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How To Find Leads? Step-By-Step Guide for 2025

Indre Zabulyte

Updated on Jun 19, 2025
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Key takeaways

  • B2B lead generation is now a strategic priority, and data overload and evolving buyer habits demand sharper targeting
  • Defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) upfront is essential to avoid chasing unqualified leads
  • Coresignal’s APIs tap into 1B+ data points, including firmographics, technographics, and hiring signals, to build real-time lead lists
  • The free trial includes 400 search credits and full access to explore queries and download sample data
  • Automation-ready tools streamline lead search and outreach, turning complex data into scalable action

If you work in B2B sales or marketing, you’ve likely faced this challenge: you have great products or services, but it's hard to get them in front of the right people at the right time.

With evolving buyer behaviors and massive amounts of B2B data available, knowing how to find leads that are both relevant and ready is more than a tactical task. It’s a strategic advantage.

However, with more data, tools, and channels than ever, understanding how to search for leads that actually convert is becoming increasingly complex and crucial.

I’ve created this up-to-date, step-by-step guide to help you find leads in 2025. Whether you're launching a new sales strategy or fine-tuning an existing one, you'll learn how to identify quality prospects that match your ideal customer profile (ICP).

So, let’s break it down, simply, clearly, and with strategies you can start using today.

Know who you’re targeting

Before we begin, keep in mind that Coresignal API playgrounds let you explore and test sample data. If you want to automate lead generation, you’ll need to configure the full data API. Once it’s up and running, you can seamlessly automate your outreach workflows using real-time data.

The first step in your lead search is defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This includes attributes such as industry, company size, location, tech stack, funding stage, job titles of key decision-makers, or any other defining characteristic. Once the ICP is clear, you can establish filters to refine your prospecting efforts.

Here are some of the key filtering criteria that you might want to consider:

  • Firmographics: Revenue, headcount, founding year, location
  • Technographics: Technology stack used in your target company
  • Hiring signals: Job roles being recruited, growth rate
  • Funding rounds: Recent investments, acquisition data

Having this information upfront ensures you’re not wasting resources on unqualified leads and sets the stage for scalable lead generation.

How to find leads using Coresignal?

Coresignal offers multiple datasets and APIs to help you generate lead lists tailored to your ICP. Here's how you can use Coresignal to search for leads efficiently:

  • Use multi-source company data. Access 39M+ company profiles enriched with firmographic data. Filter by company size, funding history, tech stack, and more to target the right businesses.
  • Tap into multi-source employee data. Identify key decision-makers and influencers with 725M+ employee profiles. Filter by role, seniority, location, or career history to refine your outreach.
  • Analyze job posting data. Track hiring trends to detect growth signals. Roles such as data engineers or new executives often indicate that a company is expanding or shifting its strategy.
  • Automate your lead list generation. Integrate datasets or APIs into your workflow to create dynamic, real-time lead lists. Enrich CRMs, trigger campaigns, and reduce manual effort.
  • Use the self-service API. Leverage Coresignal’s Company, Employee, and Jobs APIs to extract only the data you need. The credit-based model allows for flexible, on-demand access.

So, how exactly can you build such a lead list?

Step 1: Get started with a free Coresignal trial

To begin, make sure you have an active Coresignal account. If not, you can sign up for a free trial (no credit card required) and start exploring right away.

Here’s what you’ll get:

  • Instant access using your Google Business account
  • 400 free search credits to test and explore queries
  • Download up to 200 profiles at no cost
  • Browse more than 1 billion company, employee, and job postings record
  • A 14-day trial to evaluate the data in depth

Whether you're running early tests or evaluating Coresignal for a specific use case, the trial lets you explore freely before committing.

Sign up now

Step 2: Pick a data API

So, how to find quality leads? On the self-service portal, locate the Multi-source Company API Playground, which can be found under Company APIs. 

You can use one of the pre-existing templates if they match your description – once you select them, you can see the query on the right.

‍

Step 3: Write your query

Alternatively, you can write a custom query.

Let's say you are selling CRM software and want to find startups in the US that have up to 200 employees and have recently had completed Series A funding. 

Your query would look like this:

{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "match_phrase": {
            "hq_country": "United States"
          }
        },
        {
          "range": {
            "employees_count": {
              "lte": 200
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "nested": {
            "path": "funding_rounds",
            "query": {
              "match_phrase": {
                "funding_rounds.name": "Series A"
              }
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Paste it in the field on the right and press the Submit request button:

Step 4: Review the results

This will call our Multi-Source Company API and share the results with you. You will see the list of company IDs that match your query. In this case, it returns around 19,000 results.

If you press Submit request once more, you will open a specific company profile.

‍
Keep in mind that each action will use two Search and two Collect credits.

If you want to get more (or fewer) results for your lead list, you will have to adjust your query.

Step 5: Generate lead list and automate outreach via API

Coresignal API playgrounds are designed for testing and providing a preview of the data. To obtain these results in bulk, you will need to set up the data API.

Sales automation is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a must for scaling outreach and staying ahead of the curve. By automating manual tasks like lead enrichment, segmentation, and prospecting, your team gets more time to focus on what actually drives revenue: building relationships and closing deals.

With Coresignal’s API access to fresh company, job posting, and employee data, you can automate workflows around real-time business signals and trigger timely, personalized outreach. It’s a smarter, faster way to fill your pipeline with high-intent leads without the heavy lift.

Contact me if you want to find out more about our data or automating lead generation.

Ready to try out Coresignal’s multi-source data?

Explore thousands of firmographic, financial, and funding signals with precision. Get started with Coresignal today and power your next business move with confidence.

Sign up now
What’s the fastest way to find sales leads?

The fastest way to find leads is by using real-time B2B data solutions like Coresignal’s datasets or APIs. Instead of manually researching prospects or waiting for inbound leads, you can filter and download verified company and employee data aligned with your ICP. You can also use intent-based signals such as recent funding or hiring sprees to prioritize outreach.

Should I buy lead lists or generate them myself?

Buying static lead lists is risky, because data often becomes stale within weeks. Generating your own lead lists using live data sources, such as company growth signals, job listings, and updated employee records, ensures accuracy and relevance. For scalable results, combine internal CRM enrichment with external lead data from providers like Coresignal that update records continuously.

What tools are best for lead searching?

The best lead generation tools in 2025 integrate seamlessly into your tech stack and allow custom filtering, API access, and real-time updates. Some top choices include:

  • Coresignal – Massive multi-source data for companies and professionals.
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Social network-based B2B prospecting.
  • Apollo.io – CRM-integrated outreach and segmentation.
  • ZoomInfo – Data enrichment and buyer intent signals.

Choose the tool based on your team’s size, budget, and data processing capabilities.

What’s the difference between cold and warm leads?

Cold leads have no prior interaction with your brand. Outreach needs to be more educational or problem-aware.

Warm leads are those who have visited your site, downloaded resources, or match firmographic and technographic criteria, often showing signals that they are ready to buy.

With tools like Coresignal, you can identify cold leads that are contextually warm, such as companies actively hiring for roles that utilize your product or those that have recently received funding.

Can I automate my lead search process?

Yes. With the right tools and data pipeline, lead generation can be fully automated:

  • Use Coresignal’s Company or Job Posting APIs to detect new companies hiring for relevant roles.
  • Integrate these insights into your CRM or outreach tool.
  • Use workflow automation tools (e.g., Zapier, HubSpot Workflows, Clay) to trigger outreach sequences.

This way, you build a continuous flow of targeted leads without constant manual input, ensuring your sales team always has fresh prospects to work with.

What are the signs of a quality lead?

High-quality leads typically share one or more of the following traits:

  • Match your ICP (industry, size, location)
  • Show signs of growth (hiring, funding, product launches)
  • Use relevant technology or have specific job titles associated with your product’s users
  • Have engaged with your content, visited your site, or responded to initial outreach

Using firmographic and job market signals from Coresignal, you can prioritize leads that are more likely to convert based on real business activity, not guesswork.

‍

Written by Indre Zabulyte

Data Strategy Consultant

Indre is a data strategy consultant at Coresignal, where she empowers organizations to turn public web data into a strategic advantage. She helps companies through seamless transitions — from selecting the right solutions from Coresignal to scaling their data operations with Coresignal's data for greater efficiency and impact.

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