What We're Building​

By the end of this guide, you'll have a fully automated pipeline that:

1. Discovers new domains matching your ideal customer profile (ICP)
2. Enriches each domain with 50+ data points
3. Scores leads based on your custom criteria
4. Routes high-scoring leads to your CRM or outreach sequence automatically

No code required for the basic version. For teams that want deeper customization, we'll cover the API approach too.

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Customer Profile​

Before building any automation, you need a precise ICP. Vague targeting like "B2B SaaS companies" produces noisy results. CronDB lets you define your ICP using over 50 data points, so get specific.

Here's an example ICP for a company selling developer tools:

The more precisely you define your ICP, the higher quality your pipeline output will be. Think about what separates your best customers from your worst, and encode those differences as filterable signals.

For a deeper dive into turning these signals into scores, see Building Custom Lead Scoring Models.

Step 2: Set Up Audience Filters​

In the CronDB dashboard, navigate to Audiences and create a new audience. This is where you translate your ICP into filters.

Basic filters:

• Technologies detected: Select specific technologies from CronDB's library of 1,500+ detected technologies. You can combine with AND/OR logic — e.g., "uses React AND (Stripe OR Paddle)".
• Company size: Filter by estimated employee count range.
• Industry classification: Use CronDB's AI-powered industry tags.
• Geographic region: Filter by headquarters location or TLD.
• Domain age: Set minimum and maximum domain registration age.

Advanced filters:

• Technology changes: "Recently adopted [technology]" — catch companies in active buying cycles
• Traffic growth: Domains showing month-over-month traffic increases
• Content velocity: Domains publishing new content frequently (a proxy for growth investment)
• Hiring signals: Domains with active careers pages mentioning specific roles

These advanced filters are powered by CronDB's intent signals engine, which tracks behavioral changes across domains over time.

Save your audience. CronDB will run this filter set continuously and surface new matching domains as they're discovered or as existing domains change to match your criteria.

Step 3: Create the Workflow​

Now connect the pieces. Go to Workflows and create a new workflow with the following steps:

Trigger: New Domain Matches Audience​

Select your audience from Step 2 as the trigger. Every time a domain enters your audience — either because it was newly discovered or because its attributes changed to match your filters — the workflow fires.

Action 1: Full Enrichment​

Add an Enrich Domain action. This pulls the complete data profile for the domain, including:

• Full technology stack (frameworks, analytics, payments, hosting, CDN, marketing tools)
• Business classification (industry, business model, company size)
• Social profiles and contact pages
• Traffic and engagement estimates
• Content analysis (blog frequency, topic clusters)
• Domain health metrics (SSL, performance, mobile readiness)

Action 2: Lead Scoring​

Add a Score Lead action. CronDB's scoring engine lets you assign point values to each signal:

Technology match (React/Next.js):     +20 points
Payment tech (Stripe/Paddle):         +15 points
Employee range 10-200:                +10 points
Traffic tier Medium+:                 +10 points
Blog active last 30 days:             +10 points
Domain age 1-5 years:                 +5 points
Recently hired engineers:             +15 points
Recently adopted new tech:            +10 points
---
Max possible score:                   95 points

Set your threshold. For most teams, a score of 50+ is worth routing to a sales rep, and 70+ should trigger immediate outreach.

Action 3: Route by Score​

Add a Conditional Branch:

• Score >= 70: Route to your high-priority outreach sequence
• Score 50-69: Add to your nurture list in CRM
• Score < 50: Log for review but don't auto-route

Action 4: CRM Handoff​

For the high-priority branch, add a Send to CRM action. CronDB integrates natively with Salesforce and HubSpot, or you can use the Zapier integration for any other CRM.

The handoff includes all enriched data — technology stack, scoring breakdown, intent signals, and the domain profile link — so your sales rep has full context without doing any additional research.

