Apollo.io Tutorial

How to Build a B2B Prospect List with Apollo.io

Apollo’s database and filtering tools make it possible to go from “who should we be targeting” to a clean, exportable list of contacts in one sitting. This tutorial covers building a targeted list using Apollo’s search filters, saving it as a dynamic list, and exporting or importing contacts for use in your outreach tools.

What this tutorial covers: setting up search filters to define your target audience, saving searches as dynamic lists, verifying list quality before committing credits, and exporting or importing contact data.

Prerequisites:

• An Apollo.io account (the free plan allows list building and limited exports; verified email credits are tied to your plan tier)
• A defined (even if rough) ideal customer profile — industry, company size, job titles
• If exporting for outreach: a destination tool such as a CRM or cold email platform ready to receive a CSV

For how Apollo compares to alternatives for contact data, see our Apollo.io vs. Hunter.io comparison or the Data, Tools & Digital Infrastructure pillar page.

Step 1: Define Your Search Filters

From the Apollo dashboard, click People in the left navigation, then Show Filters. Build out your target criteria using the available filters:

• Job titles: include the titles you’re targeting (e.g., “VP of Marketing,” “Head of Growth”)
• Industry and company size: narrow to the company profiles that match your offer
• Location: filter by country, state, or region if relevant
• Technographics: filter by tools the company already uses — useful if your product integrates with or replaces a specific platform

Apollo also supports an “Is not any of” exclusion toggle on filters like job title, which is useful for filtering out titles that technically match a keyword but aren’t decision-makers (e.g., excluding “Assistant” or “Intern” from a “Marketing Manager” search).

Step 2: Review Results Before Saving

Before saving anything, scroll through the first 20–30 results and spot-check them. Click into a few profiles to confirm they genuinely match your target — if you see several poor fits in a row, it usually means your filters need another exclusion layer (often in job title) rather than a complete rebuild.

Step 3: Save the Search as a List

Once the results look right, select the contacts you want (or select all matching the filter) and click Add to List > Create New List. Give the list a specific, descriptive name — something like “Mid-Market Marketing VPs – US – HubSpot Users” rather than a generic label — so it’s identifiable later when you have multiple lists running.

Note that adding net-new contacts to a list consumes one email credit per verified email, so it’s worth doing the spot-check in Step 2 before committing credits to a large batch.

Step 4: Save the Search Itself (for Ongoing Prospecting)

Separately from saving a list, click Save on the filter set itself to create a Saved Search. This creates a dynamic view that updates automatically as Apollo’s database adds new contacts matching your criteria — useful for ongoing prospecting rather than a one-time list pull. You can optionally enable alerts so Apollo notifies you when new matching contacts appear.

Step 5: Export Your List

To export contacts for use in another tool:

1. Go to Prospect and Enrich > List
2. Select the list you want to export
3. Check the contacts you want to include (or select all)
4. Click Export > Export Records
5. Click Download to retrieve the CSV file

The exported CSV can be imported directly into most CRMs or cold email platforms.

Step 6: Import Existing Data (If Starting from Your Own List)

If you’re working from an existing prospect list rather than building one from scratch in Apollo, go to Prospect and Enrich > List > Create a People List, then Upload CSV. Map your columns during import, name the list, and click Create. This is useful for enriching an existing list with Apollo’s contact and firmographic data before exporting it back out.

Settings That Are Easy to Miss

• Saved Search vs. Saved List are different things: a Saved Search is a live, updating filter view; a List is a static (though enrichable) set of contacts. Confusing the two is one of the more common sources of “why did my list change” questions.
• Email credits are consumed on list-add, not on export: adding net-new contacts to a list uses verified email credits immediately — exporting afterward doesn’t use additional credits, but re-running a search and adding the same contacts to a different list can.
• Exclusion filters matter more than inclusion filters at scale: broad inclusion filters (e.g., “Marketing” in title) return huge result sets; the “Is not any of” exclusion toggle is what actually narrows results to decision-makers.
• CSV column mapping during import: if importing your own data, double-check Apollo’s automatic column mapping before confirming — mismatched fields (e.g., company name mapped to a custom field) can cause enrichment to fail silently on those rows.

Related Reading

• See our Apollo.io vs. Hunter.io comparison for how the two platforms differ on data quality, pricing, and enrichment
• Read our Hunter.io review for a closer look at email-finding workflows
• Return to the Data, Tools & Digital Infrastructure hub for more tools in this category