55 Apollo.io Review: The Ultimate A to Z Analysis Of Major Features - Freedom to Ascend

June 12

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Apollo.io Review: The Ultimate A to Z Analysis Of Major Features

By Hanson Cheng

June 12, 2023


  • minute read
  • Today I’m super excited to do the Apollo.io review for you.

    I came across this amazing computer software tool recently, and I love it to bits. It has significantly improved our sales prospecting workflows. Prospecting is the gateway to a profitable business. To do it effectively, you need the right software.

    That’s where Apollo and other similar software come in.

    In this article, I will go over the major features of Apollo.

    Let’s dive in.

    What Is Apollo.io

    Apollo.io is a data-driven engagement platform that helps sales reps identify sales opportunities and boost the quality of conversations they are having with prospects.

    The software helps the sales team or small business owners do deep outreach, target prospects with precision, reach out, and engage them at speed and scale.

    LinkedIn Prospector

    With a jaw-dropping 756 million users in over 200 countries globally, LinkedIn is the number one business networking platform. 

    From jobseekers to C-level executives, you can find whoever you want on the platform. In short, LinkedIn is the Outreach Manager’s paradise. Apollo.io merges seamlessly with LinkedIn. You can prospect from the platform right inside the Apollo.io dashboard. You can also access LinkedIn via Gmail. 

    Once you’ve locked in your targets, you can:

    • Save to Apollo.io

    To file the contacts into your Appolo.io saved info.

    • Save to List

    To save the contact information straight into your existing list.

    • Add as Account

    Save the contacts as company accounts.

    While doing all this sounds straightforward on paper, it’s a huge time saver when prospecting without the right sales tool. It saves you hours you could have spent wading through thousands of LinkedIn profiles, hunting for contacts, organizing them, and manually exporting them one by one.

    But with Apollo.io you can do it all in minutes with just a few clicks.

    Plus, you don’t have to worry about double entries. If the software detects a contact you already have in your database, it skips it. That’s not all. Apollo enables you to take all verified emails and direct-dial phone numbers from LinkedIn and sync them with your CRM instantly. 

    You can also access LinkedIn via Gmail.

    In Gmail, as soon as you put a prospect’s name, their LinkedIn details pop up on the right sidebar.

    You can then add the target prospect to a list or a sequence. If a prospect opts out of your lead generation campaign, just input ‘do not contact’ and they’ll never receive any more messages from you. Another convenient functionality is that you can access your Apollo.io email templates right inside Gmail at the click of a button. As soon as you write the person’s email address, the system will automatically populate the email complete with personalization. 

    Now that’s super smart.

    You can also set up follow-up notifications to get reminders after a period you chose. Say if your prospect doesn’t respond in 6 hours or 24 hours, you get a timely reminder to follow up on them. With Apollo.io, no prospect will fall through the cracks because you forgot to follow up. Pretty amazing. 

    To top it all up, Apollo tracks all your emails. It tells you:

    • Who opened your email.
    • When they opened it.
    • Where they opened it.

    Apollo.io Prospector

    Apollo.io has a jam-packed prospect pool you can fish from. You can use the tool to find contact info for people and companies.

    The database has over 200 people and 10 million companies. 

    You can search for:

    • People

    A pretty cool feature that’ll save you a lot of time and help you land ideal prospects fast is personas.

    You can identify them by industry, title, department, and more. With titles, you can pick the job title or seniority of your targets e.g. founder, VP, Manager, Intern, C suite, etc. This laser targeting helps you to land the exact prospects who are likely to turn into leads.

    • Companies

    Targeting is pivotal for prospecting.

    Find the perfect companies that fit your campaign.

    Choose the companies based on:

    • Company size.
    • Industry/Market.
    • Jobs Openings.
    • Alexa Rank.
    • Venture funding raised.
    • Technologies used.
    • Revenue.
    • Keywords.
    • The number of employees.

    There are over 60+ data attributes you can use to drill down the exact company you want. Talk about laser-precise targeting.

    Job Change Alerts

    A moldy list with stale contacts blunts the impact of your outreach campaigns.

    But if you’re using Apollo, you don’t have to worry about stale contacts another day. 

    Keep your list fresh with the handy Apollo Refresh feature. This clever feature gives you live updates every time a contact changes jobs. Apollo Refresh even shows you when your contacts get promoted.

    Smart reps on your team take advantage of this fresh info. They can use it to connect better with prospects and create new business opportunities.

    Mailbox Settings

    Email is the backbone of successful outreach campaigns.

    Without an agile email tool, your campaigns will become a dud. How you set up your mailbox plays a crucial role in the success or failure of your campaigns. Apollo.io’s smart system helps you send emails that meet email marketing best practices.

