What BetterContact is and how Kite uses it
BetterContact is a contact-finding tool for B2B sales and marketing. You give it a person's name and company, and it finds their work email address and direct phone number. It does this through what's called waterfall enrichment. It asks one data provider for the person's details, and if that provider comes up empty, it moves on to the next one until it finds a match. Several sources together cover more people than any one of them does alone.
An AI marketer uses BetterContact to turn a list of names into a list it can actually reach. Kite does that with your connected account. It decides who belongs on the list, sends those people to BetterContact, and then takes the next step with what comes back, whether that's updating your CRM or running the outreach itself.
Marketing jobs Kite can do with BetterContact
Kite uses BetterContact for two jobs: finding contact details for people you've already chosen, and finding new people worth contacting. The second job usually feeds the first, and both end with the contacts in use.
Find work emails and phone numbers for your prospects
Kite fills in the missing contact details on a prospect list by sending those people to BetterContact. Say you're back from a trade show with a spreadsheet of 140 attendees, and all it has is names, titles, and company names. Share the file in Slack and ask Kite to get it ready for follow-up. Kite reads the list, sets aside current customers and anyone who doesn't match the buyers you sell to, and sends the rest to BetterContact.
BetterContact works through its providers in the background. When the request finishes, Kite collects the results: a work email and a direct phone number for each person BetterContact could find. Kite then tells you in Slack how many people it can now reach by email and how many by phone.
The same job works on a list Kite built itself. Kite finds prospects with Apollo, which comes built into Kite, and a few of them come back without a work email. Kite can send just those people to BetterContact, so the gaps get a second search across BetterContact's providers.
Search for new prospects with Lead Finder
Kite can use BetterContact's Lead Finder to look for new people who fit your ideal customer profile. It builds the search from what it already knows about your business. If you sell payroll software to restaurant groups, for example, Kite might look for controllers, heads of finance, and operations directors at companies like the ones you already sell to, and it sets the job titles, departments, and seniority levels to match.
When the search finishes, Kite reads the people it found. Each result includes the person's name, job title, LinkedIn profile, and contact information, along with details about their company. Kite scores each person from one to five against your ideal customer profile and explains the score, so you can see why one controller made the top of the list and another landed further down. It then gets work emails and phone numbers for the strongest matches.
Put the new contact details to work
Kite takes the finished list wherever your team needs it. Once BetterContact has filled in the contact details, the people on it can go straight into your CRM, a spreadsheet, or a campaign.
- Your CRM. Kite creates or updates the contacts in a connected CRM such as HubSpot or Attio, with the new email and phone number on each record and a note on why the person fits.
- A spreadsheet. Kite saves the finished list to a connected Google Sheet, one row per person, with their role, company, email, phone number, and score.
- An email campaign. Kite researches each person's company, writes a message for each one, and sends the campaign from your team's Kite address or a connected email product once you approve it. It then reports which messages were delivered, which failed, and who replied.
Phone numbers go to your team. Kite puts them on the CRM record or in the spreadsheet so a rep can call the people who are worth a conversation.
What Kite reads and changes in BetterContact
Kite reads results from BetterContact and starts new requests there. The contact details it finds flow out to your other tools.
Information Kite can read
- Enrichment resultsFor each person Kite sent, BetterContact returns the work email and direct phone number it found, along with the status of the request so Kite knows when the results are ready.
- Lead Finder resultsFor each person a search turns up, BetterContact returns their name, job title, LinkedIn profile, contact information, and company details. Kite uses these to score and rank the prospects.
- Your credit balanceKite checks how many credits your BetterContact account has left. Before a large run, that tells Kite whether the account covers the whole list, and it lets you know in Slack if it doesn't.
Information Kite can create or change
- Enrichment requestsKite submits the people on your list to BetterContact to find their work emails and direct phone numbers.
- Lead Finder searchesKite creates a new search with the people and company criteria it chose for your campaign.
How Kite connects to BetterContact
Add an API key for your BetterContact account. Kite uses the access granted to that key. BetterContact isn't one of Kite's built-in sources, so you'll need your own account, and each enrichment draws on its credits.
When a task first needs BetterContact, Kite sends you a link in Slack to connect it. From there, you can start with the result you want, such as "find emails and phone numbers for everyone on this event list and add the good fits to HubSpot." Kite proposes who belongs on the list and where the results will go, and it starts once you confirm.
How-to guides using BetterContact
- How to enrich Apollo prospects with BetterContact Coming soon Kite finds prospects with Apollo, then sends the people who are missing a work email or phone number to BetterContact for a second search before it adds the finished list to your CRM.
- How to enrich and verify contact details with BetterContact Coming soon Kite takes a list you already have, fills in the work emails and phone numbers BetterContact can find, and keeps the addresses that are safe to send to before the campaign goes out.
Where BetterContact fits in Kite's marketing work
BetterContact supplies contact details for the prospects Kite has already qualified. Kite decides which companies and people belong on the list and scores them, and BetterContact provides the emails and phone numbers that make the list usable for outreach.
This is BetterContact's core job. When you have hundreds of names and companies and need a work email for each one, Kite runs the whole list through BetterContact and returns it with the addresses filled in.
BetterContact fills in the phone numbers and emails on records that are missing them. Kite fills in the company side, such as industry, size, and recent news, from its built-in research.
BetterContact reports how confident it is in each email it returns, such as whether the address is deliverable or belongs to a domain that accepts every address. Kite uses that status to decide which addresses go into the campaign and which ones it sets aside.
Common questions
Do I need BetterContact if Kite already includes Apollo and Clay?
No. Kite finds work emails with its built-in sources without any extra account. Connecting BetterContact makes sense when your team already pays for it, when you want a second search for the prospects the built-in sources didn't find, or when you want direct phone numbers alongside the emails.
Do I need Zapier, Make, or webhooks to connect BetterContact to Kite?
No. Kite works with BetterContact directly through your API key. It submits the requests, waits for BetterContact to finish, and collects the results itself, so there's nothing to set up between the two products.