How To Get the Most Accurate Results Using Keywords and Industry Filters

When you're prospecting for certain types of companies, you may think using the "Industry" filter is the way to go. However, Keywords are often a better way to narrow down your audience, depending on who you're looking to target. 

What's the difference?

• Industry: This is a self-reported value that we pull from social media sites. This means that its efficacy can sometimes be a bit questionable, since there are only a finite number of possible values, which you can see here. Companies can only pick one, so these aren't always a great (or specific) representation of what they actually do.
  • For example, Apollo's industry is "Computer Software", which, while accurate, is so broad that it will also capture many other companies that sell software for very different purposes. That's where Keywords come into play.
• Keywords: This is info we pull from a few places-
  • SEO Description: This is the same description that a search engine uses
  • Company Name: Pretty self-explanatory, just the company name
  • Social Media Tags: This is data pulled from self-reported tags on various sites
  • Social Media Description: This is data pulled from longer text areas from various sites

Keywords allow you to target your search much more effectively, and really drill down into your core audience. For example, you could find Apollo with "lead generation", which returns a much smaller, more accurate subset of companies that offer similar services than the "Computer Software" industry filter would. 

When Should I Use Industry?

If you want to run a broad search and not worry about targeting more specific business purposes/services with Keywords, then just Industry is a good way to go. In other words, if you're looking to target companies that offer a wide range of goods and services that all relate to the same field. 

• Some companies don't choose/list any industry, so if you're not getting the businesses you want to target using the limited list of Industries, try some Keyword filters
• Be careful using Exclude industry filters - completely unrelated industries should be safe to exclude, but keep in mind that a lot of companies with more specific keywords that might fit your ideal customer profile may be listed under an industry you might not expect them to be associated with, simply because an industry more specific to what they do may not exist
  • Experiment with Include industries that you know you want to capture, and try Exclude keywords (instead of industries) you see listed on companies in those industries that don't fit your ideal target audience

When Should I Use Keywords?

If you want more granular targeting, keywords are perfect, since there isn't really an upper limit on how many there can be. You can also combine multiple keywords to either drill down into companies who match any of the keywords you want (an OR filter), or can can search for companies who match all of the keywords you want (an AND filter). In addition, you can add in keywords you want to exclude (a NOT filter), to make sure you're not getting companies or contacts that don't fit with the audience you want to reach out to!

For example, let's say I want to find companies like Apollo:

• I'd enter a few keywords in "Include ALL" - lead generation, saas, and b2b
• However, I notice when I do this I'm seeing some "big data" companies, which let's say I don't want, so I'll "Exclude" - big data

This will return a list of the kind of companies I want to target, and then I can prospect from that list!

A great way to find keywords for your target audience is identifying a company who perfectly fits it. Then, you can view that account's profile and see what keywords they identify themselves with, using those to build out a good set of filters: