Apollo.io Review: The Best Outreach Tool on the Market

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Apollo.io is currently the top tool among all outreach and email-finding tools in the market.

It is intuitive, user-friendly, highly developed, and dedicated to every type of business, from freelancers to corporations.

Apollo.io will primarily help you with:

• Increasing outbound sales results.
• Creating a database as your individual CRM.
• Automating the sales process & email sending.
• Finding the right email address for your prospect.
• Creating a complete contact list suitable for your product.

Why should you use Apollo.io? You will find the answer in this post.

My Favorite Apollo.io Features

Apollo.io serves as a comprehensive platform for sales engagement, focusing on generating leads, aggregating data, and conducting outreach efforts.

These are the most common Apollo’s features that help business to develop their sales:

• Ideal for B2B entities in need of detailed information on business contacts, including their email addresses and phone numbers.
• Boasts a database exceeding 273 million data points, complemented by capabilities for enhancing data quality and facilitating outreach across various channels.
• Incorporates functionalities for both cold emailing and cold calling within its framework, positioning it as a unified solution for managing data and executing outreach tasks.
• Designed to accommodate multiple users, making it well-suited for extensive sales teams or prospecting groups.
• Merges sales intelligence and operational workflows with a comprehensive B2B database containing over 276 million verified contacts.
• Features an AI-driven assistant that aids sales professionals in identifying and focusing on the most pertinent prospects.
• Includes access to buyer intent data, which is essential for crafting targeted marketing strategies and sales initiatives.

Dashboard Overview: Data Enrichment

The data in the Dashboard allows you to check the actual data of contacts data health & total available contacts.

Depending on the product you offer and who your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is, you can divide job titles into:

• CEO
• Founder
• Media Buyer
• Marketing Specialist
• Acquisition Manager
• And many more

Connection with CRMs

If your organization works with large CRMs, Apollo.io offers the ability to connect with the two biggest in the market: SalesForce & HubSpot.

Enriched CSVs

If you want to have the full database at your fingertips, you can directly download all the data (number of contacts, customer data, events that you’ve attended, etc.) to a CSV file.

Job Change Alerts

Here is one of my favorite features in Apollo.io—the job change alert.

If you are actively searching for your contacts and working in sales, you know that building a pipeline is a matter of time.

From experience, I know that before I was able to start working with a given client, they changed their job even twice in that time, and consequently, their position. Therefore, this feature will perfectly assist you.

Moreover, by using the job change alert, you have access to:

—> The full, current database.

—> The name of the former and current organization.

—> Links to historical data (who and when changed jobs).

—> The possibility to schedule your enrichment; saves your time & effort.

Apollo.io: Interface & Navigation

Apollo got a user-friendly and intuitive interface. Even if technology isn’t your cup of tea, you’ll easily navigate through the entire panel.

In the main panel on the left side, you have easy access to a division into 4 main categories:

Prospect & enrich:

• Search —> find any of your leads
• Data Enrichment —> get all necessary data about your prospects (including phone numbers)

Engagement:

• Sequences —> never forget about sending a follow-up.
• Emails —> automate your emails like a boss.
• Calls —> make calls directly from Apollo.

Win & close:

• Meetings —> arrange all meetings and be informed about changes in a real-time.
• Conversations —> no external tools, keep talking via Apollo.io.
• Deals —> new deal in your pipeline? Get to know it through Apollo.

Tools & workflows:

• Tasks —> be aware of any active conversation (your & your team’s).
• Plays —> practice with your sales team with a usage of actionable templates.
• Analytics —> you need accurate data to know where you’re at. It’ll help you out.

Apollo.io: Search

Apollo, in the Search section, has over 276 million leads in total. The number is truly impressive! Do you know what’s the best part? You can reach out, literally, to all of them. That database is ready to use.

In the next step, you can create a selected buyer persona based on your ICP (ideal customer profile).

For example, I chose 4 profiles in the panel that are relevant to my product. You can tailor them according to what your company offers.

