Use case · Cold email & outbound agencies

Local business lists with owner names and verified emails, for outbound agencies

Agencies and freelancers running outbound for clients that sell to local businesses.

How it is usually done today

• Scraping Google Maps, then running domains through a separate email finder and verifier.
• Hiring VAs to look up owner names on websites, BBB and LinkedIn.
• Buying static lists that are months out of date.

Why that hurts

• "Hi there" emails to info@ inboxes get low replies.
• Unverified addresses raise bounce rates and put sending domains at risk.
• Manual research does not scale past a few hundred leads a week.

How LeadMerlin does it

1. 1

   Sharpen the niche

   GET /v2/suggest turns a vague word into precise Google categories and better search keywords.

2. 2

   Search multiple cities

   One job can cover up to 5 locations. The niche filter drops keyword-coincidence listings without charging for them.

3. 3

   Filter for sendability

   Keep leads whose best email is verified and not role-based; route catch-all addresses to a separate, slower campaign.

4. 4

   Personalize

   Use owner, summary, services and crawled page text as inputs for your first line.

Search, then fetch enriched results

curl "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/suggest?niche=basement" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY"

curl -X POST "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/searches" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keyword":"roofing contractor","location_codes":[1026201],"strictness":"moderate"}'

curl "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/jobs/$JOB_ID/results?limit=200" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY"

Location codes in these examples are placeholders — always look yours up with GET /v2/locations first.

What comes back

Most useful for this job:

• Owner name when the website states it.
• all_emails[] with status, is_role_based and is_free_provider flags.
• Business summary, services, specialties and page text for personalization.

Limits and honest caveats

• Every email gets an MX check plus a mailbox check with the receiving server where it answers; "catch-all" means the domain accepts any address and cannot be confirmed, "unverified" means the server gave no clear answer.
• You are responsible for complying with CAN-SPAM, GDPR and other rules that apply to your outreach.
• Owner names are not available for every business.

Pricing

• 1 lead credit per business that has a website to enrich.
• Listings without a website are never charged (counted as skipped, not returned in results).
• Off-niche listings removed by the niche filter are never charged.
• Failed enrichments are refunded automatically.
• A search charges only what your balance covers: with 40 credits left, it enriches the 40 top-ranked matches. Set max_leads to cap any search.
• Locations, niche suggestions, polling and demo endpoints are free.
• Phone line-type lookups have a monthly allowance: 100 on the free start, 1,000 Starter, 2,000 Pro, 4,000 Agency. Numbers looked up before are free. Past the allowance, phones still come back without a line type.

FAQ

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