    You can determine:

    • Daily 24-hour sending limit.

    Apollo.io allows you to limit the number of emails you can send per day. They recommend you set the sending limit to 100 or 400. Depending on the Google account apps you have, your limit may fall within the threshold or be lower.

    • Maximum # of emails to send per hour.

    You can also dictate how many emails you can send per 60 minutes. Apollo.io advocates that you should send only 100 emails per hour. The reason? Anything over 100 will trigger the notorious spam filters that block your emails.

    Sending your emails at safe intervals boosts your deliverability figures.

    • Maximum delay between emails in seconds.

    Apollo.io puts up a 30-second interval between emails as a good sweet spot to start with. You can always change it later if you want to.

    Note that these are just starting guidelines. You can do more later. For instance, you can warm up or gently increase your daily sending limit to 1000 emails per day if you are on Gmail. The good news is Apollo.io has plenty of best practices resources to show you exactly how to do that. 

    Like any leading mailbox, you can also put your email signature in Apollo.io. You can write a new one or pull it from your Gmail email. With email signatures, avoid inserting too many links as they set off spam spiders

    Sequences

    Email sequences are a proven way of engaging prospects and keeping them in your funnel.

    In Apollo, you can create an email sequence in three ways:

    • Build from scratch

    Create an entirely new sequence from the beginning.

    • Use pre-built templates

    Use Apollo’s suggested templates that suit your context.

    • Clone an existing sequence

    Reproduce an existing sequence and customize it.

    A vital aspect of sequences is the rules engine. If you don’t master sequence rules and targets, you’ll send emails to the wrong people and irk your prospects.

    Rules Engine

    Automation rules and triggers are the backbones of email sequence automation.

    Apollo.io lets you make cross-object rules to govern your sequences. Cross-object rules help you integrate your sales process. Set rules based on custom fields, stages, triggers. Or activities at the Lead or Account level.

    You can also set filters based on persona, industry, last funding, or account stage.

    Calls 

    Nothing beats a phone call to close a sale or convince prospects to move to another stage in your sales funnel.

    Apollo has powerful click-to-call features in its dialer which include:

    • Click-to-call

    Calling prospects in Apollo is a breeze. Just click on the phone icon anywhere you see a phone number to make a call.

    • Localization 

    People distrust unfamiliar phone numbers. Apollo lets you use local area codes so people are more likely to answer your call.

    • Find Direct-Dial Phone Numbers

    Apollo boosts your connection rate by using integrated direct-dial phone numbers.

    • International Dialing

    These days every brand is a local-global brand with customers all over the world. Easily call customers who live outside the US with the international dialing function

    • Call Recordings

    Review your prospecting and sales calls. See what went well or what didn’t and know what to do next time.

    CRM Integration

    Your CRM is the heartbeat of your customer data management system.

    With Apollo, you can push your list directly into Salesforce or HubSpot. Or you can download your contacts list as a CSV file.

    The Apollo system keeps your CRM as fresh as ever. 

    You get in-depth 65+ data points about your contacts, leads, and account profiles. With such rich data informing your sales strategy, you will crush it.

    Support

    In SaaS, customer support is key.

    Inevitably, you will get stuck or need help on how best to maximize the tool’s capabilities. You don’t want a service provider that will take forever to respond to your pleas for help. In this regard. Apollo.io doesn’t disappoint.

    They have four support channels you can reach out to for help.

    Customer Success Manager 

    Apollo.io gives each customer a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM). 

    This person helps with onboarding and other issues. You and your team can hop on a call with your CSM for personalized step-by-step guidance on how to use the tool.

    Your Customer Success Manager supports you by:

    • Providing outreach best practices and ongoing training.
    • Showing you how to leverage advanced features of your strategy.
    • Being always available through continual touchpoints to ensure success.

    Customer Support Team

    The next support channel is the customer support team.

    You can always rely on the support team for:

    • Fast response times to your everyday questions.
    • The support team responds within 24 hours.

    To get in touch with the team simply email support@apollo.io or click on the ‘Support’ in the Apollo.io dashboard.

    The best part? You can even cc your CSM to follow up on your ticket and ensure you get served in time. You can approach your CSM first and ask them to escalate it to support. Your choice.

    Online Help Center

    To get help, you don’t always need to be served directly by a human. A self-help portal can also work as well and give you all the help you need fast.

    Apollo.io has an extensive Knowledge Base. It’s packed with step-by-step guides, how-to articles, videos, and best practices, and recipes for success.

    Live Chat

    Finally, you can get help via live chat around the clock.

    It’s safe to say Apollo.io gives remarkable support to their customers.

    Integrations

    No tool does it all. 

