Lead Generation

Sources & runs

Sources are where a campaign looks. Lead Generation → Sources → ✚ Add a source offers six kinds; three of them collect leads.

Kinds that collect leads

Website	A domain or a URL. A run reads that page, then the pages it links to on the same site. Path scope narrows which links it follows, such as `/team/* /people/*`, separated by spaces.
Upload a list	Web addresses, one per line, up to 2,000. A run reads each one. A line that is not an address, such as an organisation's name, is not read: Test counts those lines, and a list with no addresses at all cannot be saved.
Ask the strategist	Finds new places to look from your brief. It needs a web search connection. See below.

Test on the form shows what a source would do before you save it: for a website, the page's title, how much readable text it has, whether the site's robots.txt allows it, and the first links it would follow.

Kinds that do not collect yet

Search strategy and Integration can be saved and tested, but every run skips them. Signed-in site cannot be added. Dry run lists anything that will be skipped, with the reason.

The same goes for Connections: a run uses only Web search (Serper) and Web search (Firecrawl), through Ask the strategist. The rest of the catalog can be connected and picked in an Integration source, but no run reads those sources, with or without a key.

Ask the strategist

The strategist reads your brief, searches the web for pages that list the people you want, and opens each candidate to check it names at least two of them. Only pages that pass are added, as Website sources marked ✦ strategist with the reason each was kept.

Open Connections and connect Web search (Serper) or Web search (Firecrawl) with your API key for that service. The key is kept in a secure vault and cannot be shown again; to change it, click Replace key.
On Sources, click ✦ Ask the strategist. It asks for up to 5 new sources and shows the estimated cost, usually a few cents.
When it finishes, the sources it found are in the list, switched on. Nothing is read until you run the campaign.

To have it look on every run instead, add Ask the strategist as a source and choose how many proposals it may make (1 to 20). The run reads what it adds straight away.

Limits

Settings → Limits holds the ceilings for the whole campaign. A source can be given lower limits of its own, never higher ones.

Budget per run (USD)	$2.00 unless you change it, up to $100.00. A run stops when it reaches this, and a run whose estimate is higher does not start.
Max sources	8 active sources, up to 40.
Max leads per run	200, up to 2,000.
Max pages per run	400, up to 4,000.

Running

On Overview, click Dry run for the list of what would be read, what would be skipped and why, and the estimated cost.
Click ▶ Run now and confirm.
Watch the progress: pages read, new leads, and what each page returned. Stop ends the run and keeps everything collected so far.

When it ends, the run says how many new leads it found and what it cost.

Keep the page open while a run works. The page drives the run, says so while it runs, and asks before you close it. If you leave anyway, the run stops soon after and waits; open the campaign's Overview again and it carries on from where it stopped. A run left waiting for 10 minutes is marked Failed when the next run starts. Campaigns run only when you click ▶ Run now, and every run reads every active source: nothing runs on a schedule.

Reading the Runs table

Each run shows when it started, who started it, its status, how many sources and pages it read, the new leads and duplicates, how many were scored, and its cost. Under each run is every source it read, with its page count, new leads and its latest notes: what each page returned, or why it was skipped.

Succeeded	Every source was read and every lead scored.
Partial	Something failed, or some leads could not be scored. The run says why.
Canceled	You clicked Stop. Everything collected is kept.
Failed	It could not continue, or it was left with no progress for 10 minutes.

A run found nothing? Read the notes under its sources before changing anything. They say what each page returned: blocked by the site, disallowed by robots.txt, or a page that names nobody.

Signed in to VeraGen? Press Guide me on any screen for a walkthrough, or ask Odin.