Context

Sometimes you may want to prospect specific companies that were initially disqualified by your automated plays, or manually target specific companies for prospecting. You need a way to create a targeted audience for these companies and run prospecting plays against them.

Answer

To manually prospect specific companies, you'll need to create a custom audience and then run a play against that audience. Here's how:

1. Go to the audience builder

2. Create a new audience

3. Add a filter using one of these options:

   • For a single company: Set filter to Domain is equal to company-domain.com

   • For multiple companies: Set filter to Domain is one of and enter multiple domains

4. Save your audience

5. Create a new play targeting this audience

6. Run your play to begin prospecting these companies

Alternative Method: CSV Upload

For larger lists of companies or when you have company data in a spreadsheet, you can create an audience by uploading a CSV file:

1. Prepare your CSV file with these exact headers: "Company Name" and "Domain" (case-sensitive)

   • Use bare domains only (e.g., acme.com), not full URLs

   • Remove http://, https://, www., and any paths or query strings

   • Ensure values are plain text, not hyperlink-formatted

   • Each domain should appear only once; duplicate domains will be merged

2. Go to the Lists section in your dashboard

3. Click Upload CSV to create a new list

4. Map your CSV columns to the corresponding Unify fields

5. Quick method: Click Create Play directly from your uploaded list to automatically create both an audience and play in one step

6. Alternative method: To create just the audience without a play, create a new audience:

   • Click Add condition (not the quick filters)

   • Select Exists in List

   • Choose your uploaded list from the dropdown

7. Create a new audience with the filter: Record matches criteria > select your uploaded list

8. Save your audience and create a play targeting this audience

Note: CSV processing may take several minutes. Your uploaded companies will appear in Lists, not directly as an audience. If your list appears empty initially, wait 5-10 minutes and refresh the page. The maximum file size is 25,000 rows per upload.

After creating your audience from the uploaded list, you can optionally add an AI qualification action in your play to validate that uploaded companies meet specific criteria before prospecting.

Understanding List vs. Play Trigger Count Discrepancies When you create a play targeting your uploaded list, you may notice the play trigger preview shows fewer people than your original CSV. This is expected behavior caused by several factors: global exclusions filtering out contacts who meet exclusion criteria, enrollment protections preventing contacts who are opted out or already in active sequences, daily enrollment caps limiting how many contacts can be added at once, and any additional filters applied in your audience or trigger beyond just “exists in list.” To diagnose which factor is reducing your count, check the play’s Metrics tab for “Not Enrolled” reasons, temporarily toggle off exclusions in your audience settings to see if the count increases, and verify your trigger uses only “exists in list” without additional filtering criteria.

This CSV upload method is particularly useful when you have a large list of specific companies to prospect.

Additional CSV Upload Troubleshooting for Count Discrepancies

Why Your Play May Not Fire for All Uploaded Companies

When using an audience created from your uploaded list as a play trigger, the play will only fire the first time each company meets the audience criteria. If companies from your CSV already existed in Unify and previously met the audience conditions, they won't trigger the play again on subsequent uploads. This can make it appear that only a few companies from your upload are being processed when in fact the others have already been processed previously.

People Upload Requirements and Deduplication

For people uploads specifically:

• Ensure each row includes both an email address and first name—rows missing these required fields won't be imported.

• Duplicate email addresses are removed during processing—only one record per email is kept, which can significantly reduce your final count if the same contacts appear multiple times in your CSV.

Personal Email Domain Handling

If uploading people with personal email domains (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.), add a “Company Domain” column to your CSV with the actual company domain (e.g., for a Gmail address, use google.com as the Company Domain) to ensure proper company association.

Exclusions Impact on Upload Counts

Global exclusions can automatically filter out uploaded records during processing. Exclusions for customers, personal email domains, or other criteria can reduce your list size without obvious indication. Review your exclusion settings or temporarily toggle them off to compare counts and identify if exclusions are affecting your uploads.

1. Go to the audience builder

2. Create a new audience

3. Add a filter using one of these options:

   • For a single company: Set filter to Domain is equal to company-domain.com

   • For multiple companies: Set filter to Domain is one of and enter multiple domains

4. Save your audience

5. Create a new play targeting this audience

6. Run your play to begin prospecting these companies

These methods allow you to specifically target companies that you want to prospect, regardless of their previous qualification status.

Understanding Company-to-People Relationships in Prospecting

When prospecting specific companies, it's crucial to understand how companies and people relate in Unify to structure your plays correctly:

• Companies and people are distinct record types with a structured relationship

• Companies can have multiple associated people (prospects)

• Your trigger selection should match your audience type for optimal data flow

Structuring Your Play for Company Prospecting

After creating your company audience, structure your play to properly convert company data into actionable prospect outreach:

For company-focused prospecting:

1. Select "companies" in the trigger node

2. Build your if/else logic in the company conditions section

3. Use a "Prospect for People" action to find relevant people at those companies

4. Add a "Loop" action to process each person individually

5. Inside the loop, add person-level actions like sequence enrollment

For person-focused prospecting:

1. Select "people" in the trigger node

2. Build your if/else logic in the person conditions section

3. Access company-level fields through person conditions + company conditions

Using AI Qualification to Validate Uploaded Companies

When manually prospecting companies via CSV upload or domain filtering, you may want to validate that companies meet specific criteria before prospecting. Use AI qualification actions to automatically verify company characteristics:

1. After your trigger node (which outputs companies from your list/audience), add an "AI Qualification" action

2. Select a Company-type agent that matches your validation criteria (e.g., "Is this company a PI law firm?")

3. Configure which agent answers are required for qualification (e.g., "Is this company a personal injury law firm? = True")

4. Branch on the qualification result - only companies marked as "Qualified = true" proceed to prospecting

5. Connect your "Prospect for People" action to the Qualified branch

This ensures you only prospect companies that meet your specific criteria, even if your uploaded CSV contains companies that don't match.

Understanding Agent Results Storage and Credit Usage

When an AI Agent evaluates a company, its answer is stored as a field on that company's record in Unify. You can then build new audiences that filter on these Agent outputs. For example, if your Agent categorizes companies as “B2C SaaS,” “low‑ACV B2B SaaS,” or “Other,” you can create an audience that only includes companies where the Agent answered “B2C SaaS.” This allows you to progressively refine your target list—first upload all companies, then use Agents to categorize them, then build filtered audiences from those categorizations.

Agent research uses separate credits from contact enrichment. When you see an alert estimating credit usage (e.g., “1453 credits”), this reflects how many company records will be researched by the Agent. This is different from the 2/4‑credit rules for email/phone enrichment, which only apply when finding new contacts. Agents scrape company websites and other data sources to determine characteristics like whether a company is B2C SaaS or B2B SaaS. Monitor your total Agent usage under Settings > Organization > Usage.

The workflow for filtering uploaded companies using AI Agents involves: 1) upload your complete company list via CSV; 2) run AI Agents to categorize or evaluate companies based on your criteria; 3) build new audiences that filter on the Agent results stored on company records; 4) create plays targeting these refined audiences for prospecting.

Additional Filtering Options

Beyond domain filtering, you can create more targeted company audiences:

• Filter by record owner: Set filter to Owner is equal to and select your name from the dropdown to prospect only companies assigned to you

• Combine multiple filters: Use domain filters alongside owner filters for highly specific targeting

These advanced filtering and play structure techniques ensure your manual prospecting efforts are both technically sound and strategically focused.

Important Considerations for Large Companies

When prospecting large companies (like Apple, Amazon, or Disney), they may have hundreds or thousands of people with generic titles like “Manager.” Use more specific job titles in your audience filters, set reasonable limits on the number of prospects (typically 4‑6 people per company), and consider combining domain filters with role or seniority criteria to keep results focused.

• Use more specific job titles in your audience filters

• Set reasonable limits on the number of prospects (typically 4‑6 per company)

• Combine domain filters with specific role or seniority criteria

Troubleshooting: No Prospects Found

If your play returns "None found" or fewer prospects than expected after targeting specific companies:

1. Check the Prospect action in Logs - Open the play run in Logs to see the exact inputs/outputs and any messages explaining why prospects weren't found

2. Review your persona configuration:

   • Ensure title keywords match how the target companies list roles (e.g., "Sustainability Manager" vs "ESG Lead")

   • Add title variations to your personas if needed - aim for 60+ titles per persona to cover reasonable variations

   • Verify the "Max per company" setting and persona order, as the system fills from the first persona before trying others

3. Verify the company domain - Confirm the correct domain is on the company record, as an incorrect domain will prevent prospecting

4. Consider data coverage limitations - Some companies may have limited data provider coverage or use non-standard titles that aren't in our databases

Handling Exclusions for Manual Prospecting

When manually prospecting specific companies, you may find that people from those companies aren't being added to your sequences due to exclusion rules (such as companies with open opportunities). If your targeted audience appears empty or people aren't enrolling in sequences, follow these steps:

1. Check global exclusions:

   • Go to your exclusions settings

   • Toggle off “unenroll from sequences” to prevent automatic removal

   • Wait approximately 30 minutes for exclusion updates to process

2. Disable audience-level exclusions:

   • In your audience settings, toggle off exclusions for this specific audience

3. Re‑enroll in sequence:

   • After exclusions are updated, enroll your audience in the desired sequence

4. Check re‑enrollment wait periods:

   • If contacts still aren't enrolling, they may have been recently enrolled in another sequence

   • Go to Settings > Sequences > scroll to Re‑enrollment Rules

   • Review the current wait period (e.g., 100 days) and adjust to a shorter duration if needed to allow earlier re‑enrollment

Troubleshooting Active Sequence Enrollment Conflicts

When manually prospecting specific companies, you may find that prospects are being found but not enrolling in sequences due to active enrollment conflicts. Unify only allows one active sequence enrollment per person at a time.

Diagnosing Active Sequence Conflicts

• Check for active sequence enrollments: if contacts aren't enrolling after adjusting wait periods and exclusions, they may be currently active in another sequence.

• Go to Explore > People, search for the contact, and open their profile to see their active sequence enrollment.

• Check the Sequences tab in their profile to view current enrollment status.

Resolving Enrollment Conflicts

• In the person's profile, go to the Sequences tab and manually unenroll them from their current sequence.

• Once unenrolled, re‑trigger the play or enroll them directly into your desired sequence.

• This manual process is necessary when you need to prioritize your manual prospecting sequence over automated sequences.

Using Play Logs to Identify Enrollment Blockers

• Open the play run in Logs to see if prospects were found but blocked from enrolling.

• Look for messages indicating active sequence enrollment in another sequence.

• This helps distinguish between “no prospects found” and “prospects found but blocked from enrolling”.

Important: Be cautious when modifying exclusions as they can have downstream effects. Companies that convert to opportunities while in a sequence may not be automatically removed if exclusions are disabled.

Note: Sequence‑level exclusions and one‑off bypass options are currently in development to make this process easier.

Note: Companies can run through plays multiple times (especially if manually triggered), but this doesn't guarantee new prospects will be found if none match your personas.

Viewing Contact Details for Prospected People

After your play has run and found prospects at your target companies, you can view their contact information:

1. Open your Play and navigate to the Metrics tab

2. In the results table, click on a person's name to open their profile

3. View their verified email address and other contact details displayed under their name