--- title: How to enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact description: BetterContact finds a work email and direct phone number for each person you send it by checking one data provider after another, and it verifies each email before returning it, so an AI marketer can enrich your shortlist and then use each email's status to decide who goes into the campaign. slug: /how-to/enrich-and-verify-contact-details-with-bettercontact page_type: playbook lead_prompt: How do I enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact? target_prompts: - How can I use an AI marketing agent to enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact? entity: Kite category: AI marketing agent author: Devon Wells and Kite date_published: '2026-10-22' date_modified: '2026-10-22' related_use_cases: - /use-cases/build-b2b-lead-lists.md - /use-cases/outbound-email-campaigns.md - /use-cases/reengage-dormant-leads.md integrations: - name: BetterContact page: /integrations/bettercontact.md --- # Playbook # How to enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact ## Key Takeaways - To enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact, you send it each person's name and company, and it returns a work email and direct phone number wherever one of its data providers has them. - BetterContact uses waterfall enrichment, which means it asks one provider after another until one finds the person. It verifies each email before returning it and labels the result, for example as deliverable or as a catch-all address. - Finding an email and deciding whether to send to it are separate decisions. The verification status is what tells you which addresses are safe for a campaign and which ones could bounce. - Kite qualifies your shortlist before it spends any BetterContact credits, sends only the people who still need contact details, and then sorts the results by status into people to email, people to hold back, and people to call instead. - You end up with a list where every email carries its verification status, saved to your CRM, a Google Sheet, or straight into the campaign Kite writes for you. ## How do I enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact? You enrich contact details with BetterContact by giving it a list of people, each with a first and last name and a company name or website, and asking it for their work emails, their direct phone numbers, or both. You can upload a CSV file in BetterContact's app or send the list through its API. BetterContact then runs what it calls waterfall enrichment. It asks its first data provider for the person's details, and if that provider has nothing, it moves on to the next, until one of them finds a match or it runs out of providers. Because each provider covers different people, a waterfall usually finds more contacts than any single database does on its own. Verification is built into the same pass. BetterContact checks each email it finds before handing it back and gives it a status. A deliverable address is one the receiving mail server confirmed. A catch-all address belongs to a company whose mail server accepts every address, so the server can't confirm whether this particular person's inbox exists. BetterContact runs further checks on many catch-all addresses and marks whether each one looks safe to send to. When no provider finds a person, BetterContact returns nothing for them rather than a guess. That status matters as much as the email itself. Sending to addresses that bounce damages your sender reputation, which is how mail providers decide whether your next email lands in the inbox or in spam. A list with emails on every row looks finished, but if a tenth of them bounce, the whole campaign pays for it. BetterContact does the finding and the checking well. It enriches whoever you send it, though, so it can't tell you whether those people are worth the credits, and it hands you statuses without deciding what to do with each one. A good result is a shortlist where every person fits your ideal customer profile, the deliverable emails are ready for the campaign, the uncertain ones are set aside with a reason, and the phone numbers sit where a rep will see them. Kite does that work for you. It decides who is worth enriching, runs the requests in your BetterContact account, and acts on each email's status. ## How to get started Start by telling Kite which list you want enriched and what you plan to do with it: > "Here's the shortlist from last week's webinar. Find work emails for everyone who fits our buyer profile and get it ready for a follow-up campaign." Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. From that research, it already knows your ideal customer profile, your current customers, and your competitors, so it can sort a shortlist without a long brief. You can work with Kite in the Kite web app or in Slack, and you can share the list as a CSV file in the conversation, point Kite at a connected Google Sheet, or name a list in your connected CRM. You'll need to connect your own BetterContact account with an API key. BetterContact isn't one of Kite's built-in sources, so each request draws on your account's credits. Because of that, Kite tells you how many people it plans to send, and whether it's asking for emails, phone numbers, or both, and it starts once you confirm. ## How Kite enriches and verifies contact details with BetterContact ### Who on the shortlist needs enriching? Kite narrows the shortlist to the people worth paying for before it sends anyone to BetterContact. It reads each row of your list, whether that's a file, a Google Sheet, or records in your CRM, and picks out the name, title, company, and any email or phone number already there. Next, Kite confirms that each person still holds the role at that company, using their public profile or the company's own pages. Someone who changed jobs last month will come back with either no email or an old address that bounces, so Kite drops them before spending a credit. It also removes your current customers, your competitors, and anyone who has opted out of hearing from you. Every person who passes gets a fit score from one to five with a one-line reason, such as "Head of revenue operations at a 300-person logistics software company that's hiring two sales development reps." Finally, Kite checks what's already on each record. A person whose row already has a work email at their current company doesn't need a new search for it. The people Kite sends to BetterContact are the qualified ones who are still missing a usable email or, when you plan to call, a direct phone number. ### What does Kite send to BetterContact? Kite submits the qualified people to BetterContact as enrichment requests. For each person, it sends their first and last name, their company name and website domain, and their LinkedIn profile when it has one. More detail gives BetterContact's providers a better chance of matching the right person, especially for common names. Kite asks for emails, phone numbers, or both, depending on what the list is for. Phone numbers usually cost more credits than emails, so Kite requests them only for the people you plan to call, such as the top-scoring