Apollo.io: Outreach Tools

Apollo.io is not just a good tool for finding email addresses, but it’s an excellent SaaS-based tool for generating outreach.

Personally, I use Apollo.io on a daily basis. It helps me in searching for my leads, finding their email addresses, and automating my email work.

Additionally, it helps with LinkedIn activities and when making cold calling.

Speaking of automation—let’s cut it to the chase.

1/ Cold Calling Integration

The setup is very simple:

1. Look for the Engage panel.

2. Click on the ‘calls’ section.

3. Below the ‘dialer’ section, click ‘get started’.

Then, a panel will appear where you can activate further actions.

Next, after activating the ‘cold calling’ feature, you can choose a phone number. Believe me, there are really a lot of them and all are from the USA. 🙂

Activation is simple and does not require external tools for integration (such as Zapier). It also doesn’t require technical skills to gain access. Your sales department can now achieve great results with Apollo.io. It’s really easy-peasy.

2/ Email Sequences

Sending emails has always been a chore, hasn’t been? Correct, it used to be because this tool will help you to automate that process.

Do you want to send 100+ emails daily, and not spamming your prospects? Here’s the solution.

Apollo.io enables users to design and oversee email sequences, streamlining the process of automating and personalizing outreach initiatives. 

Its user-friendly interface facilitates the effortless configuration and monitoring of email campaigns. So-called: all-in-one tool.

Users have the flexibility to tailor their emails and employ A/B testing strategies to enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns. If you see that something isn’t working as well as you’d like, you can change it at any time. And all of this can be done using just this one tool.

3/ Task Management

The bigger the pipeline, the better. But more tasks don’t always mean better results.

> Choose a task

> Name your task

> Select the date and time

> Write down the most important notes

> Set it up for any given day

Your dedicated (and very affordable) CRM. Personally—I love it.

4/ Inbox Management

You can have real-time access to your email—through Apollo, combining it with Gmail.

You can link them simply by clicking ‘link mailbox‘. But if you don’t like it, you can unlink the mailbox at any time.

5/ Outreach: Analyze Your Data

Data is fundamental, and here you will find all that is essential to you.

Dashboard shows you:

• Sales development activity
• Email engagement performance
• Call engagement performance

And Repost provides you with:

• Team activity report
• Your email stats
• Top sequences by email
• Contacts added to… (here’s the right place).

Therefore, you have a full range of 5 main elements at your disposal that will enhance your sales or marketing campaigns.

You can observe changes in real-time, add new elements, and conduct A/B testing strategies in email marketing to boost sales. All of this is included in a single, monthly package.

Buying Filter Intent

Buying intent enables you to connect with the appropriate prospects from the relevant companies at the optimal moment. By gaining prompt access to the intent-to-purchase actions of your ideal customer profiles online, purchasing intent facilitates the straightforward recognition of the solutions and products your target audiences are actively investigating on the internet.

Upon pinpointing your ideal customer profiles in Apollo, buying intent empowers you to observe crucial online activities, sift through the prime companies exhibiting the strongest intent ratings for your chosen subjects, and accordingly organize your sales pipeline.

Intent Score Classification (prospecting)

Apollo.io classifies leads into high, medium, or low buying intent levels according to their online behaviors, like searches conducted on Google or other search engines. Also takes into account interactions with adequate content.

Prepared to utilize buying intent? Consult the instructions in “Use Buying Intent in Apollo” to choose your topic(s), gain access to essential buying intent data insights, and refine your searches based on buying intent.

Boost Your Lead Generation: What More You Should Know 👇

Higher Conversion Rate

Apollo allows you to verify leads that have shown preliminary interest in your solution. This way, the likelihood of generating conversions is significantly higher than if you were working with so-called cold leads, creating cold outreach.

Changeable Data

Data is constantly changing—new leads, new companies, and information about their employees are added on a daily basis. Previous data is not removed; however, the contact database is updated every day.

Integration with Marketing Campaigns

You can integrate data from the Buying Interested with marketing platforms & email marketing tools. You can do it directly through Apollo, or in some cases, you should use a 3rd-party tool.

