Leadsforge gives you several ways to build targeted prospect lists, each suited to a different stage or strategy in your outbound workflow. You choose one when you start a new list: five sourcing cards (Ideal customer profile, Signals, Followers, Local companies and Company lookalikes) and two CSV options (Companies and People). This article walks through what each one does and when to use it.
In this article
1. Ideal customer profile
2. Signals
3. Followers
4. Local companies
5. Company lookalikes
6. CSV upload: Companies and People
1. Ideal customer profile
Find contacts that match your ideal customer profile
This is the core search in Leadsforge. You can describe your ideal customer profile (ICP) in plain language in the chat-style Assistant tab, or set the filters yourself in the Filters tab, which has 17 fields. Both work on the same search, so you can start in chat and fine-tune in Filters, or the other way round. Leadsforge returns a targeted list of matching contacts from its database of over 500 million B2B contacts.
You can be as specific as you like. Describe the job title, industry, company size, geography, tech stack, or any combination of attributes. The AI interprets your description and queries multiple data sources simultaneously to surface the best matches.
How to use it:
1 Open Leadsforge and select "Ideal customer profile."
2 Describe your ideal contact in the chat, for example "Head of Sales at B2B SaaS companies in Europe with 50–200 employees", or open the Filters tab and set the filters manually.
3 Review the generated list. Refine your description or filters to narrow or broaden results.
4 Select the contacts you want, enrich them, then export to CSV or push directly to Salesforge.
The more specific your ICP description, the more precise your results. For a step-by-step guide to searching without wasting credits, see How to Find High-Quality Leads Without Wasting Credits.
2. Signals
Build lists around real-world buying signals
Signals lets you find companies and people based on recent events, such as job changes, funding rounds, acquisitions, investment activity and hiring. Every result shows the evidence for why it matched. Signals cost 2 credits per lead, whichever signal type you choose. Signals may not be available on every account yet. Read more in Signals: Build Prospect Lists Based on Real-World Buying Signals and Hiring Signals in Leadsforge.
3. Followers
Find people who follow your company or a competitor
The Followers option surfaces LinkedIn users who follow a specific company page: your own company, a competitor, or any relevant brand in your space. Because these people have chosen to follow that company, they are aware of the category and interested in what it offers.
This is one of the most direct ways to reach warm prospects. Rather than cold-targeting people who may have never encountered your space, you're reaching individuals who have already shown an affinity for it.
How to use it:
1 Select "Followers" in Leadsforge.
2 Enter the LinkedIn URL or company name of the company whose followers you want to target, and how many followers you want.
3 Check the credit cost shown before you start. Followers use credits: the cost is the number of followers you ask for multiplied by the price per follower.
4 Leadsforge returns a list of followers, ready to enrich with verified email addresses, LinkedIn URLs, or phone numbers, then export or push to Salesforge.
Competitor followers are often your most receptive cold audience. They already understand the problem your product solves, so your messaging can skip the education phase and go straight to differentiation.
4. Local companies
Find businesses by location and business type
Local companies finds businesses on the map by location and business type, using data from Google Maps. It works well for local prospecting, such as dentists, restaurants or law firms in a specific city. You can then enrich the owners with work emails and mobile numbers. See How to use Local Companies Search in Leadsforge.
5. Company lookalikes
Find companies similar to your existing clients
Company lookalikes lets you use your best existing customers as a template. Paste in a customer's company domain and Leadsforge identifies other companies that share the same profile, matching on factors like industry, company size, tech stack, and growth signals. One strong reference account can expand into hundreds of matched targets.
This is particularly effective when you already have a few anchor accounts with strong product-market fit and want to replicate that success at scale without having to manually research similar companies.
How to use it:
1 Select "Company lookalikes" in Leadsforge.
2 Enter the domain or company name of an existing client you'd like to replicate.
3 Leadsforge analyzes that company's profile and returns a list of similar companies. Extracting companies costs 1 credit per company.
4 Find and enrich the contacts at those companies, then add them to a Salesforge sequence or download as CSV.
Use your top three to five customers as separate inputs and compare the resulting lookalike lists to find the highest-confidence targets: companies that appear across multiple lookups.
6. CSV upload: Companies and People
Bring your own list into Leadsforge
If you already have a list, you can upload it as a CSV. There are two options:
Companies: upload a list of target companies and Leadsforge finds matching contacts at them. See Bulk Company Search via File Upload in Leadsforge.
People: upload a list of contacts, perhaps exported from a CRM, bought from another provider or collected at an event, and Leadsforge fills in the missing verified emails, LinkedIn profile URLs and phone numbers.
Leadsforge uses waterfall enrichment under the hood: if the first data source doesn't return a verified result for a contact, it automatically queries additional sources until it finds one. This means higher match rates and cleaner data compared to tools that rely on a single provider.
How to use People enrichment:
1 Choose the CSV option for People in Leadsforge.
2 Upload your CSV. Ensure it includes at least a name and company column for best match rates.
3 Choose which data points to enrich: verified email, LinkedIn URL, or phone number. An email or LinkedIn lookup costs 1 credit and a phone number costs 10 credits, charged only for what is found.
4 Download the enriched file or send it directly to Salesforge.
Before uploading, remove duplicate rows and ensure company names are standardised. This improves match accuracy and avoids wasting credits on unresolvable records. If your account already got a contact's email, phone number or LinkedIn URL in the last 30 days, it is returned again for free.
Still have questions?
Contact the Leadsforge support team via the in-app chat or visit the Help Center for more guides on credits, integrations, and account settings.
