Contact Finder Plugin - How To Create A New Search Campaign
Congratulations! You've installed the Contact Finder Plugin, now it's time to create your first search campaign and instantly make life easier for your sales teams.
From the QuoteCloud Dashboard, click on Campaigns in the left hand side menu.
This will take you to the Campaigns Dashboard. This is where you will see any email campaigns that have been sent in the past (if any).Â
In the top right of the page, click on Contact Finder to go the to Contact Finder Dashboard.
You can create as many searches as you wish, and you are able to create folders to help keep your searches in order. The created searches will also be broken down by status to allow you to quickly only view all searches that have been completed, for example. These will all be viewable in this Contact Finder Dashboard.
To create a new search campaign, simply click the Create Search button at the top right of the page, as shown below.
In the "Add Search" pop-up box are all the steps and criteria needed to create your search.Â
- Name: To find your search in the dashboard
- Keywords: Relative words Google can crawl websites for
- Homepage Must Have: Relative words the website must have on its homepage in order to be included in the search results
In the below example, we are wanting to search for the contact details of all plumbers in the London area.
It is best to keep the Name as specific and relevant as possible for ease of reference later on, especially in organisations that create an extensive range of searches, so for the purpose of this search, we have named it 'Plumbers London UK'.
In the Keywords section, input as many keywords as you like however ensure to enter one keyword/phrase per line. This is often what you would input in the Google search bar when looking for a company. Note, there's no need to include any symbols with your keywords.
For the purpose of this example, we are simply wanting Google to search for plumbers in London so we have entered 'plumbers London' and 'plumbers Coventry' as including the location is important for this search. If we simply entered 'plumbers' the search could return contact details not relevant to the region we are wanting.
The Homepage Must Have section is where you enter the keywords that must appear on the website's homepage in order for the Contact Finder plugin to consider the website as relevant. Again, only one keyword can be entered per line.
As we are looking for plumbers in London in this example, we have used 'plumbers' and 'leak' as these would be predictable words that a plumbing website would use, eg: "We'll fix your leak" or "Have a leak? Our plumbers can help!"
Without including these keywords, the search could potentially return results from websites such as yellow pages/classifieds etc kind of listings as well, which would reduce the accuracy of the contact details retrieved.
Your new search will now show in the Contact Finder Dashboard.
It is a good idea at this stage if you haven't already done so, to set up the domain patterns to ignore (see here for instructions) and the email address to be notified upon search completion (as per instructions here).
Running your new search
Once you have filled out all the search criteria, your search remains as a draft until you choose to run it. To do this, click on the down arrow at the right of the relevant search, as shown below.
This will then bring up the options needed for each stage of the search process. Simply click Run, to start the search process.
The Contact Finder uses 'credits' as payment for each search that is run. You are able to purchase extra credits at any time during your monthly subscription, so you are never limited to how many searches you want to run, or when you want to run them.
You are able to run any search as many times as you like, however each search, even if run before will cost credits, so it is best to ensure your search criteria is as accurate as possible before running.
As per below, you will be notified how many credits the search will cost and how many you currently have. If you need to purchase more, simply click the 'Buy More' option (further instructions here).
To commence running your search, click Start.
Once you click Start, you just need to sit back and relax and Contact Finder will work its magic. It automatically searches through millions of websites depending on your keyword criteria. While running, you are able to close the screen and work on other activities, like getting your new campaign finalised so it's ready to click send once your contact list is completed.
In the Contact Finder dashboard, you will be shown the status of the search progress. If it is still processing, it will display 'Crawling' in grey, and 'Completed' will be shown if it has finished running. An email notification will also be sent to the email address entered in the settings, if done so.
All you need to do once the search is completed is download the data. This will be provided as a CSV file, that is then able to be uploaded to a campaign audience within QuoteCloud. But if you are using a different tool for your email campaigns, the CSV format is compatible with all email management systems.
To download, click on the down arrow to the right of the search and select Download.
Below is a sample of the data that will be retrieved from a Contact Finder search. The more extensive you would like your list to be, then using less specific keywords is best. If you are wanting a more finite list, use more descriptive keywords in your search criteria.
Related User Guide Topics
