Acquisity AI Lead Search

When you don't have a list of people to email yet, AI Lead Search builds one for you. You describe the kind of business you want to reach — "B2B SaaS", "HVAC companies in California", "medical software in the UK" — and use the filter panel to shape the search. The AI Search box can populate filters for you, but you can also set job titles, locations, industries, keywords, and headcount manually.

You preview matching companies before importing. When you confirm the import, the platform finds and verifies each email live. It does not rely on an old saved email list, so people whose current email cannot be found or verified are filtered out before they reach your campaign.

AI Lead Search is best at finding companies by market category. It searches against company industries, database keywords, headcount, locations, and exclusions. It does not reliably know each company's exact ICP, every product they sell, or whether they sell one very specific niche product to one very specific buyer.

This page is the full walkthrough.

Where to find it

Step 1 — Describe your niche

At the top of the lead scraper filters is an AI Search input. Type a short description of the market you want to reach, or set the filters manually from the left-hand panel.

You can optionally add company size and location in the same input — the AI picks them up. If you don't specify either, the search defaults to 1–50 employees and the United States. Set a location or employee filter manually (or include one in the niche description) to override the defaults.

Examples that work well:

• "B2B SaaS" — broad niche, AI handles the categorisation
• "Medical software, 1–20 employees" — niche + size in one go
• "HVAC, California" — niche + location
• "Veterinary clinics in the UK"

Examples that are too specific for AI Lead Search:

• "Software companies selling scheduling tools to dental practices"
• "B2B SaaS companies selling to enterprise IT teams"
• "Agencies whose ICP is funded fintech startups"

For those, start with the closest market category, check the preview, then refine with keywords and exclusions. If you need exact ICP-level targeting, use a researched CSV instead.

The AI is smart about how the underlying database categorises companies. A few examples of what it does behind the scenes:

The AI errs on the side of broader keyword sets so you have a bigger pool to scrape from. It is trying to find plausible companies from available industries and keywords, not prove exactly who each company sells to. You prune the noise in Step 3 below.

Step 2 — Review or set the filters

If you use AI Search, the filters populate with what the AI picked. If you build the search manually, you set the same fields yourself. You'll see:

• Job Titles — senior decision-maker titles by default (CEO, Founder, Director, VP, etc.). For niches where those titles are uncommon (HVAC owner-operators, vet clinic owners), the AI adds niche-specific titles too.
• Location — country / state / city if you specified one, otherwise US default
• Industries — one or more, mapped from your niche
• Company keywords — typically 5–10 keywords related to the niche
• Employees — 1–50 default, or whatever you specified

Everything in the filters is editable. If you used AI Search, treat the AI's first pass as a starting point, not a final answer.

Step 3 — Preview companies and refine

This is the big change. Below the filters you'll see a live preview of matching companies with the people the system can try to find emails for.

Click any company to expand its detail panel — you see:

How keyword search actually works

The Company Keywords filter is OR logic, not AND. A company appears in your search if it has any of the listed keywords attached to it in the database — not all of them. This is why the AI gives you a wide keyword set: each keyword is one way for a relevant company to qualify.

That means you refine the list by pruning unwanted keywords, not by adding more constraints.

The 3–5 company check

Before scraping, click into 3–5 companies in the preview. For each, ask: is this the kind of business I want to reach?

• 4–5 are a good fit → click Next and scrape.
• 3+ are not a good fit → look at their keywords. The keyword that pulled them in is your culprit. Either remove it from your Company Keywords, or add it to your exclusion list.

Worked example. Searching "B2B SaaS" and three of the top five companies are marketing agencies. Open their detail panel — you'll likely see keywords like marketing agency, digital agency, growth agency. Add those to Excluded Keywords (or remove marketing from Company Keywords if it's there) and the agencies disappear from the preview.

Worked example, the other way. A company in the preview is a perfect fit and you want more like it. Open the panel, copy a couple of its more specific keywords (vertical SaaS, revenue intelligence, etc.) into Company Keywords and similar companies surface.

The whole point of the preview is to do this iteration before asking the system to find and verify emails.

Step 4 — Click Next and confirm

When the preview shape looks right, click Next.

The launch dialog shows:

• Estimated available leads — same as the live preview count.
• Number of leads to import — how many of the available leads you want to actually scrape into your campaign. Default is 500, the minimum a campaign accepts. Increase it as needed up to the available count.
• Lead credit balance — how many credits you have. If you are short, use the buy/top-up action shown in the dialog, Settings → Billing → Credit Balances, or Settings → Cold Email Agent → Feature Credits.