Step 4: Connect with Zapier for Extended Automation​

For teams using CRMs or tools beyond our native integrations, Zapier unlocks the full pipeline. Here's a practical Zapier setup:

Zap 1: High-Score Lead to CRM + Slack

• Trigger: CronDB Webhook (score >= 70)
• Action 1: Create/update contact in your CRM (Pipedrive, Close, Copper, etc.)
• Action 2: Post to Slack channel with lead summary and score

Zap 2: Medium-Score Lead to Email Sequence

• Trigger: CronDB Webhook (score 50-69)
• Action: Add to email sequence tool (Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo)

Zap 3: Weekly Pipeline Digest

• Trigger: Schedule (every Monday at 9 AM)
• Action 1: CronDB API — fetch all leads scored 50+ in the last 7 days
• Action 2: Send formatted email digest to your sales team

For teams using the API directly, the webhook payload includes the full enrichment profile:

# Example: CronDB sends this to your webhook URL
POST https://your-app.com/webhooks/crondb
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "event": "lead.scored",
  "domain": "acme.dev",
  "score": 82,
  "matched_audience": "developer-tools-icp",
  "enrichment": {
    "technologies": ["React", "Next.js", "Stripe", "Vercel"],
    "industry": "developer_tools",
    "employee_range": "50-100",
    "traffic_tier": "high",
    "intent_signals": ["recently_hired_engineers", "new_tech_adopted"]
  }
}

See CronDB API Best Practices for webhook configuration details, retry handling, and authentication.

Real ROI: What to Expect​

Teams using CronDB Workflows report consistent improvements across their pipeline:

Time savings:

• Manual domain research: ~8 minutes per lead (technology lookup, company research, CRM entry)
• With CronDB Workflow: 0 minutes per lead (fully automated)
• At 100 leads/week, that's 13+ hours saved per week — nearly two full working days

Pipeline quality:

• Lead-to-opportunity conversion rates typically improve 2-3x when using multi-signal scoring versus single-attribute filtering
• Sales reps report higher confidence in outreach because every lead comes with a full enrichment profile and score explanation

Pipeline velocity:

• Time from domain discovery to first touch drops from days (manual research backlog) to minutes (automated routing)
• Teams consistently report 30-50% more pipeline generated in the first month after automating

Cost efficiency:

• A CronDB Pro plan ($149/month) replaces a combination of tools that typically costs $500-1,000/month (separate enrichment, tech detection, and intent data subscriptions)

Pro Tips for High-Performing Pipelines​

Start narrow, then expand. Begin with a tightly defined ICP and a high score threshold. It's better to route 10 perfect leads per week than 200 mediocre ones. Once your conversion rates stabilize, gradually loosen filters.

Use technology changes as triggers. A company that just adopted HubSpot is more interesting than one that's been using it for three years. Technology changes signal active buying decisions.

Layer intent signals. A domain that matches your tech stack filter AND shows traffic growth AND recently posted engineering job listings is a much stronger signal than any one of those alone. CronDB's scoring model lets you weight these combinations.

Review and tune monthly. Check which scored leads converted and which didn't. Adjust your scoring weights based on real outcomes. The best pipelines are iterative.

Don't skip warmup. If your pipeline routes leads to cold email sequences, make sure your sending domains are properly warmed up first. CronDB's Smart Warmup handles this automatically — protecting your sender reputation while your pipeline scales.

Getting Started​

1. Sign up for CronDB (free tier includes 500 lookups/month)
2. Define your ICP using the audience builder
3. Create your first workflow with the trigger-enrich-score-route pattern
4. Connect your CRM via native integration or Zapier
5. Monitor results and tune scoring weights

The entire setup takes about 30 minutes. Once it's running, your pipeline works 24/7 — discovering, enriching, scoring, and routing leads while you focus on closing deals.

Related​

• Building Custom Lead Scoring Models — design scoring models that match your sales process
• Understanding Domain Intent Signals — the signals that power accurate scoring
• CronDB API Best Practices — webhooks, rate limits, and bulk enrichment
• CronDB vs ZoomInfo — how CronDB's approach compares to traditional data platforms

The Fundamental Difference: Real-Time Crawling vs. Database Snapshots​

The core architectural difference between CronDB and ZoomInfo defines every other distinction on this list.

ZoomInfo maintains a massive static database of company and contact records. Their data is collected through a combination of web scraping, contributor networks (users who install their browser extension share data back), and third-party data partnerships. Records are refreshed on periodic cycles — typically weekly or monthly depending on the company's prominence.

CronDB takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of maintaining a static database, CronDB crawls domains in real time, detecting technologies, analyzing content, extracting business signals, and enriching records on demand. When you query a domain through CronDB, you get data that reflects what that domain looks like right now — not what it looked like when a batch job last processed it.

This matters more than it might seem. As we covered in Why Data Freshness Matters, stale data is one of the biggest hidden costs in B2B operations. A company that switched from Shopify to WooCommerce last week still shows as a Shopify user in snapshot-based databases. CronDB catches that change within hours.