—> Integration with Marketing Campaigns: Pros ✅

• Precision-focused approach to generating leads.
• Regular updates to maintain the freshness of lead information.
• Tailoring options to meet the unique demands of different industries.
• Enhanced lead qualification to ensure relevance and increase conversion rates.
• Integration capabilities with existing CRM systems for seamless workflow optimization.

—> Integration with Marketing Campaigns: Cons ❌

• Limited A/B testing capabilities.
• Not effective as a dedicated marketing tool for running email campaigns.

Pricing, Plans & Features

You can opt for an annual or monthly plan, in which case the price changes.

Apollo gives you 10,000 credits per month on a free plan.

You can choose one of three paid plans:

• Basic
• Professional
• Organization

Basic Plan: Quick Overview

Basic Plan ($59 monthly):

This plan is ideal for start-ups & small businesses aiming to conduct a substantial number of sequences and outreach initiatives.

It provides ample export credits in addition to limitless email credits.

Should you be interested in cold calling, this option might not suit your needs since it permits calling only 25 contacts from Apollo.

Find a quick summary of the key features of this plan:

Capability	Explanation
Emails Without Limit	Unrestricted emailing to your prospects.
25 Telephone Credits Each Month	Engage with 25 contacts via phone using details from the Apollo.io database.
Monthly 250 Data Exports	Transfer a quarter of a thousand records monthly from Apollo.io into a CSV format or other systems.
Select 2K Contacts Concurrently	Efficiently gather and export a batch of 2,000 contacts from Apollo.io at once.
Unlimited Email Sequences	Launch limitless email sequences with a variety of templates and configurations.
Boundless SendGrid Dispatch	Leverage SendGrid for boundless email dispatches as per your need, without limitations.
Comparative Email Testing	Conduct comparative evaluations of your emails, examining variations in subject lines and content to identify superior performance.
Intent to Purchase Identification	Identify prospects based on their active searches for products or services related to yours, through their digital behavior and keyword use.
Refined Search Filters	Apply more specific criteria to hone in on and locate the most relevant prospects for your enterprise.
Compatibility with Various Email Providers	Sync any email account for sending campaigns via Apollo.io, beyond just Gmail or Microsoft.
Personalized Fields	Devise and employ personalized fields for storing and presenting extra details about your prospects.
Sales Prospects Management	Oversee your sales progression and monitor deal advancements within Apollo.io’s system.
Tracking of Email Engagement	Monitor the frequency and timing of when your emails are opened and interacted with, to better strategize follow-ups.
Greenhouse Synchronization	Synchronize data between Apollo.io and Greenhouse, the well-known candidate management platform.
Limited Multi-channel Campaigns	Orchestrate and launch multi-faceted campaigns that merge email outreach, phone engagement, social media efforts, and manual interactions.

Professional Plan: Quick Overview

Professional ($99/month)

The Professional plan is dedicated to larger companies that have developed structures and sales departments.

This plan is characterized by greater availability and a larger database. You can collect more information and carry out more activities—in the case of larger companies that need your product.

Beyond all the elements that the Basic Plan includes, in the Professional plan, you’ll also find:

Capability	Explanation
Endless Emailing Opportunities	Unlimited ability to send emails to your prospects without restrictions.
100 Mobile Credits	Unlock 100 contacts’ phone information from the Apollo.io database for direct calls.
Export 1,000 Data Points	Export up to a thousand entries from Apollo.io to a CSV or other formats.
Batch Selection of 10,000 Entries	Compile and download 10,000 contacts from Apollo.io simultaneously with a single action.
Enhanced Analytics and Panels	Access sophisticated analytics and control panels for insights into campaign and sales efficiency.
Email Integration with All Providers	Connect any email service to send out campaigns through Apollo.io, beyond Gmail or Microsoft.

Enterprise ($149/month)

Okay, let’s be honest—this is a solution for the really big players. Check it out on Apollo.io.

The perfect solution for digital agencies/firms that want to conduct a mass of email marketing campaigns and reach out to customers all around the world—without worrying about limits.

