Apollo Lead Import

Overview

The Apollo Lead Import feature automatically imports contractor leads from Apollo.io into your BlueClerk marketing database. Select target states, set import counts, and let the system fetch verified email contacts for contractors in your target trades - all with automatic deduplication and enrichment.

IMPORTANT: Emails are now required - Apollo imports now require all contacts to have verified email addresses. The system filters out any contacts without emails during import, ensuring your marketing database only contains reachable leads.

CRITICAL: Contact email deduplication - The Apollo import system now deduplicates leads by contact email address instead of company name. This prevents duplicate lead records when the same person is listed multiple times across different company entries in Apollo (e.g., "ABC Plumbing" vs "ABC Plumbing LLC"). If a contact with the same email already exists in your database, the import skips that lead and moves to the next one.

NEW: Improved Lead Qualification - The Apollo import system now applies stricter qualification rules to ensure only business emails from field-service companies are imported. Personal email domains (gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc.) and generic email prefixes (info@, admin@, contact@) are automatically filtered out. Business emails must align with the company's website domain to be considered qualified. This prevents non-decision-makers and generic company inboxes from cluttering your outreach lists.

NEW: Increased Stockpile Defaults - The default lead stockpile targets have been increased to support larger-scale outreach campaigns. The cron route now imports 200 leads per run (up from 75), and the server-side import function defaults to 200 leads with a maximum of 8 pages per state/trade combination.

NEW: Improved Lead Intake & Follow-Up Cadence - The Apollo import system now handles leads more intelligently by normalizing address data during import and automatically syncing follow-up cadences for companies with automated follow-up workflows enabled. This ensures leads are properly formatted and ready for outreach campaigns immediately after import.

IMPORTANT: Credit exhaustion protection - The Apollo import system now detects when you've run out of export credits and stops attempting imports until credits are restored. This prevents infinite retry loops and wasted API calls when your Apollo account has insufficient credits. The system logs credit exhaustion errors clearly and skips import attempts until the next billing cycle.

How It Works

Automatic Import via Cron

The Apollo import cron runs automatically:

1. Daily at 6am UTC - Fetches new leads Monday through Friday
2. Target count: 200 leads - Imports up to 200 verified contacts per run
3. Enrichment follows - Hourly enrichment process adds contact emails to leads without them
4. Deduplication by email - Skips leads if contact email already exists in your database
5. Qualification checks - Filters out personal emails and generic addresses

Email Qualification Rules

All imported leads must pass these checks:

• Has verified email - Apollo's email verification status must be "verified"
• Business email domain - No gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, or other personal domains
• Non-generic prefix - Filters out info@, admin@, contact@, support@, sales@, etc.
• Domain alignment - Email domain must match company website domain

Manual Import via Admin Panel

You can also trigger imports manually:

1. Go to Admin > Marketing > Apollo Import
2. Set target count (default: 200)
3. Click "Import Now"
4. Watch progress in real-time
5. Review results - inserted, rejected, duplicates skipped

What Gets Imported

For each qualified lead:

• Company name - Business name from Apollo
• Contact name - Decision maker's full name
• Contact email - Verified business email (if qualified)
• Phone - Business phone number
• Website - Company website URL
• Address - Business address (normalized on import)
• City and State - Location data
• Trade - Matched to BlueClerk's trade categories
• Source - Marked as "apollo"

Enrichment Process

Hourly Email Enrichment

After leads are imported, a separate cron runs hourly to add missing emails:

1. Finds leads without emails - Queries all apollo-sourced leads with no contact email
2. Bulk enriches in batches - Uses Apollo's bulk enrichment API (10 leads per request)
3. Applies qualification rules - Same email validation as initial import
4. Updates lead records - Adds contact email if qualified
5. Tracks credits - Monitors Apollo API credit consumption

Monitoring Imports

View Import History

1. Go to Admin > Marketing > Leads
2. Filter by source: Apollo
3. See all imported leads with contact info and status
4. Check enrichment status - Shows which leads have emails

Import Metrics

After each import, you'll see:

• Inserted - New leads added to your database
• Processed - Total leads examined from Apollo
• Candidates Examined - Leads that passed initial filters
• Enrichment Requests - API calls made for email enrichment
• Credits Consumed - Apollo API credits used
• Duplicates Skipped - Leads skipped due to existing email match
• Rejected - Leads filtered out due to qualification rules
• Errors - Any issues encountered during import

Troubleshooting

No Leads Being Imported

If imports aren't adding leads:

• Check Apollo API key - Verify your API key is configured in environment variables
• Check credit balance - Ensure you have Apollo export credits remaining
• Review qualification settings - Verify your email qualification rules aren't too strict
• Check existing leads - System may be deduplicating against existing records

Low Enrichment Rate

If many leads lack emails after enrichment:

• Allow time - Enrichment runs hourly, not immediately after import
• Check Apollo credits - Enrichment requires separate API credits
• Review qualification rules - Strict rules may filter out many emails
• Check lead sources - Some industries have fewer verified emails available

Best Practices

• Monitor credit usage - Apollo charges per export and enrichment request
• Review rejections - Check rejected leads to ensure qualification rules aren't too strict
• Clean existing data - Remove duplicates before importing to maximize new leads
• Track conversion rates - Monitor which imported leads convert to customers
• Adjust target counts - Increase or decrease daily import targets based on outreach capacity