Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Data Surfer and how we handle your data
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Will Data Surfer find leads for me?
Yes, Data Surfer automatically finds and qualifies B2B leads by analyzing company websites to understand business context and buying signals. Simply enter search terms like 'coffee shops Portland' and receive 800+ qualified prospects within minutes.
How It Works:
What Makes Data Surfer Different:
Unlike basic web scrapers that collect contact information, Data Surfer employs natural language understanding to interpret business context. When a company mentions 'expansion,' the system analyzes hiring patterns, leadership changes, and content updates to determine if this signals genuine growth or standard marketing language. This contextual intelligence helps sales teams focus on prospects showing actual buying intent rather than demographic matches alone.
How It Works:
- Intelligent Search: Searches thousands of sources simultaneously to find relevant businesses
- Context Analysis: Builds context maps by analyzing what company content really means, not just collecting surface-level data
- Buying Signal Detection: Identifies patterns indicating purchase readiness (quality emphasis, growth discussions, hiring changes)
- Automatic Qualification: Scores and ranks prospects based on your ideal customer profile
What Makes Data Surfer Different:
Unlike basic web scrapers that collect contact information, Data Surfer employs natural language understanding to interpret business context. When a company mentions 'expansion,' the system analyzes hiring patterns, leadership changes, and content updates to determine if this signals genuine growth or standard marketing language. This contextual intelligence helps sales teams focus on prospects showing actual buying intent rather than demographic matches alone.
How does Data Surfer find information?
Data Surfer reads between the lines and builds context maps rather than just scanning pages. When a company mentions 'expansion,' Data Surfer determines if that means growth mode or PR spin by analyzing hiring patterns, leadership changes, and business signals. It connects dots like 'new VP from competitor' + 'hiring sales roles' + 'launched enterprise features' to recognize companies shifting upmarket. This pattern recognition turns website content into actionable sales intelligence.
What kind of information can Data Surfer find?
Data Surfer finds three types of intelligence: Company Data - Both obvious facts and hidden buying signals. It collects custom data with different field types (quality scores, yes/no qualifications, text content, numbers). For example, it might calculate 'Quality Match: 95%' based on keyword frequency, determine 'Specialty coffee: Yes' by analyzing menu items, or extract employee counts. Beyond basics, it spots subtle signals: companies emphasizing quality in new content, leadership mentioning growth initiatives, website updates showing new capabilities. Key Contacts - Data Surfer identifies decision makers, champions, and influencers at each company with role classifications, helping you understand who to approach and in what order. Contact Information - Verified email addresses, LinkedIn profiles, and direct phone numbers for the contacts you need to reach. Data Surfer connects all these signals into patterns - like 'new executive from growth company + revenue role hiring + efficiency mentions = expansion mode' - giving you both the intelligence and the contacts to act on it.
What parts of a company website does Data Surfer analyze?
Data Surfer intelligently navigates company websites to build context maps, not just scan pages. It follows relevant paths through main pages, press releases, blog content, team pages, and subdomains - understanding how different pieces of content connect to tell the business story. Rather than mechanically crawling every page, Data Surfer prioritizes sections that reveal business direction, growth signals, and buying intent while staying focused on official company content.
What's the difference between Data Surfer and AI automation platforms?
Data Surfer is an intelligent B2B lead intelligence platform that finds and qualifies prospects, while AI automation platforms primarily send templated outreach based on generic triggers.
Key Differences:
Real-World Impact:
AI automation platforms send hundreds of identical 'Congrats on the new role!' messages that land in spam folders. Data Surfer provides unique intelligence - like detecting when a company shifts positioning toward premium services by analyzing content patterns, hiring trends, and leadership statements - that only you see. This enables genuinely personalized outreach based on actual business context, not generic triggers visible to every competitor.
Key Differences:
| Feature | Data Surfer | AI Automation Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Function | Lead discovery & intelligence | Automated outreach |
| Data Sources | Thousands of sources analyzed simultaneously | Generic LinkedIn triggers |
| Intelligence Type | Context maps & unique buying signals | Same basic data points for everyone |
| Setup Complexity | Plug-and-play, no prompt engineering | Complex workflows & configurations |
| Learning Capability | Learns YOUR ideal customer profile | Generic templates |
| Contact Intelligence | Decision makers, champions, influencers with emails/phone | Basic contact scraping |
| Outreach Quality | Unique insights for personalized outreach | Templated messages ('Congrats on new role!') |
Real-World Impact:
AI automation platforms send hundreds of identical 'Congrats on the new role!' messages that land in spam folders. Data Surfer provides unique intelligence - like detecting when a company shifts positioning toward premium services by analyzing content patterns, hiring trends, and leadership statements - that only you see. This enables genuinely personalized outreach based on actual business context, not generic triggers visible to every competitor.
How does 24/7 monitoring work?
Monitoring is completely optional - many customers just use Data Surfer to build targeted prospect lists with enrichment and contact data, then reach out immediately. If you enable monitoring, Data Surfer continuously watches qualified prospects for changes. You get instant alerts when companies show buying signals: leadership mentioning growth initiatives, website updates indicating new capabilities, hiring patterns that suggest expansion, content changes showing business evolution. For example, you'll know immediately when a prospect starts emphasizing quality in their messaging or mentions efficiency challenges. This perfect timing means you reach out when prospects are actually ready to buy, not when everyone else does. You can start with lists and add monitoring later if you want.