Top 5 Apify Actors for B2B Lead Generation

Lead generation is the highest-value use case I see for web scraping across my 155+ client projects. The right data source, extracted reliably and enriched with contact info, can be worth thousands of dollars per month to a business. After years of building lead gen systems professionally, here are the five Apify actors I recommend most — and a proven workflow for chaining them.

1. Google Maps Scraper

Best for: Local and regional B2B service businesses

Google Maps is the single best source for local business leads. The official Apify actor scrapes names, phone numbers, addresses, websites, ratings, review counts, categories, and hours. For any industry that operates locally — contractors, accountants, agencies, medical practices, restaurants — this is the fastest way to build a verified list in any city.

Output fields: name, address, phone, website, rating, reviewsCount, category, openingHours, latitude, longitude

My use: I use this as the first step in almost every local lead gen pipeline. The output feeds directly into the Website Contact Scraper to find emails.

2. LinkedIn Companies Scraper

Best for: Enterprise B2B — company profiles, firmographic data

LinkedIn company pages contain industry, employee count, location, specialties, founding year, and description. This actor scrapes that data at scale. Combined with the LinkedIn People Search actor (to find specific decision-maker titles like CEO, CTO, or Head of Marketing), you can build very targeted enterprise prospect lists.

My use: Clients targeting SaaS companies, tech startups, or specific industries get their best results from this actor. Always verify with Apollo or Hunter for emails.

3. Apollo.io Scraper

Best for: Pre-enriched B2B contacts — name, title, verified email, company

Apollo.io has a database of 260M+ contacts with verified business emails. The Apify actor lets you extract this data at scale using search filters: industry, company size, job title, and location. You get contacts with email already included — a major time-saver compared to scraping sites and then separately enriching for email.

Note: You need an Apollo.io account to use this effectively. The free plan gives you limited credits; paid plans unlock bulk export.

4. Website Contact Scraper

Best for: Finding emails from a list of company websites

Feed this actor a list of domains and it crawls each website looking for contact emails, phone numbers, and social media profiles. It handles multi-page crawling and common patterns like contact@, info@, and emails found in footers or contact pages.

My workflow: This is the second step after Google Maps. I extract websites from Maps, feed them to this actor, and get emails back. The resulting list typically achieves 85–95% email deliverability after verification.

5. Instagram Profile Scraper

Best for: Creator outreach, DTC brand prospecting, influencer marketing

Public Instagram profiles contain follower counts, bio text (which often includes contact emails), engagement data, and recent post info. If your clients sell to e-commerce brands, influencers, or consumer-facing businesses, Instagram is a surprisingly rich source of decision-maker contact data.

Search by hashtag or location to build niche-specific lists — for example, #organicfood brands or local coffee shops in a city.

My Proven Lead Gen Pipeline

Here's the exact workflow I use for most local B2B lead gen projects:

1. Google Maps Scraper → collect business names, categories, websites for target area
2. Website Contact Scraper → extract emails from collected websites
3. Email Verification API (NeverBounce or ZeroBounce) → validate emails for deliverability
4. Export to CSV → clean, formatted lead list ready for outreach

This pipeline consistently delivers 90%+ email deliverability. For 1,000 businesses, it takes roughly 30–60 minutes end-to-end and costs a few dollars in Apify credits.

If you want this pipeline built and automated for your specific niche or city, I set it up as a service. One-time build with recurring scheduled runs and fresh data exported weekly.