Important: already-owned leads are filtered out automatically in standalone Acquisity. If a standalone workspace shows 10,800 available leads for a SaaS search and you import 4,000, the same search later shows about 6,800 available leads. That applies whether you are creating a new campaign or adding more leads to the same campaign.

If Instantly is connected to Acquisity, the preview does not remove or dedupe existing lead lists before import. Duplicate leads can still appear in the preview, then get blocked only when Acquisity tries to upload them to the campaign. In that setup, duplicate leads can still consume credits even if the final upload blocks them. See why the lead-search count can drop or duplicates can still cost credits.

Click Confirm to start the scrape.

After confirmation, the import runs live email finding and verification. The final number can be lower than the number you requested because some matching people do not have a current verified email available.

Auto-launch when setup completes

The lead-source screen has a checkbox: Launch campaigns automatically once the setup is complete. It's on by default for AI Lead Search. With it on, the campaign can go live after lead scraping, sequence generation, and final setup complete. Switch it off if you want the campaign to land as a Draft so you can review leads, sequences, inboxes, and settings before any emails send.

The checkbox is disabled when Upload Your Own is selected. CSV-uploaded campaigns need manual finalization after the sequence is ready.

The workspace lead cap

A workspace can hold 25,000 leads across all its campaigns at any one time. CRM contacts are unlimited — this cap only applies to campaign leads.

If you're at the cap, the scrape will fail or the lead-limit prompt blocks you. To free room:

1. Open an old campaign whose leads you no longer need active.
2. Download the leads first (Leads tab → Export CSV) so you keep the data.
3. Delete the leads from the campaign — you don't need to delete the whole campaign. Keeping the campaign in place preserves the analytics so you can see what worked and what didn't.

Repeat across a few old campaigns until you're under 25,000.

Add leads to an existing campaign

Same scraper, different entry point:

1. Open Cold Email Agent in the sidebar.
2. Click into the campaign you want to add leads to.
3. Click the Leads tab.
4. Click Add Leads in the top right.
5. Choose Lead Database → Open Lead Scraper.

The scraper opens with the same niche/filters/preview flow as a new campaign. The leads land in the campaign you started from.

Replicate filters from a previous campaign

If a past campaign worked well and you want to run a fresh scrape with the same shape:

1. Open the campaign whose filters you want to reuse.
2. Click the Options tab.
3. Scroll to the bottom — you'll see all the filters that were used: job titles, location, industries, employee count, keywords, etc.
4. Open a new lead scrape, copy those filters across.

This is how you turn a single winning niche into a repeatable system.

The filter list only appears for campaigns built with AI Lead Search. Manually CSV-uploaded campaigns don't have filters to show, so the section is empty for those.

Lead credits — quick recap

• Normally, 1 credit = 1 verified lead delivered. Credits aren't consumed for previews or filter changes. In Instantly-connected workspaces, a verified duplicate can still consume a credit before the upload blocks it.
• Final campaign count can be lower than requested. Every email is found and verified live before the lead is added. If the email cannot be found, is invalid, or belongs to someone who appears to have moved company, that person is dropped.
• Top up from inside the launch dialog. No need to leave the flow.
• CSV uploads cost zero credits. If you already have a list, that route is free.

Full explanation: Credits.

Why you might get fewer leads than you asked for

The single biggest surprise: you ask for 7,000, you get 1,700. It's not a bug. The system only imports people it can find and verify live.

Use the live preview count as a reality check, not a guarantee. It tells you whether the market shape is broad enough. Final delivery depends on live email finding and verification.

Related FAQs: I bought 10k leads and only got 4k — why? and I ordered 7000 leads and got 1700 — why?.

Tips for better scrapes

• Start broad, prune in the preview. Faster than guessing the perfect filter combination upfront.
• Always do the 3–5 company check before clicking Next. The preview is the most powerful refinement tool in the product — use it.
• Stay in the same niche across multiple campaigns by varying keywords. After a few campaigns the workspace dedupe will exhaust the obvious pool; widening keywords (or excluding the old ones) opens up new sub-segments.
• Use enough volume to learn. For a quick test, import 1,000-1,500 leads. If you already know the niche is worth testing, 2,000-2,500 leads is better. Avoid going above 5,000 leads in one campaign; once you have enough data, pivot into a new campaign instead of forcing more volume through the same one.

Related

• Credits — how lead credits work and how to top up
• Import leads (CSV) — the alternative when you already have a list
• Leads tab — where scraped leads land and how to manage them
• Lead Search FAQ — every common question about scraping, filters, credits, and limits