Pricing: Self-Serve vs. Enterprise Sales​

This is where the gap is widest.

ZoomInfo's pricing is designed for enterprise sales teams with established budgets. There's no self-serve option — you have to book a demo, sit through a sales process, and commit to an annual contract. For startups, small teams, or developers who want to experiment with domain data, this is a non-starter.

CronDB offers a generous free tier with 500 lookups per month, and paid plans start at $49/month with no annual commitment. You can sign up, get an API key, and start querying domains in under two minutes.

Feature Comparison​

API-First vs. Platform-First​

CronDB was built API-first from day one. Every feature available in the dashboard is accessible through the REST API. This matters for teams that want to:

• Build domain enrichment into their own products
• Create custom integrations without middleware
• Automate pipelines programmatically
• Run bulk enrichment jobs on their own schedule

Here's what a domain lookup looks like with CronDB:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.crondb.com/v1/domains/stripe.com"

The response includes technology stack, business classification, traffic estimates, social profiles, and dozens of other data points — all from a single endpoint. For more on getting the most from the API, see our API Best Practices guide.

ZoomInfo does offer an API, but the platform was designed around the web application experience. The API often feels like an afterthought, with rate limits and endpoint structures that don't map cleanly to programmatic workflows.

Data Privacy and Compliance​

This is an underappreciated differentiator. ZoomInfo's core value proposition is contact-level data — emails, phone numbers, job titles, reporting structures. This puts them squarely in the crosshairs of GDPR, CCPA, and the growing wave of global privacy regulations. ZoomInfo has faced multiple lawsuits and regulatory challenges around their data collection practices.

CronDB focuses on domain-level intelligence. We analyze what a company's website reveals about their technology stack, business model, content strategy, and growth signals. This is publicly observable data that doesn't involve scraping personal contact information. The compliance surface area is dramatically smaller.

For teams operating in regulated industries or selling into the EU, this distinction can be the deciding factor.

When to Choose ZoomInfo​

ZoomInfo is the better choice when:

• Contact data is your primary need. If you need direct-dial phone numbers and verified email addresses for specific people, ZoomInfo's contact database is unmatched. CronDB focuses on domain intelligence, not individual contacts.
• You have an established enterprise budget. If $15K-50K/year is within your data tooling budget and you need the depth of ZoomInfo's platform, it delivers.
• You need deep org chart mapping. ZoomInfo's ability to map reporting structures and identify decision-makers by title is a core strength.
• Your team is sales-heavy, not technical. ZoomInfo's platform is designed for sales reps who want a point-and-click interface. CronDB rewards technical users who leverage the API.

When to Choose CronDB​

CronDB is the better choice when:

• Data freshness is critical. If you need to know what technologies a domain is running today — not what they were running last month — CronDB's real-time crawling is the clear winner.
• You're building on top of domain data. If you're integrating enrichment into your product, pipeline, or internal tools, CronDB's API-first architecture and developer experience are purpose-built for this.
• Budget matters. For startups, growth-stage companies, or teams testing a domain intelligence strategy, CronDB's free tier and $49/month starter plan remove the financial barrier entirely.
• Technology detection is your focus. CronDB detects 1,500+ technologies in real time. If your ICP is defined by tech stack (e.g., "companies using Shopify and Klaviyo"), CronDB gives you more accurate, more current results.
• You want workflow automation. CronDB's built-in workflow builder lets you go from domain discovery to CRM handoff without stitching together multiple tools.
• Email deliverability matters. CronDB includes Smart Warmup — AI-powered email warmup that protects your sender reputation. ZoomInfo doesn't touch this problem.

The Verdict​

ZoomInfo and CronDB serve overlapping but distinct use cases. ZoomInfo is a mature, contact-centric platform built for enterprise sales organizations with large budgets. CronDB is a modern, API-first domain intelligence platform built for teams that value data freshness, developer experience, and cost efficiency.

If your primary need is "give me the email and phone number of the VP of Engineering at Acme Corp," ZoomInfo is still the answer. If your primary need is "show me every company using React and Stripe that launched in the last 90 days, enrich them, score them, and push the top 50 to my CRM automatically" — that's CronDB.

The best part? CronDB's free tier means you can try it today without a sales call, a demo, or a credit card.

