Challenges in Acquiring Contacts from 5000 Companies: Solutions Needed

Ara D. · 2025-12-18T03:52:41.295Z

i am trying to get people from 5000 companies but I only get 1912 contacts. Why is that so? Also, I want to get more companies and contacts on the same country, how should I do it without duplicating the results? https://app.clay.com/workspaces/44452/workbooks/wb_0t719xqqxt7dzrUJrUF/tables/t_0t719zcjDgJCY3safjo/views/gv_0t719zeQujDfUManABT

Challenges in Acquiring Contacts from 5000 Companies: Solutions Needed | Clay

Clay Support
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You're getting fewer contacts because you likely have a limit per company set in your Find People search. If you set a limit of 3 people per company, you'll get 1912 contacts instead of 5000+ even though the preview shows more.
Check your search filter settings and adjust the "per company" limit to get more contacts.
To add more companies from the same country without duplicates:
• Use the "Exclude companies" feature in Find Companies - select your existing table to exclude already-found companies
• For people searches, use "Exclude people" and select your current table to avoid duplicate contacts [1]
• You can also deduplicate after import by clicking the column header and selecting "Dedupe"
Clay Support
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Is that what you were looking for?
Clay Support
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If you still need help with adjusting your search settings or avoiding duplicates, I’m here to assist. Would you like to provide more details about what you’re trying to achieve or any specific challenges you’re facing?
Ara D.
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Yes, I did limit contacts per company. But I am looking for owners, CEOs etc from those 5000 companies, I think there should be more results.
Clay Support
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Your job title keywords might be too restrictive. Try broadening them to capture more CEO/owner variations.
Use job title filters like "CEO, Owner, Founder, President" and consider the organizational level filter for C-suite roles. [1] Also increase your per-company limit - if you're only getting 1-2 people per company, many companies might not have their CEO/owner captured within that limit.
The search includes synonyms and similar titles, so "CEO" will also find "Chief Executive Officer" and translated versions.
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Did that answer your question?
Ara D.
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I did all of that. Here are the filters:
Clay Support
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Your settings look correct. The lower results likely happen because:
• Data availability: Not all companies have CEO/owner profiles in our database
• Job title variations: Some executives use titles not in your keywords (like "President," "Principal," "Managing Partner")
Try adding these titles: "President, Principal, Managing Partner, Executive Director, General Manager"
Also consider switching from "exact" to regular job title matching - this captures more title variations and synonyms automatically. [1]
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Was this helpful?
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If you still need help refining your search or understanding the results, I’m here to assist. Would you like to share more about your goals or any other challenges you’re facing with this search?
Ara D.
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why can't i stop this? Now I'm out of credits, shouldn't be enriching the companies and stop button is greyed out:
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That's frustrating—when you hit your credit limit, all processes automatically stop and the stop button becomes inactive. [1]
The greyed-out stop button means the enrichment has already been halted due to credit exhaustion. Even though it shows 64% completed, no more credits are being consumed.
To continue, you'll need to purchase credit top-ups through Workspace Settings > Plans and Billing > Purchase Credits. [2]
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Is that what you were looking for?
Ara D.
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now I lost 4652 credits
Clay Support
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That's frustrating. When processes stop mid-way due to credit limits, requests already sent still consume credits even though the enrichment was halted. [1]
The 4,652 credits were used for the rows that were processed before hitting your limit. This is expected behavior—credits are consumed as each request is made, not when the entire process completes. [2]
To prevent this in the future, test enrichments on small batches first and monitor your credit balance closely before running large processes.

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