AI Is Eating Cold Email List Building And Thats a Good Thing

AI Is Eating Cold Email List Building And Thats a Good Thing

If you are still building lead lists like its 2019 with Apollo filters and stale CSV downloads you are doing it wrong

Written by

Hashir Khurram

Published on

October 3, 2025

13

min

The old way?

  • Filter by job title on Apollo

  • Add some tech stack filters

  • Export the list

  • Spend hours cleaning it up

Everyones doing this, Thats why reply rates are falling and your inboxes feel dead

But somethings changed: AI first list building is here and its a cheat code if you know how to use it

How It Works (the Smart Way)

Instead of guessing which people to reach, You start with logic about companies

Example prompts:

  • “Find all DTC brands using Shopify + Klaviyo + Recharge”

  • “Find SaaS companies using HubSpot + Stripe with 10 to 50 employees”

  • “Find AI startups in California that raised Series A in the last 12 months”

From there, the flow is simple:

  • Use Scrapeamax to scrape matching companies from databases like BuiltWith, Crunchbase, GMB, Clutch, etc

  • Clean, dedupe and structure that data

  • Use Clay, Smartlead or another enrichment tool to find the right contacts (verified emails, LinkedIn, job titles)

  • Validate emails with MillionVerifier or ZeroBounce

  • Load them into your cold email engine and go

Why It Works Better

  • You get fresh, relevant data

  • You avoid saturated lists

  • You skip expensive, limited tools like Apollo

  • You start with context, not guesses

This method flips the list building game on its head: Start with the right companies, find the right people inside them

Real Campaigns Built with This:

Here are a few live campaigns we have run with Scrapeamaxs AI workflows:

  • 478 roofers in Texas with 100+ reviews (scraped from Google Maps)

  • 213 SaaS companies using Stripe + Calendly (BuiltWith + Crunchbase)

  • 120 Series A startups hiring SDRs (Crunchbase + LinkedIn)

All scraped, All enriched, All inbox ready

No per row pricing, No scraping limits, No noise

Your Cold Email Strategy Deserves Better Lists

Cold email is not about sending more, Its about sending smarter

And it all starts with a good list

Thats exactly what Scrapeamax was built for:

  • You drop the prompt (tech stack, niche, location, revenue, reviews)

  • We return a verified company list within 90 to 180 minutes

  • You own the data, No monthly caps or upsells

Want to test it?

We will give you the first list free no strings

- Book a Call + Get Slack Access

https://calendly.com/hashir-khurram/scrapeamax-unlimited-lead-lists

Scrape smarter, Build faster, Close more

— Team Scrapeamax

Hashir Khurram

🏆 Winner SaaS Bootstrapper of the year 2024 Award by Tekpon | Growing Expandi towards $10M ARR | Prioritizing health -9% body fat year-round 🏋️‍♂️ | Sharing Real Stories in Public


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You’ve made it all the way down here, take the final step -