With Enterprise, you can perform a multitude of actions: cold calling & cold emailing will jump to a completely different level.

You’ll find the most important features:

Capability	Explanation
Tailored Plans	Big corporations may reach out to sales for tailored plans to meet complex requirements, including integrations, security, and management.
API Integration	Sophisticated integration capabilities with various systems and platforms.
Unlimited Plans	Unlimited plans are subject to a fair usage policy limiting credits per account monthly or annually, based on payment status. Extra credits can be requested from the team.
No Limit on Record Selection	Unlimited plans feature no cap on record selection, enabling users to save and export a substantial number of leads with a single click.

How to Choose the Right Plan? My Suggestion:

Opting for a smaller solution and scaling it up is always cost-effective.

You don’t have to choose Enterprise right away. Actually, you don’t even have to start with Professional.

Try starting with Basic, where you can learn to correctly create databases and steadily increase sales.

And what’s the best here? If you’re just starting out, you don’t even have to pay for it! Check it out 👇

Expert Recommendation: How to Use Apollo.io at the Beginning?

Using Apollo.io for over two years, I’ve had the opportunity to get acquainted with its various features and I gotta say, it definitely makes my work easier & faster.

Personally, I most often use Apollo to:

– track my performance (CRM)

– make cold calls (outreach tool)**

– manage my entire database (CRM)

– find my prospect’s email address (outreach tool)

– send a direct email to my prospect (outreach tool)

– create a sequence and automate its delivery (email marketing tool).

**For the record, I used to make cold calls, but for certain reasons, I stopped. In the international markets I work with (US, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and so on), reaching out to prospects through written communication (LinkedIn messages & emails) is more adequate, and I got a higher response & conversion rate.

That doesn’t mean Apollo isn’t effective for cold calling—conversely. It’s suitable enough that you can come to many conclusions based on your performance and track your every move with 100% accuracy.

What Can I Recommend You for a First Step?

Start with a demo account. It is totally free, and you’ll be able to navigate through the platform and verify whether this tool is right for your situation. It’s user-friendly and efficient, so you can fully rely on it, but understandably, it might not be for everyone.

So, what’s your next step?

Apollo.io as a Google Chrome Extension

Apollo.io also works as a Google Chrome extension.

You can download it directly from the browser, even without logging in first.

Importantly, by downloading Apollo.io as an extension to Chrome, you’ll notice at first sight:

• the prospect’s email address
• the prospect’s phone number
• the possibility to save a contact to your database

Having this information, you’re able to quickly refer to your prospect in the panel, creating a sequence for them or making cold calls.

Simple and effective? Exceptionally!

Afterword: Why You Should Consider Apollo.io?

Apollo is a professional email marketing & outreach tool for freelancers and larger organizations. Personally, I used it for the first time over 2 years ago and have been using it ever since. Every package gives you access to a full suite of tools, over 270 million contacts from around the world, and automation that simplifies your email marketing & outreach work from day one.

More importantly, I’ve noticed that the accuracy of found email addresses is very high. Unfortunately, I haven’t kept statistics in percentages showing how many are correct, but literally, it’s a fraction of times when Gmail notifies me that the provided email address doesn’t exist or simply isn’t in Apollo’s database.

Automate your email marketing work, make more cold calls than ever & finally reach out to pretty much everyone who’s your Ideal Customer Profile. Simple as it is! 🙂

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Apollo.io

If you like the tool, try it out for free, and if you have any questions—let me know, I’d be happy to help!

Thank you for reading!
Simon

Author Profile

Simon Gorlak

Simon Gorlak is a Digital Marketing Expert with over 8 years of experience. He specializes in 3 areas: SEO, Copywriting, and Email Marketing. Simon's blog gathers knowledge that helps Marketers & C-level to increase profits from their online businesses. Also, his content helps to reach the most difficult customers, make others' content to be read & purchased. Besides digital marketing, Simon speaks 4 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish & works as a Head of Business at an Indian Start-up.

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