Finding Emails With the Apollo.io Chrome Extension
How easy is it? How good is the data? Here's our in-depth review of the Apollo.io Chrome extension, complete with video benchmarking.
Matthew McQuinn· · Updated
Apollo.io’s Chrome Extension has a 5 star rating from more than 250 reviews on the chrome web store.
The Apollo.io Chrome Store page
For convenience, you can download the extension here.
Once you’ve installed the extension and signed in, you can pin it to your menu in the top right corner.
Heads up! If you've tried Apollo and it doesn't quite cut the mustard, check out our comprehensive list of alternatives to Apollo.io.
The first feature is simply a shortcut to the Apollo dashboard that allows you to begin a manual search as seen in the picture below
Initiating a search using the Apollo Chrome Extension
Click the “Search in Apollo” link takes you here:
The extension opens up Apollo.io
The next feature on the extension’s drop down menu is “Show Company Information” as seen in the image below.
Showing company information using the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
Once selected you will be provided with a generous overview of the company’s information that includes a summary, employee headcount, company type, subsidiaries, annual revenue, stock ticker symbol, and their HQ location when available.
The company information view within the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
Within this selection there is a wealth of information available. Let’s go over to the “Insights” tab that the extension offers us. Within this we can find detailed information around the technologies used, hiring patterns, and funding history.
The insights view within the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
The next tab we see is the employees section. If you select one of the names that appear you can then access any of their available contact information (as long as you’re within your account limits for your subscription.
View company employees via the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
Here you have the ability to add them to a sequence or send them an email. This is very convenient and practical for sales prospecting on the go.
Create a sequence or send an email via the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
The next tab is the activities tab which allows you to make notes on the fly, input the results of your cold call, or add an action to take in the future for this prospect.
Make notes or schedule actions
Lastly, within the company information section we have the “more” tab. This gives you shortcuts to the Apollo dashboard, their Help Center as well as a few other practical shortcuts.
More tools within the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
The next feature on the drop down menu is the “LinkedIn Prospector”. This feature didn’t do what I was expecting. I assumed it would pull down a relevant search query in LinkedIn. In this case, it’s a shortcut to begin your own manual search within LinkedIn as seen below.
Prospecting on LinkedIn via the Apollo.io Chrome extension.
Next up we have “Email tracking for Gmail”.
Apollo provides email tracking for Gmail.
This then takes us to our Gmail Account. You need to Click the Apollo logo in the top right corner and follow the prompts to connect your account.
Connect your Gmail account to Apollo.io
In our case, it led us to a 404 page, but it did successfully connect to our Gmail account after following the prompts.
Slight hiccup, but it still works!
When you open a new window for Gmail you can click the Apollo logo and now see the tracking options that have been installed successfully. We did not explore these any further as they seemed relatively self explanatory.
Your Gmail account is now connected with Apollo.io.
The remaining two options are integrations and permissions settings which we don’t feel are necessary to cover in this article, but are noted here for you in the image below.
While the extension itself has great ratings, its overall effectiveness comes into question when searching through online reviews.
Trustpilot depicts a pretty bad picture. 94% of reviewers gave apollo.io a 1-star rating. Why is this the case? The Apollo Chrome Extension is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Let’s dive deeper into it.
Apollo.io's Trustpilot page
As founders of a data company that has established its reputation on building the best cold email software in the industry, we felt compelled to do more research on this behemoth in the marketplace. We’ve included a brief and honest apollo.io review for you, followed by actionable recommendations.
Without hesitation, Apollo has done extremely well in making themselves known, and providing a great user experience.
What was discovered after a live test and trial with Apollo.io is that while it was a joy to use the interface, the data was very hit or miss.
When I look for business owner contacts, I’m looking for very specific data. This isn’t usually an Inc.5000 company. I’m talking about finding niche B2B contact information that is so specific it hurts.
Just how specific are we talking about? Let’s try this:
Plumbing business owners in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
We put this exact criteria to the test. The other providers we tried this with were some of the most popular B2B data providers including:
The results were somewhat surprising. We recorded a live video of this test to reduce any possible bias.
Our live apollo.io review demonstrated a major gap in the platform. We were not able to find any actionable data in a city where Coldlytics found 21 email contacts for matching business owners.
Apollo.io is a fantastic resource for marketing data on a budget. But as with anything in life, you get what you pay for.
Spending less on marketing data is like raising your kids low-nutrition value foods. Imagine seeing that child grow up deficient and lacking key developmental areas.
**I’ll let you in on a little secret, that’s exactly what you’re doing to your sales team. Malnourishing them.**
You want to find fresh, quality information that empowers your sales development team.
Some people lean towards databases for this reason. The data has been put together intentionally at some point in time to provide to people just like you.
The problem with databases is that you’re using rubber bullets instead of armor piercing rounds. Sales is a battlefield. Everyone is fighting to be the provider of your service. They’ve been doing it longer, and will continue to fight to claim as much market share as they can.
Using a database is like speed-dating for business. Or a game of hungry hippos until there’s no more to feed on.
It’s not all bad news. Some of you have discovered the power of scraping data and curating your own lists.
If you’re on a budget (and your time is worth less than minimum wage because you’re in start up mode – and that’s perfectly fine, we all start at 0), then this is exactly what you need to do. Scrape data, and clean it and validate it to ensure it’s accurate.
We’ve talked a lot in this article about cheap alternatives and what you should do starting out, or perhaps what not to do when starting out, but now I’m going to talk directly to you.
**Marketing Agencies, and established companies using outbound marketing. This is for you.**
We did a comparison study to demonstrate what it’s actually costing you to use cheap alternatives like D7 Lead Finder.
Watch this video to see what the true cost of D7 Lead Finder is when you have an AE or SDR utilizing the platform. Don’t skip this, you’re leaving money on the table.
You’re making more than $10K/month per employee. You can afford to do better.
But what does better look like?
Better looks like this:
- Fresh lists that no one else is already using
- Empowering team members with sales tools that give them an edge
- Sales enablement tools that are powerful enough to crush monthly targets
- Sales engagement platforms that save your employees time (time that costs you $$$)
Actionable Takeaways:
- Value your time, and spend it accordingly. Stop giving your sales engine water down gas when it needs a high-octane performance fuel.
- An apollo.io chrome extension is probably a distraction, not a solution.
- Find and invest in sales enablement tools that are built for meeting your goals.
Money Saving Tip for Agencies and SMBs:
Don’t overlook customer service. Your team will need help and you will either spend more time (money) internally helping them overcome problems OR you can take advantage of tools like Coldlytics that have live support 7 days a week.