If you spend more time gathering and cleaning company data than actually using it, you’re not alone. Whether you’re in sales, recruiting, or investing, hours disappear into spreadsheets, manual Google searches, and dead-end LinkedIn chains. This guide is for people who want to reclaim that time—without paying a consultant or wrangling endless scripts.
Below, I’ll walk you through how to automate company research using CompanyEnrich tools. We’ll cover what works, what flops, and how to avoid busywork traps. No hand-waving—just the steps you actually need.
Why Automate Company Research?
Manual research is a slog. Here’s what usually happens:
- You find a company name.
- You Google for a website, LinkedIn, and basic facts.
- You try to find decision makers, emails, funding info, even tech stack.
- Copy, paste, curse, repeat.
It’s boring, error-prone, and slow. Worse, it eats up the time you could spend actually reaching out or making decisions.
Automating this process means:
- You get faster, more reliable data.
- You focus on high-value work (talking to customers, closing deals, etc).
- You sidestep the “I’ll just clean this up later” trap.
But not every tool or workflow is worth your time. Let’s cut to what works.
Step 1: Decide What Data Actually Matters
Before you plug in any tool, get real about what you need. Most people overdo it and collect too much useless info.
Ask yourself: - What do I actually use to qualify or segment companies? - What are the “must-haves” versus “nice-to-haves”? - Who will use this data, and how?
Common must-haves: - Company name and website - Industry or segment - Company size (employees/revenue) - Key decision makers (with emails, if possible) - Location (HQ or region)
Nice-to-haves (often a time sink): - Tech stack - Recent news or funding - Social handles
Pro Tip: If you’re not sure, set up your automation to grab the basics first. You can always add more fields later. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of done.
Step 2: Gather Your Starting List
Automation tools work best if you give them something to chew on. That usually means a list of company names or domains.
Where to get your list: - Existing CRM exports - Conference attendee lists - LinkedIn Sales Navigator searches - Scraped directories (fair warning: these can get messy)
Format: - CSV or spreadsheet, with at least one column for company name or website
Avoid: - PDFs (you’ll waste time converting them) - Lists without unique identifiers (like “Acme Corp” with no website—good luck)
If you don’t have a list, CompanyEnrich lets you build one with filters, but starting with your own usually means fewer surprises.
Step 3: Set Up CompanyEnrich for Data Enrichment
Here’s where CompanyEnrich comes in. The basic idea: you upload your list, pick what data to enrich, and let the tool fill in the blanks.
How to set it up:
- Sign up and log in. (Obvious, but worth saying.)
- Upload your CSV or spreadsheet.
- Make sure your columns are labeled clearly—“Company Website” or “Domain” is ideal.
- Choose your enrichment fields.
- Start simple. Pick the 3–5 must-haves you settled on in Step 1.
- Skip the “get everything” option, unless you want to pay for data you’ll never use.
- Map your columns.
- The tool needs to know which column is the company name, website, etc.
- Double-check this part—bad mapping leads to junk data.
- Kick off the enrichment.
- Depending on your list size, this can take a few minutes to an hour.
- Go grab a coffee. Or, more realistically, answer those Slack pings.
What works:
- Most standard fields (website, size, industry, LinkedIn profile) are accurate enough for prospecting.
- The person/contact enrichment is hit-or-miss, but usually better than nothing.
- The “export to CSV” feature is straightforward—no lock-in.
What to watch out for:
- If your list includes companies with vague or duplicate names, double-check the output.
- Some niche industries (think obscure B2B) don’t always fill in. Don’t expect miracles.
- Avoid enriching huge lists in one go if you’re just testing—run 25–50 rows first.
Step 4: Automate Ongoing Research (Don’t Just Do One-Offs)
It’s tempting to enrich a list, feel productive, and move on. But most companies change—people leave, websites update, funding happens. Set up a workflow that keeps your data fresh.
Options:
- Scheduled enrichment: Some plans let you re-enrich lists on a schedule (weekly/monthly). Use it for active accounts or prospects.
- Zapier/Make integrations: Plug CompanyEnrich into tools like Zapier to trigger enrichment when you add a new row to Google Sheets or Airtable.
- API access: For devs, hit the API directly to enrich in real time as leads come in.
What’s worth automating: - New inbound leads or signups - High-priority account lists (key prospects, customers) - Quarterly refreshes for your main CRM
What’s overkill: - Enriching every single random lead that’ll never convert - Hourly updates (nobody’s data changes that fast)
Pro Tip: Automation is only as good as the logic behind it. Don’t automate chaos—keep your lists clean and your triggers clear.
Step 5: Clean Up and Use the Data
Don’t trust any tool (CompanyEnrich or otherwise) to be 100% right. Always:
- Spot-check a sample of enriched results before pushing to your CRM.
- Watch out for duplicates and inconsistent formatting (e.g., “500-1000” vs “500–1000” employees).
- Validate emails if you’re planning cold outreach—bad emails kill your sender score.
Integrations that actually help: - Google Sheets: Simple, flexible, and easy to clean up. - HubSpot/Salesforce: Direct integrations save time, but test with a subset first. - Airtable: Good for teams who want more structure than a spreadsheet, less pain than a CRM.
What to ignore: - Fancy dashboards or “AI-powered insights” you don’t actually use - Paying for add-ons that don’t tie back to your core workflow
Use your enriched data to:
- Prioritize outreach (sort by size, funding, location)
- Personalize messages (reference recent news or tech used)
- Build better segments (industry, company type, etc.)
A Few Gotchas to Watch Out For
- Garbage in, garbage out: If your starting list is a mess, no enrichment tool will fix it. Spend 10 minutes cleaning before uploading.
- Over-enrichment: Don’t pay for 30 data points when you only use 5. You’ll just make your spreadsheet unwieldy.
- Compliance: If you’re dealing with EU contacts, be aware of GDPR and privacy rules.
- Cost creep: Most enrichment tools charge per row or per field. Watch your usage, especially on large lists.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Automating company research saves time, but it isn’t magic. Start with the basics, get a workflow running, and see what actually helps your team. Most of the value comes from nailing the fundamentals—clean lists, relevant data, and regular refreshes.
If you find yourself wrangling too many tools or fields, pull back. It’s always easier to add complexity later than to untangle a mess of half-baked automations.
Bottom line: Automate what matters, ignore what doesn’t, and keep your process as simple as possible. You’ll get better data, faster—and spend more time actually using it.