Related​

• Why Data Freshness Matters — the hidden cost of stale B2B data
• Building Custom Lead Scoring Models — use CronDB's 50+ data points for scoring
• Understanding Domain Intent Signals — identify companies ready to buy

The State of Email Deliverability in 2026​

The email landscape shifted dramatically starting in early 2024 when Google and Yahoo jointly announced new requirements for bulk senders. Those requirements have only tightened since:

Authentication is now table stakes. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are no longer "nice to have." Senders without all three properly configured see immediate deliverability drops. As of 2026, Google requires DMARC with at least a p=quarantine policy for any sender doing more than 5,000 messages per day. Yahoo has followed with similar enforcement.

Spam complaint thresholds dropped. Google's documented threshold is 0.3% spam complaints. In practice, senders report that even 0.1% triggers deliverability issues. That means if 1 in 1,000 recipients hit the "Report Spam" button, your domain reputation takes a hit.

Engagement signals dominate. Inbox providers now heavily weight positive engagement — opens, replies, clicks, forwards — when deciding where to place your email. A new sending domain with no engagement history is automatically suspect.

AI-powered spam filters got smarter. Gmail, Outlook, and other providers now use machine learning models that analyze email content, sending patterns, recipient behavior, and sender reputation in combination. Template-style cold emails that worked three years ago now trigger these filters reliably.

The bottom line: sending cold email from a new or dormant domain in 2026 without proper warmup is practically guaranteed to land in spam.

Why Cold Email Hits Spam Without Warmup​

When you set up a new email domain (or haven't sent from an existing one in a while), inbox providers know nothing about you. You have no reputation — and no reputation is treated as bad reputation.

Here's what happens when you skip warmup and start sending cold outreach:

1. Volume spike triggers filters. Providers expect new domains to send a handful of emails, not hundreds. A sudden volume spike is the single most reliable spam signal.

2. No engagement history. With no track record of recipients opening or replying to your emails, providers have no positive signal to offset the risk.

3. Cold recipients don't engage. Your first batch of cold emails goes to people who didn't expect to hear from you. Open rates are naturally lower, reply rates minimal. This confirms the provider's suspicion that you're sending unwanted email.

4. Negative feedback loop. Low engagement leads to more emails routed to spam. Emails in spam get even lower engagement. Your domain reputation spirals downward.

5. Recovery is slow and painful. Once a domain is flagged, rebuilding reputation takes weeks or months — far longer than it takes to destroy it.

This is why warmup exists: to build a positive engagement history before you start sending at scale.

How CronDB's Smart Warmup Works​

Traditional warmup tools send generic emails between pools of accounts and auto-reply to simulate engagement. This worked five years ago. Modern spam filters have caught up — they detect warmup-pool patterns, recognize synthetic engagement, and penalize senders accordingly.

CronDB's Smart Warmup takes a fundamentally different approach.

AI-Generated Conversations​

Instead of sending "Hey, just checking in!" back and forth between warmup accounts, Smart Warmup uses AI to generate realistic, contextually appropriate email conversations. Each email thread reads like a genuine business exchange — because the content is unique, topically varied, and follows natural conversational patterns.

The AI considers:

• Your industry: A SaaS founder's email conversations look different from an agency owner's
• Your persona: Tone, vocabulary, and topics match what a real person in your role would discuss
• Thread context: Replies reference previous messages in the thread naturally, building coherent multi-turn conversations
• Temporal patterns: Emails are sent at times that match normal business hours in your timezone, with realistic response delays

Inbox Diversification​

Smart Warmup doesn't just exchange emails within a single warmup pool. It distributes engagement across:

• Multiple inbox providers: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and smaller providers — because reputation is provider-specific
• Different interaction types: Some threads involve quick replies, others involve longer exchanges, some include attachments or links
• Varied engagement patterns: Not every email gets opened instantly. Smart Warmup simulates realistic open-time distributions, with some emails opened immediately and others hours later

This diversity prevents the pattern recognition that catches simpler warmup tools.

Gradual Volume Ramp​

Smart Warmup follows a carefully calibrated volume schedule:

The ramp isn't linear — it adapts based on the engagement signals your domain is receiving. If inbox placement tests show strong results, the ramp accelerates. If any provider shows signs of throttling, the ramp pauses and adjusts.

