How to Use Crustdata's People Enrichment API to Enrich Contact Profiles

You spend way too much time digging through contact records that tell you almost nothing useful about your prospects. If you're thinking about working with Crustdata's people enrichment API, you already know how frustrating it can be when your contact database is filled with bare-bones profiles that just have a name and email. Let's hop into how you can use us to solve all these problems:

TLDR:

• People enrichment APIs automatically turn basic contact info into detailed professional profiles using real-time data

• Crustdata's People Enrichment API pulls from 10+ sources with real-time crawling features

• You can enrich contacts using minimal inputs like social media URLs, email info, or name/company combinations

• Real-time vs cached data options let you balance speed with freshness based on your use case

• Partial enrichment updates only missing fields while preserving existing good data

• Advanced features include webhook notifications for profile changes and bulk processing tools

What is People Enrichment and Why It Matters

People enrichment is the process that changes basic person information into detailed professional profiles using sophisticated matching algorithms and extensive databases. Think of it as turning a business card into a full dossier.

Instead of just knowing someone's name and email, you get their complete employment history, education background, social profiles, skills, and even recent job changes. This data has become important for modern B2B operations.

The business impact is huge. When your sales team has rich contact profiles, they can personalize outreach, identify decision-makers faster, and focus on selling instead of researching. AI SDRs particularly benefit from this enriched data because they can craft more relevant messages and identify the best timing for outreach.

Contact enrichment APIs automate this entire process with real-time updates on contact information, company data, and buying signals. No more manual social media stalking or guessing about prospect priorities.

Crustdata People Enrichment API Overview

Crustdata's People Enrichment API delivers complete professional profiles by pulling data from multiple sources in real-time. Unlike competitors who update their databases monthly, we crawl the web at the moment of your request.

This means you get the most current information available. If someone just changed jobs last week, you'll know about it. If they posted on socials yesterday about a new initiative, that data is accessible too.

The API works with minimal input data points. You can start with just a social media URL, an email, or even a name and company combination. Our matching algorithms will find the right person and return everything we can find about them.

What sets us apart is our multi-source data integration. We combine information from social platforms, SEC filings, funding announcements, employee ratings, product reviews, and web traffic data into unified profiles. This gives you context that single-source providers simply can't match.

AI SDR platforms especially benefit from this complete approach because they need rich context to generate personalized outreach. The more data points available, the better the AI can craft relevant messages.

Our people search features also extend beyond basic enrichment. You can find new contacts based on specific criteria, build lead lists and then immediately enrich those profiles with detailed information.

Getting Started with the API

Setting up Crustdata's People Enrichment API is straightforward. First, you'll need to get your API credentials from your dashboard. We use token-based authentication, so you'll include your API key in the header of each request.

Your request body will contain the person identifiers you want to enrich. This could be a social profile URL, email, or name and company combination. The more specific information you provide, the better our matching accuracy.

Here's a sample setup in Node.js:

import axios from 'axios';

const params = {
  linkedin_profile_url: "url goes here",
  enrich_realtime: false
};

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.crustdata.com/screener/person/enrich',
  params: params,
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"
  }
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

For detailed implementation guidance, check out our API docs which includes code examples in multiple programming languages and complete field references.

Basic Enrichment Use Cases

The most common people enrichment scenarios involve filling gaps in your existing contact database. Let's walk through the typical use cases and what you can expect.

Email-based enrichment works great when you have business emails but need everything else. Input an email like john.doe@company.com and get back job title, employment history, education, social profiles, and skills. This is perfect for inbound lead qualification.

Social Profile URL enrichment gives you the most complete results. Since b2b social profiles contain the richest professional information, starting with a URL typically returns the most complete profile data.

For sales products, this means getting comprehensive information about a prospect. Instead of generic outreach, you can reference specific experience, mutual connections, or recent achievements.

Recruiting tools use enrichment to build detailed candidate profiles automatically. Upload a list of names and companies, then get back detailed employment histories, skills and certifications, and education backgrounds.

Investment tools such as AI investors or investment platforms can use people enrichment to understand the background of a person by analyzing their previous work experience, if they are a repeat founder and their academic background.

Real-Time vs Cached Data Options

Crustdata offers both real-time crawling and cached data retrieval, and choosing the right option depends on your specific use case and timing requirements.

Real-time crawling fetches the most current information available by pulling data from the web at the moment of your request. This is ideal when you need to verify recent job changes, prepare for important meetings, or make sure your outreach is based on the latest information.

Cached data returns information from our monthly updated database with quick response times. This works well for bulk CRM updates, initial lead scoring, or situations where speed and volume matters more than having the absolute latest information..

Many users combine both approaches. They use cached data for bulk operations and real-time enrichment for high-priority/time-sensitive outreach.

Legacy B2B data providers offer only monthly or quarterly updated databases, which means you're mostly working with stale information. Our dual approach gives you flexibility based on your specific needs.