group for a sales team that follows up by phone. BetterContact takes up to 100 people per request, so Kite splits a longer list into several requests. Before a large run, Kite checks how many credits your BetterContact account has left and tells you if the balance won't cover the whole list. ### Reading the results Kite collects each request's results when BetterContact finishes and attaches every detail to the right person on your list. BetterContact works through its providers in the background, so a request takes a little while, and Kite checks back until the results are ready. For each person, Kite records the work email and its verification status exactly as BetterContact returned them, along with the direct phone number if you asked for one. When BetterContact found nothing, Kite marks the person as not found. It doesn't fill the gap by guessing an address from the company's email pattern, because a guessed address is exactly the kind that bounces. ### Which addresses are safe to send to? Kite uses each email's verification status to decide where the person goes next. This is the step that turns an enriched list into one you can safely send to. - **Deliverable.** These people go into the campaign. The mail server confirmed the address, so they're the core of your send. - **Catch-all, marked safe.** These go into the campaign too. BetterContact's extra checks found good reason to trust the address, even though the server accepts everything. - **Catch-all, not confirmed.** Kite holds these back from the first send and tells you how many there are. For a strong-fit person, it suggests another way in, such as a phone call when BetterContact found a number, or a later, smaller send once the main campaign has gone out cleanly. - **Not found.** These people get no email. If BetterContact found a direct phone number, Kite keeps it on the record so a rep can call. The point is to protect the campaign. One send to a list full of uncertain addresses can push the rest of your mail toward spam, while a slightly shorter list of confirmed addresses keeps your sender reputation intact for the next campaign. ### Putting the contacts to work Kite writes the finished contacts wherever your team works from, with the verification status on each one. In a connected CRM such as HubSpot, it creates or updates each contact with the new email and phone number, records the fit score and its reason, and adds a note explaining why the person was chosen. If you'd rather review the list first, Kite saves it to a connected Google Sheet with one row per person and a column for each email's status. When the list is for an email campaign, Kite carries on with the work. It researches each person's company and writes a message for each one, then sends the campaign from your team's Kite address or a connected email product once you approve it. Only the people whose addresses passed the status check are on the send list. ### What Kite reports back When the work is done, Kite posts a summary in the conversation where you asked. It says how many people on the shortlist it qualified, how many it dropped, and why. It also reports how many emails BetterContact found and how they split across deliverable, catch-all, undeliverable, and not found, how many direct phone numbers it found, and how many credits the run used. The full list comes with the summary as a table, so you can scan it without opening another tool. If you sent a campaign, Kite follows up with which messages were delivered, which failed, and who replied. Any bounces it sees are a signal about the list, and Kite marks those addresses on the record so they aren't used again. ## What the finished work contains When Kite finishes, you have a qualified shortlist where every contact detail has a source and every email has a status, saved where your team will use it. - **Contacts.** Each person has their name, title, company, LinkedIn profile, and the work email and direct phone number BetterContact found. - **Verification status.** Each email is marked with the status BetterContact gave it, such as deliverable, catch-all safe, catch-all not confirmed, or undeliverable, and people BetterContact couldn't find are marked as not found. - **Fit scores.** Each person has a score from one to five and a one-line reason for it. - **Updated records.** The contacts are written into your CRM or a Google Sheet, with a note on each CRM contact explaining why the person was chosen. - **A send list.** When the work is for a campaign, the people with safe addresses are lined up for it, and the people held back are listed separately with the reason. - **The summary.** The conversation shows who was qualified, who was dropped, how the emails split by status, the credits used, and the full table of contacts. ## Common questions ### What is contact enrichment? Contact enrichment is adding the details you're missing to a record you already have, such as a work email, a direct phone number, a job title, or a LinkedIn profile. A shortlist from an event or a web search often starts with just names and companies, and enrichment turns it into a list you can actually reach. Kite fills in the company side, such as industry, size, and recent news, from its built-in research, and uses BetterContact for the emails and phone numbers. ### Do I need my own BetterContact account? Yes, you need your own BetterContact account, because Kite connects to it with your API key and each request uses your credits. If you don't have one, Kite can still find professional emails through its built-in Apollo connection. BetterContact is worth connecting when your team already pays for it, when you want a second search across several providers for people a single source missed, or when you need direct phone numbers. ### Can BetterContact verify emails I already have? BetterContact's waterfall is built around finding emails, and it verifies each one it finds in the same pass. When a record in your CRM has an old address, Kite sends that person to BetterContact for a fresh search and compares what comes back with the address on file. If the two differ, Kite flags the record so you can decide which address to keep. This is especially useful before a win-back campaign to leads who have been quiet for a year or more, since people change jobs and old addresses stop working. ### How much does BetterContact cost? BetterContact sells credits, and a search for a phone number uses more credits than a search for an email. Check BetterContact's pricing page for current plans. Kite keeps the cost down by qualifying the list first and skipping anyone whose record already has a usable work email, so your credits go to people worth contacting. ## Related pages - **Use case:** [Build qualified B2B lead lists](/use-cases/build-b2b-lead-lists.md) - **Use case:** [Run personalized outbound email campaigns](/use-cases/outbound-email-campaigns.md) - **Use case:** [Re-engage dormant leads](/use-cases/reengage-dormant-leads.md) - **Use case:** Fill in missing contact and company details (coming soon) - **Use case:** Verify email addresses before you send (coming soon) - **Integration:** [BetterContact + Kite](/integrations/bettercontact.md)