Continuous Reputation Monitoring​

Smart Warmup doesn't stop after the initial ramp. It continuously monitors your domain's health:

• Inbox placement testing: Regular seed tests across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo to detect deliverability changes before they become problems
• Domain reputation tracking: Monitors Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and other reputation dashboards
• Alert on degradation: If your inbox placement drops below configurable thresholds, you get notified immediately so you can adjust your sending behavior

The Science Behind Warmup: What Providers Actually Measure​

Understanding what inbox providers look for helps explain why warmup works and why shortcuts don't.

Sender reputation is a composite score built from:

• Authentication compliance: SPF, DKIM, DMARC pass rates — this is binary, you either pass or you don't
• Volume consistency: Steady, predictable sending patterns score better than erratic spikes
• Engagement ratio: The ratio of positive actions (opens, replies, clicks) to negative actions (spam reports, deletes-without-opening)
• Complaint rate: The percentage of recipients who mark your email as spam
• Bounce rate: High hard-bounce rates signal poor list hygiene
• Infrastructure signals: IP reputation, domain age, proper DNS configuration

Warmup works because it builds a positive track record across all of these dimensions before you add the inherently lower-engagement cold outreach into the mix. When you start sending cold email from a warmed domain, the providers already have a baseline of healthy engagement. The cold emails dilute that baseline slightly, but if your warmup volume is maintained alongside your cold sends, the overall metrics stay above the spam threshold.

Results: What Smart Warmup Actually Delivers​

Teams using CronDB's Smart Warmup consistently see significant improvements compared to sending without warmup or using basic warmup tools:

Inbox placement after 14-day ramp:

• Without warmup: 30-50% inbox placement (rest goes to spam or promotions)
• With basic warmup tools: 60-75% inbox placement
• With CronDB Smart Warmup: 85-95% inbox placement

Time to full sending capacity:

• Without warmup: Immediate, but most emails hit spam — effectively useless
• With basic warmup: 30-45 days for reliable inbox placement
• With CronDB Smart Warmup: 14-21 days to reliable, high-volume sending

Reputation resilience:

• Domains warmed with Smart Warmup recover faster from occasional deliverability dips because the continuous warmup maintains a strong positive engagement baseline

Getting Started with Smart Warmup​

Setting up Smart Warmup takes under five minutes:

1. Connect your sending domain in the CronDB dashboard under Settings > Email > Warmup
2. Verify DNS records — CronDB checks your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration and flags any issues
3. Set your persona — Tell Smart Warmup about your role and industry so the AI generates contextually appropriate conversations
4. Choose your target volume — How many emails per day do you plan to send at full capacity? Smart Warmup calibrates the ramp accordingly
5. Activate — The warmup begins immediately and runs on autopilot

Monitor your warmup progress in the dashboard, which shows daily volume, inbox placement rates by provider, and reputation metrics.

Best Practices for Maintaining Deliverability​

Warmup is the foundation, but long-term deliverability requires ongoing discipline:

Keep warmup running alongside cold outreach. Don't stop warmup once you start sending. The positive engagement from warmup conversations helps offset the naturally lower engagement of cold emails.

Respect volume limits. Even with a fully warmed domain, sending 1,000 cold emails from a single mailbox in a day will trigger filters. Spread volume across multiple sending accounts and keep per-mailbox daily volume under 50 for cold outreach.

Personalize genuinely. Generic templates trigger AI spam filters. Use the enrichment data from CronDB — technology stack, recent changes, industry — to write emails that demonstrate real research.

Clean your lists. Bounce rates above 2-3% damage reputation quickly. Verify email addresses before sending and remove hard bounces immediately.

Monitor and adapt. Check inbox placement weekly. If you see a drop, reduce cold volume and let warmup rebuild your baseline. CronDB's deliverability alerts make this automatic.

The Bigger Picture: Warmup as Pipeline Infrastructure​

Email warmup isn't a one-time task — it's infrastructure. Just like you wouldn't launch a website without SSL and CDN, you shouldn't launch an outbound program without warmup.

CronDB's Smart Warmup integrates with the broader CronDB platform. Build an automated lead pipeline that discovers and scores leads, then route them to outreach sequences running on properly warmed domains. Use intent signals to personalize your messages. The entire chain — discovery, enrichment, scoring, warmup, and outreach — works as a unified system.

That's the advantage of having warmup built into your domain intelligence platform rather than bolted on as a separate tool. Everything shares context, and your pipeline works end to end.

Get started with CronDB Smart Warmup — included with all paid plans, with a limited preview on the free tier.

