Use case · Reputation & review management

Find local businesses with weak ratings or few reviews, and reach the owner

Review-generation resellers, reputation management agencies and local SEO shops that sell review campaigns.

How it is usually done today

• Checking ratings one listing at a time in Google Maps.
• Using a review-specific finder, then a second tool to get an email.
• Pitching businesses that already pay for Podium or Birdeye.

Why that hurts

• Low-rated businesses are easy to spot but hard to contact.
• Without competitor context your pitch is generic.
• You waste calls on businesses that already run a review platform.

How LeadMerlin does it

1. 1

   Search a niche and city

   Dentists, auto repair, med spas, movers: niches where rating drives the call.

2. 2

   Sort lowest rating first

   The dashboard sorts by lowest rating or fewest reviews. Every result carries rating and review count.

3. 3

   Skip existing customers of review tools

   web.tech.reviews lists review widgets detected on the site (Podium, Birdeye, NiceJob, Grade.us and others).

4. 4

   Pitch with their numbers

   "You are at 3.7 stars with 41 reviews; the top three dentists near you average 4.8." Send it to the owner by name.

Every business in the niche, with rating and review tools

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"

# each business: reputation.rating, reputation.reviews, reputation.is_claimed
# web.tech.reviews: e.g. ["podium"] when a review tool is detected

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

What comes back

Most useful for this job:

• reputation.rating, reputation.reviews and claimed status for every business.
• web.tech.reviews: review widgets and platforms detected on the homepage.
• Owner name and the best verified email on the business domain.

Limits and honest caveats

• We return the current rating and count, not review dates or review velocity.
• Review-tool detection reads the homepage; a platform used only by email or SMS is invisible from the site.
• Only businesses with a website are enriched and returned.

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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