How to Build a B2B Lead List
Use ProfileSpider to build B2B lead lists from public directories, marketplaces, partner pages, search results, company websites, and event pages.
Goal
What This Workflow Is For
Build a structured B2B lead list from public company and prospect sources, then export it for outreach, account research, or CRM import preparation.
Use this workflow when you need a B2B lead list for a specific market, niche, geography, company type, buyer persona, or campaign. Good examples include HR tech companies in the UK, SaaS founders in Germany, Shopify agencies in Europe, cybersecurity vendors, local B2B service firms, or conference sponsors in a specific industry.
The flow is: find public B2B source pages → extract visible companies or people → save rows to a list → review and qualify → enrich where useful → find emails per row where available → export CSV, Excel, or JSON.
Prerequisites
Before You Start
Confirm the page and tooling match this workflow.
You need:
- ProfileSpider installed in Chrome and signed in
- A target market, niche, region, company type, or buyer persona
- One or more public source pages with visible companies, people, websites, or profile links
- A saved list name such as hr-tech-uk, saas-founders-germany, shopify-agencies-europe, or client-acme-q3
This workflow works best when the page has repeated visible company cards, vendor rows, directory listings, marketplace entries, search results, team members, or sponsor blocks.
Fit
Best For / Not Ideal For
Set expectations before you install or run an extract.
Best for
- B2B company directories
- SaaS, vendor, agency, and consultant marketplaces
- Partner and integration directories
- Conference sponsor, exhibitor, and speaker pages
- Google search result pages with company or profile URLs
- Company team, leadership, and about pages
- Industry association member lists
- Agency and freelance client lead generation workflows
Not ideal for
- Pages where the company or contact data is hidden behind a login you cannot access
- Private, restricted, or unauthorized data sources
- PDFs, screenshots, or images of company lists
- Pages that only show logos without names, websites, or profile links
- Pages where the relevant data only appears after complex interactions that are not visible before extraction
- Full CRM workflows that need pipeline, deal, and task management
Steps
Step-by-Step Workflow
- 1
Define the B2B lead target
Start with a clear target segment. Define the market, geography, company type, role, use case, or buyer persona. For example: HR tech startups in the UK, SaaS founders in Germany, cybersecurity vendors in Europe, Shopify agencies, or local B2B service companies.
- 2
Find public B2B source pages
Open public sources such as company directories, marketplaces, partner directories, sponsor pages, exhibitor lists, search results, association pages, company lists, and team pages. Look for pages with repeated visible companies, people, websites, or profile links.
- 3
Load the company or prospect data in Chrome
Make sure the company names, websites, categories, profile URLs, people, titles, locations, or contact fields you want are visible before running extraction. If the page uses filters, tabs, pagination, or load-more buttons, prepare the page first.
- 4
Run ProfileSpider on the source page
Click the ProfileSpider extension and run extraction. A normal page scrape uses 1 credit per page, regardless of how many leads or companies are found within your plan cap.
- 5
Save useful rows to a B2B lead list
Save relevant extracted rows to a new or existing list. Use clear names and tags such as market:hr-tech, country:germany, saas, founder, source:directory, target-account, needs-email, reviewed, or client:acme.
Saving rows, adding tags, and adding notes do not use credits.
- 6
Review, qualify, and enrich the list
Remove irrelevant rows, add notes, mark priority, and review duplicates inside the saved list. Use enrichment when rows include website, profile, or social URLs and you want more company or contact detail. Bulk enrichment uses 1 credit per eligible profile in that flow.
- 7
Find emails per row and export the lead list
For individual rows where email finding is appropriate and supported, run email finding per row. If no valid email is returned, there is no charge. Export the reviewed list to CSV, Excel, or JSON for outreach, account research, CRM import preparation, agency delivery, or market mapping.
Schema
What ProfileSpider Extracts
Default fields for this workflow. Add or remove columns before you extract.
- CompanyCompany, vendor, agency, startup, partner, sponsor, marketplace listing, or account name.
- CategoryIndustry, niche, service category, product type, market segment, or directory category when available.
- WebsiteCompany website URL when visible or linked from the source page.
- Company DomainDomain extracted or normalized from the website URL when available.
- ContactRelevant person, founder, executive, buyer, speaker, or team member when visible.
- TitleRole, job title, seniority, or professional headline when available.
- EmailOnly filled when visible on the source page or when per-row email finding later returns a valid result.
- LinkedIn URLCompany or person LinkedIn URL when visible or linked from the page.
- LocationCity, region, country, headquarters, office location, or service area when available.
- Source URLThe page where the lead or company row came from. Keep this for verification, cleanup, and attribution.
Output
Example Output
What a downloaded file looks like. Real exports are saved as .csv, .xlsx, or .json.
| Company | Category | Website | Contact | Title | Tags | Source URL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northstar Talent | HR Tech | northstartalent.example | Sofia Martin | Head of People | sofia@northstartalent.example | market:hr-tech;reviewed;target-account | example-directory.com/hr-tech |
| Weber Growth | B2B Consulting | webergrowth.example | Daniel Weber | Founder | b2b-consulting;needs-email | example-marketplace.com/b2b-consultants | |
| ExampleTech | Workflow Automation | exampletech.example | Nina Verhoeven | VP Partnerships | nina@exampletech.example | saas;partner-research;priority | conference.example/sponsors |
Troubleshooting
Common Problems
The page has company names but no contacts
Save the company rows first, then use enrichment where rows include websites or profile URLs. You can also review company team pages as a separate source.
Emails are missing
Many B2B source pages do not expose emails. Save the rows first, then use per-row email finding where appropriate and supported. If no valid email is returned, there is no charge.
The extracted list includes irrelevant companies
Review and remove unrelated rows before enrichment, email finding, or export. Use tags and notes to separate target accounts, maybe accounts, and not-a-fit rows.
The same company appears twice
Some companies appear across multiple categories, locations, or event pages. Review duplicates inside the saved list before exporting.
The page only shows part of the list
Check whether the page uses pagination, filters, tabs, or load-more buttons. Load the relevant rows first, then run extraction.
The CSV is missing fields
Empty cells usually mean the source page did not expose that data. Try enrichment on rows with usable website, profile, or social URLs.
Questions