Related​

• Why Data Freshness Matters — fresh data drives better personalization and deliverability
• How to Build an Automated Lead Pipeline — connect warmup with your full outbound workflow
• CronDB vs ZoomInfo — why integrated warmup is a competitive advantage
• CronDB API Best Practices — webhook-driven automation for outreach triggers

Why We Built CronDB​

Most domain intelligence tools rely on stale databases, often weeks or months behind reality. When your sales team reaches out to a company based on outdated information, the results speak for themselves: low response rates, wasted outreach, and missed timing.

CronDB takes a different approach. We continuously scan and enrich over 2 million domains, tracking changes in technology stacks, business signals, and intent indicators in near real-time.

What Makes CronDB Different​

Freshness-first architecture. Our pipeline runs continuously, not on weekly batches. When a company changes their tech stack or shows buying signals, you know within hours, not weeks.

Intent signals. CronDB doesn't just tell you what a company does — it tells you when they're likely to buy. We track 12+ intent signals including technology changes, hiring patterns, and web activity.

Workflow automation. Build automated sequences that trigger based on domain changes. When a prospect adds a competitor's technology or enters your ICP, CronDB can automatically enroll them in an outreach sequence.

API-first design. Everything in CronDB is accessible via our REST API. Whether you're building custom integrations, enriching your CRM, or powering internal tools, our API makes it straightforward.

Getting Started​

CronDB offers a free tier with 100 queries per day — enough to explore the platform and validate it fits your workflow. Sign up at app.crondb.com and start exploring in seconds.

Check our Quick Start Guide to get up and running, or dive into the API Reference if you prefer to integrate programmatically.

Further Reading​

• Understanding Domain Intent Signals — how to identify companies ready to buy
• Building Custom Lead Scoring Models — weight the factors that matter for your business
• CronDB API Best Practices — rate limits, pagination, and caching
• Why Data Freshness Matters — the cost of stale domain intelligence

What Are Intent Signals?​

Intent signals are observable actions or changes that suggest a company is moving toward a purchasing decision. Unlike demographic data (industry, size, location), intent data captures behavior — what companies are doing right now.

The 5 Most Reliable Intent Signals​

1. Technology Stack Changes​

When a company adds, removes, or replaces a technology, it signals active evaluation. A SaaS company switching from Segment to mParticle indicates they're investing in their data infrastructure — and may be open to related tools.

2. Job Postings in Relevant Roles​

A company posting for a "Head of Revenue Operations" is signaling they're scaling their sales process. This is a strong indicator they'll need the tools to support that role.

3. Website Content Changes​

Updates to pricing pages, comparison pages, or solution pages indicate a company is positioning for growth. These changes are visible in CronDB's domain monitoring.

4. New Domain Registrations​

When a company registers new domains (especially product or campaign-specific ones), it signals expansion. CronDB tracks these registrations within hours.

5. Traffic and Engagement Patterns​

Spikes in web traffic, new backlinks, or increased social activity can indicate a funding round, product launch, or market push.

Using Intent Signals in CronDB​

CronDB's Alert Rules let you define intent-based triggers. For example:

• Alert when any company in your target industry changes their CRM technology
• Notify when a watched domain adds a competitor's technology
• Trigger a sequence when a domain's intent score crosses your threshold

The key is combining multiple signals. A single signal might be noise; three signals together are a strong buying indicator.

Next Steps​

• Set up your first intent alert
• Explore the Lead Explorer with intent score filters
• Build a custom scoring model that weights intent signals for your ICP
• CronDB API best practices for programmatic access to intent data

Authentication​

All API requests require a Bearer token. Generate one from your API Keys page.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
     https://api.crondb.com/v1/leads?country=US&limit=10

Respect Rate Limits​

Each plan has daily query limits. The API returns X-RateLimit-Remaining headers so you can track usage proactively. When you hit the limit, you'll receive a 429 status — implement exponential backoff rather than retrying immediately.

Use Pagination Efficiently​

The /v1/leads endpoint supports limit and offset parameters. For large result sets:

• Start with smaller page sizes (25-50) to reduce response times
• Use the total field in the response to calculate total pages
• Cache results client-side to avoid re-fetching pages

Filter Early, Process Less​

The API supports extensive filtering: country, industry, technology, intent score, and more. Apply filters at the API level rather than fetching everything and filtering client-side.

# Instead of fetching all leads and filtering in code:
curl "https://api.crondb.com/v1/leads?country=US&industry=technology&min_score=70&limit=50"

Webhook-Driven Architecture​

Instead of polling for changes, set up webhooks to receive real-time notifications when domains matching your criteria appear or change. This reduces API calls and improves response time.

