStatus, sourceEvidence
Contract meaning: Completion and evidence summary for contacts, hiring, technology, and funding-name checks.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
5. confidenceScore, confidenceBand, confidenceRisks
Contract meaning: Evidence quality after source failures, guessed identity, attribution uncertainty, and unverified filing-name matches.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
6. attributionConfirmed, attributionEvidence, identityConfidence
Contract meaning: Whether a public hiring-board owner signal supports the requested domain and how the lookup token was chosen.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
7. fundingMentionsCount, matchedFundingFilings
Contract meaning: Public SEC filing name mentions that remain explicitly unverified as issuer-to-domain identity.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
8. partial, failureType, retryable, negativeSignals
Contract meaning: Operational and evidentiary gaps that prevent a clean automated routing claim.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
9. recommendedAction, actionPriority, safeToAutomate
Contract meaning: Bounded next step. Automatic outreach remains disabled.
Reviewer prompts: Is the value present? Does its type match the schema? Is it supported by sourceEvidence or a documented deterministic transformation? Is any null being silently converted into a default? Would the value still mean the same thing after CSV export? Does the destination preserve the related confidence and gap fields?
Weekly quality report
Create a recurring internal report with these measures. The report is about pipeline health, not market demand unless the source contract explicitly measures demand.
| Metric | Why it matters | Investigate when |
|---|---|---|
| Submitted inputs | Defines the actual denominator and scope of the run. | The count differs from the approved batch or schedule. |
| Business result rows | Shows how many usable observations were produced. | The rate changes sharply without an input explanation. |
| Advisory/failure rows | Prevents operational failures from disappearing in a results-only dashboard. | Any terminal class grows or is unmapped. |
| Partial-result rate | Measures incomplete source coverage or configured truncation. | It rises, or analysts stop seeing the partial warning. |
| Low-confidence rate | Shows the share of rows requiring more evidence. | It rises by source, cohort, or input pattern. |
| Retryable failure rate | Distinguishes temporary operational issues from deterministic outcomes. | Retries repeat without improving evidence. |
| Evidence-link coverage | Confirms material facts remain traceable after export. | Links or evidence objects are missing from delivered records. |
| Safe-automation share | Shows how little or much of the workflow can be deterministic. | A mapping change makes unsafe actions appear safe. |
| Manual-review backlog | Measures whether human verification capacity matches collection volume. | Rows age beyond the campaign or decision window. |
| Duplicate destination writes | Tests idempotency and stable identity mapping. | The same entity/run creates multiple external actions. |
| Cost per reviewed useful row | Relates platform spend to approved, decision-useful output. | Raw volume rises but reviewed utility falls. |
| Source-drift exceptions | Detects changed markup, response shape, policy, or source availability. | A new unknown pattern survives more than one bounded check. |
Client-facing delivery note template
Use a note like this when delivering exports to a client or another team:
This Dataset contains bounded public-source observations produced by the Apify Actor for the submitted Input. Each row includes observation time, evidence confidence, recommended review action, and explicit gaps where available. A positive row is not proof of buyer intent, permission, legal status, future outcome, or any fact listed in the Actor's “never claims” section. Partial and failure rows are included so coverage is not overstated. Validate material rows at their source before acting.
Add the Actor URL, run URL, Dataset URL, build/version, exact Input scope, observation window, pricing model observed for the run, reviewer name, and date of approval.
CRM disposition vocabulary
Keep collection results and sales dispositions separate. A practical downstream vocabulary is:
needs_evidence_review: useful signal exists but a reviewer has not approved it.needs_identity_review: entity or ownership association is not sufficiently proven.needs_policy_review: contact, privacy, suppression, legal, or contractual policy must be checked.approved_for_research: an analyst may perform more research; this is not approval for outreach.approved_for_authorized_action: a named operator approved one specific action under the organization's policy.retry_operational_failure: the source or infrastructure failed and a bounded retry is appropriate.closed_no_supported_signal: the completed bounded check found no supported signal; this is not a universal negative fact.closed_out_of_scope: the input should not have entered this workflow.
Never overwrite recommendedAction with the CRM disposition. The first is Actor-produced decision support; the second is your organization's accountable decision.
Sampling plan
For a new workflow, review every row in the first small run. When the contract is understood, sample all failure and partial rows plus a representative set of high-, medium-, and low-confidence results. Re-expand to full review whenever the source changes, the schema version changes, a new input cohort is introduced, the error distribution shifts, or a downstream user reports an unexplained result.
Change-management record
When you change field mappings or automation policy, record:
- Previous mapping or rule.
- New mapping or rule.
- Actor build/version and schemaVersion used for validation.
- Test run and Dataset URLs.
- Positive, negative, partial, retry, and budget fixtures inspected.
- Security and privacy review outcome.
- Approver and activation time.
- Rollback condition and responsible operator.
This makes a commercial data workflow supportable. Without the record, a later operator cannot distinguish a real source change from an undocumented mapping change.
Delivery patterns for marketing and small-business teams
One-off research
Run the Actor in Console, inspect the overview table, open evidence for each material row, and export only the approved subset. Record the run URL in the client or campaign notes.
Recurring watch or hygiene job
Use an Apify schedule. Write rows into a staging table keyed by entityId. Compare current and previous observations only when the Actor supplies valid state or your own pipeline implements an explicit comparable baseline. Never infer a change from a failed run.
Agency client delivery
Deliver three views: business results, evidence/quality exceptions, and operational failures. Include the run URL, observation time, configured scope, and a plain-language statement of what the Actor does not prove. This makes the deliverable auditable and reduces disputes caused by overclaiming.
CRM enrichment
Write into staging fields first. A human or approved policy promotes values into canonical CRM fields. Keep raw source values separate from normalized and decision fields, and do not replace a verified value with a lower-confidence observation.