Integration Best Practices

Successful API integration requires planning for both technical implementation and ongoing data management. Here are the practices that lead to the best results.

Rate limiting and error handling should be built into your integration from day one. Implement exponential backoff for retries and respect API rate limits to maintain consistent performance. Our API returns clear error codes and messages to help with debugging.

Batch processing works better than individual API calls for large datasets. Group your enrichment requests and process them in manageable chunks. This improves performance and helps with cost management.

Data validation becomes important when you're automatically updating contact records. Set up checks to make sure enriched data meets your quality standards before it overwrites existing information.

For marketing automation platforms, consider setting up triggered enrichment based on specific events. New lead comes in? Automatically enrich their profile. Contact engages with your content? Update their information with the latest data.

Privacy compliance should be built into your enrichment workflow. Make sure you have proper consent for data collection and processing, and implement data retention policies that align with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Common Implementation Challenges and Solutions

Even with good planning, you'll likely encounter some common challenges when implementing people enrichment. Here's how to handle the most frequent issues.

Incomplete matches happen when the API can't find enough information to confidently identify a person. This is normal and expected. Build your workflow to handle partial matches gracefully.

API response times can vary greatly between real-time and cached data. Plan your user experience accordingly. If you're enriching contacts in real-time during user interactions, consider showing loading states or processing enrichment in the background.

Cost management becomes important as your enrichment volume grows. Monitor your usage patterns and optimize by using cached data when appropriate, and batch processing for better performance.

Integration complexity often stems from trying to do too much at once. Start with basic enrichment for your highest-priority use cases, then expand functionality over time. This approach helps you learn what works best for your specific needs.

Monitoring and Optimization

Effective monitoring focuses on data quality metrics. Track enrichment success rates, data completeness scores, and the business impact of enriched profiles on your key metrics.

Enrichment success rates tell you how often the API successfully finds and returns data for your requests. Monitor this by input type (email vs b2b social URL vs name/company) to understand which approaches work best for your data.

Data completeness scores measure how much information you're getting per profile. Track the percentage of profiles that include employment history, education, skills, and other key fields. This helps you understand the value you're getting from enrichment.

Business impact metrics connect enrichment to outcomes. Are enriched leads converting better? Are sales cycles shorter when reps have complete prospect information? These metrics support your API investment and guide optimization decisions.

Cost optimization comes from understanding your usage patterns. Maybe you're over-enriching low-priority contacts or using real-time crawling when cached data would suffice. Regular usage analysis helps you optimize spending.

Webhook notifications can automate much of your monitoring. Set up alerts for profile changes, job transitions, or other important updates to key contacts. This keeps your team informed without manual checking.

Pipeline prioritization becomes more effective when you're tracking which enriched data points connect with successful outcomes. Use this insight to focus your enrichment efforts on the most valuable data types.

Quality monitoring should include spot-checking enriched profiles against known information. This helps you understand accuracy rates and identify any systematic issues with your enrichment process.

Advanced Features and Automation

Crustdata's advanced features allow sophisticated automation workflows that go far beyond basic contact enrichment. These tools help you build complete prospect intelligence systems. We'll go into these deeper in another blog.

Webhook notifications through our Watcher API alert you instantly when important contacts change jobs, update their profiles, or show other notable activity. This allows timely outreach when prospects are most likely to be receptive.

Social media data tracking includes social media posts, which gives you conversation starters and insight into prospects' current priorities. AI SDRs use this information to craft highly personalized messages that reference recent activities or achievements.

Connection analysis reveals mutual connections and network relationships that can help warm introductions. This is particularly valuable for enterprise sales where relationship-based selling is important.

Bulk enrichment features let you process thousands of contacts efficiently. Upload a CSV file with basic contact information and get back detailed profiles for your entire database.

Historical data tracking shows you how long someone has been in their current role, their career progression patterns, and company performance during their tenure. This context helps with assessing a candidate or a founder you might want to invest in.

Integration with marketing automation platforms allows triggered enrichment based on engagement activities. When someone downloads a whitepaper or attends a webinar, automatically enrich their profile with the latest information.

FAQ

What happens if the API can't find information about a person?

When we can't find sufficient information to confidently identify someone, the API returns a partial match or no match response with details about what we were able to find. You can try alternative identifiers or check back in 24 hours as our database continuously grows.

Can I enrich contacts in bulk?

Yes, our bulk enrichment features let you process thousands of contacts quickly. You can use our batch API endpoints to enrich large datasets. We recommend batch processing for better performance and cost savings.

How do you handle data privacy and compliance?

We only collect publicly available information. You can set data retention policies, request data deletion, and make sure you have proper consent for data processing in your applications.

Final thoughts on using people data APIs for business growth

Your contact database doesn't have to be a collection of empty profiles anymore. With Crustdata's people enrichment API, those basic name-and-email records become comprehensive professional profiles filled with the real-time insights you need for meaningful outreach. Looking forward to supporting you.