Batch Operations​

For enrichment workflows, use the batch endpoints where available:

• /v1/enrichment/batch-check — check data completeness for up to 50 domains at once
• /v1/leads/lookalikes/bulk — find lookalikes for multiple seed groups

Error Handling​

Always handle these status codes:

• 401 — Invalid or expired token
• 403 — Feature not available on your plan
• 404 — Domain not found in our database
• 429 — Rate limit exceeded
• 500 — Server error (retry with backoff)

Check our API Reference for complete endpoint documentation with code examples in Python, Node.js, and Ruby.

Why Custom Scoring Matters​

A domain intelligence platform selling to e-commerce companies cares about different signals than one selling to cybersecurity teams. Off-the-shelf lead scores can't capture this nuance.

CronDB's custom scoring engine lets you weight the factors that matter for your business:

• Technology signals: +20 points if they use Shopify, +10 for WordPress
• Company attributes: +15 for US-based, +10 for 50-200 employees
• Behavioral signals: +25 for recent technology changes, +20 for hiring activity
• Negative signals: -30 for government domains, -20 for non-profit

Setting Up Your First Scoring Model​

Step 1: Define Your ICP​

Start with your best customers. What do they have in common?

• Which industries convert best?
• What technology stacks do they typically use?
• What company size closes fastest?
• What signals preceded their purchase?

Step 2: Create Rules in CronDB​

Navigate to Custom Scoring and create rules for each attribute. Start simple — 5-10 rules is enough to see significant improvement over generic scores.

Step 3: Test Against Known Outcomes​

Score your existing customer list. Do your best customers get the highest scores? If not, adjust the weights until the model reflects reality.

Step 4: Automate with Workflows​

Once your scoring model is tuned, use CronDB workflows to automatically:

• Add high-scoring leads to priority lists
• Trigger outreach sequences when a domain crosses your score threshold
• Alert your team when a watched domain's score changes significantly

Iteration Is Key​

Your scoring model should evolve with your business. Review it quarterly:

• Are high-scoring leads actually converting?
• Have your target market or ICP changed?
• Are there new signals you should incorporate?

Check the Scoring API documentation for programmatic access to custom scores.

Related​

• Understanding intent signals — the behavioral data that powers scoring
• Why data freshness matters — stale data degrades score accuracy

The Problem with Stale Data​

The internet changes constantly. Companies rebrand, pivot industries, adopt new technologies, and update their online presence daily. Traditional domain databases update on weekly or monthly cycles, creating a growing gap between what they report and what's actually true.

This gap has real business consequences:

• Wasted outreach: Emailing a contact at a company that pivoted away from your target market
• Missed opportunities: Not knowing a prospect just adopted a competitor's technology
• Poor personalization: Referencing outdated information in sales emails
• Inaccurate analytics: Making strategic decisions on stale market data

What "Fresh" Actually Means​

At CronDB, freshness isn't just about how recently we scanned a domain. It's about the pipeline from observation to availability:

1. Scan frequency: How often we check each domain
2. Processing latency: How quickly changes are enriched and classified
3. API availability: How soon enriched data appears in query results

Our pipeline processes domain changes within hours. For watched domains, changes are detected and alerts sent in under 30 minutes.

Measuring Freshness in CronDB​

CronDB provides transparency into data freshness through several tools:

• Freshness SLA dashboard: See scan cadence and enrichment latency by data category
• Domain history: Track when each field was last updated for any domain
• Data quality scores: Per-domain completeness and recency metrics
• Enrichment audit: Field-level fill rates across your query results

Building Freshness Into Your Workflow​

The freshest data in the world is useless if your workflow doesn't leverage it. Consider:

• Alert on changes, not snapshots: Use CronDB alerts to get notified when something changes, rather than periodically reviewing static lists
• Track the delta: The change itself is often more valuable than the current state — a company switching from HubSpot to Salesforce tells you more than just knowing they use Salesforce
• Automate time-sensitive actions: When a domain shows buying signals, every hour counts — connect alerts to your outreach sequences

Explore your data freshness metrics in the CronDB dashboard.

Related​

• Understanding intent signals — fresh data powers accurate intent scoring
• Building custom lead scoring — use freshness as a scoring input
• API best practices — webhooks for real-time change notifications