    While Apollo is remarkable, it’s not enough to run your entire business. Power up your workflows by integrating Apollo with the tools that are already in your tech stack. Easily connect Apollo with:

    • LinkedIn 

     find verified email addresses and phone numbers and push them into your CRM effortlessly.

    • Salesforce

    upgrade and update all your Salesforce contacts’ data.

    • HubSpot 

    sync Apollo’s 210+ million business contacts to turn HubSpot into an outbound marketing engine.

    • Outlook

    merge Apollo with Microsoft Outlook or exchange email.

    • Gmail

    give Gmail wings by syncing emails with your CRM, pulling in templates from Apollo, and tracking opens and clicks.

    • SendGrid

    send SendGrid transactional emails using Apollo.

    • Marketo

    supercharge with 65+fields to enhance your lead scoring and routing.

    Need more integrations besides these?

    No worries.

    Work all other integrations into the Apollo system using the open APIs.

    Analytics

    Apollo analytics helps you run your campaigns with data-based insights, not instinct.

    They have customizable dashboards and reports that combine behavioral and demographic data. By syncing with Salesforce, they cover the entire funnel. Reports tell you about:

    • Call connect rates.
    • Meeting conversion rates.
    • Opportunity win rates.
    • Deal sizes by industry/company size.
    • Sequence steps conversion rates.

    There are myriad other factors you can measure, learn, and improve your strategy.

    They have four plans.

    Free

    $0

    Per user, per month

    150 Email Credits / Month

    • Basic Sequence Automation (2 Sequence Limit)
    • LinkedIn Extension
    • Send 250 Emails/day
    • Gmail Extension
    • Email Open, Click, Reply & Meeting Tracking
    • HubSpot & Salesforce Integration (Pull Only)
    • Outreach & SalesLoft Integration
    • CSV Export
    • Zapier Integration
    • Limited API Access

    Basic

    $49

    Per user, per month

    Billed monthly

    Unlimited Email Credits

    Everything in Starter plus:
    • No Sequence Limit
    • No Email Sending Limit
    • A/B Testing
    • Manual Tasks
    • Advanced Filters
    • Advanced Reports & Dashboards (Pre-Built)
    • Integration with All Email Providers
    • Custom Fields
    • Opportunities
    • Rules Engine Process Builder

    Most Popular

    Professional

    $99

    Per user, per month, 3-seat min, Billed monthly

    Unlimited Email Credits

    50 Mobile Numbers / Mo

    Everything in Basic plus:
    • Dialer
    • Call Recordings
    • Custom Stages
    • Advanced HubSpot Integration (Bi-Directional)
    • Select 1,000 Records at a Time
    • Customizable Reports

    Custom

    Talk to Sales

    Annual Billing Only

    Unlimited Email Credits

    Custom Mobile Numbers

    Everything in Professional plus:
    • Select 10,000 Records at a Time
    • Data Enrichment & Job Changes
    • Call Transcriptions, International Dialing & Local Presence
    • Permission Profiles
    • Advanced API Access
    • Onboarding & Customer Success Manager
    • Advanced Salesforce Integration (Bi-Directional)

    Apollo.io is cheaper than competitors like Uplead or Lead411.

    Apollo.io Pros And Cons

    Like any tool sales engagement tool, Apollo.io has its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a quick overview of the tool’s pros and cons.

    PROS

    • A clean, smooth hump-free easy-to-use user interface.
    • Getting email addresses and phone numbers from LinkedIn at scale and speed is a lifesaver.
    • Plenty of email templates to get you started faster.
    • Excellent filtering of companies with 30+ filters.
    • Customizable lead scoring engine feature.

    CONS

    • No gift integration ability so you can’t woo prospects with cool business gifts.
    • Once a lead says yes, you should move it to another platform for nurturing.

    The overall rating is positive because the pros outweigh the cons. Apollo is a great product for outbound sales prospecting. Its ease of use and Chrome extension email finder deserve special mention.

    Apollo.io Review Verdict

    Apollo is a fabulous reasonably priced tool.

    It does what it’s supposed to do superbly and then some. For getting prospects’ contact details and engaging them at speed and scale Apollo.io is up there with the best. So if you’ve been looking for a unified data-driven outreach and engagement tool, try Apollo today.

    If you're interested in reading more about business tools that can help you scale your outreach efforts, check out this article on the best bulk email service providers right now.

    Last Updated on June 12, 2023 by Hanson Cheng

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    Hanson Cheng

    About the author

    Living in Portugal with my wife and puppies.
    Scaling online businesses and sharing lessons learned on this website and in our email newsletter.

    Always happy to hear from you, so find me on Instagram if you want to say hi!

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