Waterfall Enrichment Overview

No, waterfall enrichment is not CRM enrichment.

Waterfall enrichment pulls information from Apollo and other third-party data sources to enrich emails and phone numbers for net-new and saved contacts. You can select which data sources to include and connect these sources natively through Apollo or via an API key.

CRM enrichment is a separate enrichment process that uses firmographic, demographic, and technographic data from Apollo to enrich your existing CRM records in Salesforce or HubSpot.

In addition, waterfall enrichment and CRM enrichment charge credits in different ways. Check out the credits FAQs below to learn about credit requirements for waterfall enrichment.

No. You can only connect to the data sources or validation sources listed in Apollo when you configure waterfall enrichment. You have the option to connect to these sources natively or via an API key during setup.

Global settings refer to the waterfall enrichment settings configured by your admin that apply to your entire team on Apollo. Admins can follow the steps outlined here to configure waterfall enrichment settings that apply globally to your team.

Waterfall enrichment runs by default, using your admin's global settings, during the following activities in Apollo:

• Saving net-new contacts from People.
• Enriching saved contacts from People.
• Clicking Access email or Access mobile from People.
• Enriching saved contacts from the contact profile page.
• Enriching missing emails from the Data Health Center.
• Enriching emails or phone numbers via AI research templates.
• Saving prospects via the Apollo Chrome Extension.

Admins and non-admins can deactivate waterfall enrichment on a case-by-case basis for certain activities. Use the Find data via Waterfall toggle to enable or deactivate waterfall enrichment locally when:

• Saving net-new contacts from People.
• Enriching saved contacts from People.
• Enriching contacts from the contact profile page.
• Saving prospects via the Apollo Chrome Extension.

Yes! Click Access Mobile to run waterfall enrichment when requesting a contact's phone number in People. This enriches your selected contact's phone numbers only.

Similar to email enrichment, admins can configure global settings for phone enrichment that apply to your entire team. Click the waterfall icon next to the Phone Numbers column to access your global settings and select data providers for phone enrichment.

Waterfall enrichment runs automatically when you click Access email or Access mobile to access and enrich a contact from search.

If you're an Apollo admin, you can update your team's waterfall enrichment settings to use Apollo as your only data source. Learn more.

You can run waterfall enrichment on up to 10,000 contact records at once.

If you’ve connected your HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive account to Apollo, primary emails and phone numbers will sync to your CRM automatically after waterfall enrichment. Any existing CRM data prior to enrichment will remain in contact profiles as secondary emails or phone numbers.

Yes, you can re-enrich your contacts with waterfall enrichment, regardless of when previous waterfall enrichment happened.

When you re-enrich your contacts, Apollo locates the successful data source from your previous enrichment and skips to the next data source in your waterfall lineup. Re-enrichment begins with this provider and continues until you find a new email or phone number.

Yes. If you're an admin, you can also remove third-party data sources from your team's global waterfall enrichment lineup. This ensures your team uses only Apollo data when using waterfall enrichment across Apollo.

Admins and non-admins can also deactivate waterfall enrichment on an individual basis when saving net-new contacts, enriching saved contacts from search, enriching contacts from the profile page, or saving contacts via the Chrome extension.

Learn more about deactivating waterfall enrichment here.

After you access a contact’s email or phone through waterfall enrichment, hover over their email or phone number to see additional details about which source provided the data. You can also review the data source for enriched data from the contact profile or your waterfall enrichment report.

During waterfall enrichment, Apollo and other data sources can return verified, valid, or catch-all emails when you enrich your contacts.

Verified emails are up-to-date emails verified and returned by Apollo or another third-party data source in your waterfall lineup.

Valid emails have gone through an extra layer of verification through a data validator. Admins can connect an optional email or phone validation source when setting up your team’s global settings for waterfall enrichment.

Catch-all emails are shared domains used by organizations to receive messages sent to anyone with the same domain name. Typically, catch-all emails help teams capture emails sent in error to the wrong email address or non-existent email addresses. When you run waterfall enrichment for contacts in bulk, you can configure whether Apollo or third-party data sources are allowed to return catch-all emails during enrichment.

Learn more about how Apollo verifies contact emails.

If you’ve run and completed waterfall enrichment from People, Apollo displays a status in the Email column next to each retrieved email. Emails with a green checkmark indicate a verified status.

You can also check your enriched contact’s profile page to confirm their email status.

Yes! Admins and non-admins can report on your team’s waterfall enrichment activities by accessing:

• An analytics dashboard for a quick glance into key waterfall enrichment metrics.
• A system-wide enrichment log for all waterfall activities across your organization.
• An individual enrichment report for each completed waterfall enrichment run.

Check out Use Waterfall Enrichment to learn more about reporting on waterfall enrichment.

Yes, you need credits to use waterfall enrichment.

You use credits when Apollo or a connected data source successfully returns an email or phone number for a contact, regardless of whether the email or phone number is verified. You won't be charged credits if a data source can't find data.

Credit charges vary for each data source, and your credit usage depends on which data sources successfully enrich contact data and how many contacts you're attempting to enrich. Every time you run waterfall enrichment, Apollo gives you an estimate for the total number of credits you might use to enrich your selected contacts.

If your admin connected an optional validation source in your global waterfall settings, the validation source will also charge credits to validate any data found during waterfall enrichment.

You can access your waterfall enrichment report to review completed waterfall enrichment runs and monitor credit usage. This report gives you a granular breakdown of how many credits were used per contact and per data source on each enrichment.

The credits you consume during waterfall enrichment depend on your selected data sources and which source successfully enriches your contact data.

You'll use Apollo credits to run waterfall enrichment through Apollo and natively integrated third-party data sources. These credits count toward the credit limit set in your Apollo plan.

Data sources connected via an API key set their own credit charges. In other words, if you connected data sources via an API key, you won’t use Apollo credits to run waterfall enrichment through them. You should check with these providers to monitor your credit usage.

When an admin configures your team’s global waterfall settings, Apollo provides a preview of credit charges for each natively integrated data source.

When you run waterfall enrichment while saving or enriching contacts, Apollo also provides a preview to help you estimate how many credits you might use for enrichment and data validation.

Third-party data sources set their own credit charges for waterfall enrichment. If you’re an admin, you can review estimated credit charges for each source when configuring your team’s global waterfall settings.

Yes. You consume credits any time Apollo or a third-party data source returns an email, regardless of whether the email is verified or not.

You'll only use credits when a data provider successfully returns enriched email or phone data. You won’t use credits if Apollo or another connected third-party data source doesn’t find any data to enrich your records. Apollo alerts you when enrichment completes without enriching any contact data.

Yes. Open your waterfall enrichment report after enriching contacts to view your activity log and get quick insights into the number of credits used for waterfall enrichment.

You can also go to Settings > Data requests > Waterfall to view your entire activity log for waterfall enrichment.

If you’re an admin, you can set credit limits for each user on your team from Settings > Users and teams > Users. Be aware that this limits how many credits each user can consume throughout Apollo, not just for waterfall enrichment.