AI-assisted review
An LLM can summarize rows, but it must receive the evidence, confidence risks, negative signals, and limitations. Require citations to sourceEvidence and prohibit invented identity, intent, legal, funding, mailbox, valuation, or availability facts.
Buyer and operator acceptance checklist
Use this checklist before calling the workflow production-ready.
Product fit
- The business question matches: Which submitted domains deserve the next unit of human research, based on observed public signals rather than invented buyer intent?
- The submitted entities were selected through an authorized process.
- A human owner understands the positive, negative, partial, and failure row types.
- The team accepts the boundaries listed in “What this Actor never claims.”
- The destination keeps evidence confidence separate from business scoring.
Input and run controls
-
domainsis explicitly reviewed and bounded. -
role_keywordsis explicitly reviewed and bounded. -
company_name_overridesis explicitly reviewed and bounded. - The first production-like run uses a small representative sample.
- A maximum charge or internal spend alert is configured where appropriate.
- The workflow records Actor ID, build/version, run ID, Dataset ID, and input hash.
Data handling
-
entityIdis mapped to an idempotent destination key. -
observedAtand source-specific time fields remain distinct. -
sourceEvidence, gaps, and nulls are preserved. - Advisory and failure rows cannot enter the positive-results lane.
- Low-confidence and partial rows have a visible manual-review view.
- Retention and deletion rules match the type of data collected.
Action safety
-
recommendedActionis treated as a review label. -
safeToAutomate=falseblocks automatic external action. - Consent, suppression, legal, contractual, and platform rules are evaluated downstream.
- A reviewer can trace a material action back to source evidence and run metadata.
- Retry logic cannot duplicate a downstream action.
Ongoing quality
- The team monitors failure, retry, partial, low-confidence, and empty-result rates.
- A source-drift threshold pauses the workflow for inspection.
- Sample evidence is manually reviewed on a recurring basis.
- Cost per useful reviewed row is measured.
- Documentation and field mappings are updated when schemaVersion changes.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a database?
No. It is an on-demand observation tool. Each run collects or evaluates the submitted scope and records evidence at that time.
Does a found row prove commercial interest?
No. A found row proves only the factual observation described by its fields. Buyer intent is never inferred.
Can I automatically contact every result?
No. Use recommendedAction as triage, verify the evidence and identity, and apply your own consent, privacy, suppression, and outreach rules.
Why is safeToAutomate often false?
Because a useful observation can still require identity, context, legal, or source verification before action. Conservative routing prevents false certainty from scaling.
What should I do with low confidence?
Open confidenceRisks and sourceEvidence, close the important gap, or keep the row in a manual queue. Do not hide the confidence field.
What does partial mean?
The Actor obtained some usable evidence but could not support a complete observation of the configured scope. Partial is not the same as empty.
What is a confirmed zero?
Only an explicit source or deterministic rule can support a confirmed absence. An outage, truncation, or unreadable response is not a zero.
Should I retry every failure?
No. Retry only when retryable is true. Invalid input, policy refusal, or deterministic classification should be corrected or handled, not looped.
Can I delete failure rows?
You can exclude them from a business-results view, but retain them in operational logs so Dataset completeness and retry decisions stay explainable.
How should I deduplicate?
Use entityId for the entity and, for stateful monitors, eventId for the observed transition. Also retain the Apify run ID.
Can I treat confidence as conversion probability?
No. Confidence measures evidence support, not purchase probability, revenue, suitability, or expected return.
Can I change the recommended action?
Yes. It is an explainable default. Your downstream policy can be stricter, and should encode organization-specific authorization and risk tolerance.
How do I estimate cost?
Run the smallest representative input, inspect live event prices and run usage in Apify, then model the number of billable result events. The live pricing panel is authoritative.
Why use a small prefill?
It produces a cheap, fast, inspectable first run and reduces the chance of scaling a wrong input or workflow assumption.
Can I schedule it?
Yes. Use an Apify schedule, but make the destination idempotent and review changes in failure, partial, and confidence rates.
Can I export CSV or Excel?
Yes. Apify Datasets support common export formats. JSON is recommended when you need nested evidence and decision fields.
Can I send results to Sheets or Airtable?
Yes. Preserve entityId, confidence, evidence, gaps, actions, and failure fields instead of mapping only the headline value.
Can I use it from Make, Zapier, or n8n?
Yes. Start the Actor, wait for a successful terminal state, read Dataset items, then branch on decision and failure fields.
Can an LLM consume the output?
Yes, but pass the structured evidence and limitations together. Instruct the model not to invent missing facts and to cite sourceEvidence.
What happens when a source changes?
The run may become partial, unavailable, or fail validation. Monitor these rates and inspect logs before treating changed output as a real-world shift.
Does public mean unrestricted?
No. Public visibility does not remove source terms, privacy obligations, retention rules, or the need for a legitimate downstream purpose.
Is a source URL permanent?
Not necessarily. Store observation time and material facts because web content can change or disappear.
Can I rely on one row for a high-stakes decision?
No. High-stakes legal, financial, employment, compliance, safety, or personal decisions require appropriate primary evidence and qualified review.
How do I report a suspected parsing issue?
Provide the Actor run ID, a redacted input, affected field, expected source evidence, and whether the issue reproduces. Never include tokens or private data.
What does success mean?
A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.
Support information to include with an issue
Provide the public Actor name, Apify run ID, Dataset item index or stable entity ID, a redacted Input, the relevant source URL, expected behavior, observed behavior, and whether retrying produced the same result. Do not include an Apify token, API key, private customer record, or unnecessary personal data.
Final interpretation rule
A positive score means one or more weighted public signals were observed. It is a prioritization aid, never verified buyer intent or a permission to contact.