The LeadsFriday dashboard works well when you’re submitting exports manually. But if your workflow creates dozens or hundreds of requests, doing the same thing by hand gets old quickly. That’s where the API becomes useful. Instead of opening LeadsFriday, choosing a scraper, pasting your search, and submitting it manually, your own application can send supported requests programmatically.
When to use the API
You don’t need an API for every LeadsFriday workflow.
If you run a couple of exports each month, the dashboard may be all you need.
The API becomes more useful when LeadsFriday is part of a larger process.
For example, you might want to:
- Submit recurring exports from an internal tool
- Connect LeadsFriday to your lead generation workflow
- Process lists for multiple clients
- Trigger enrichment from your own application
- Send data from a CRM into an enrichment process
- Build LeadsFriday into an internal sales or data system
What you need before submitting
The point is to remove repetitive manual steps.
Before sending your first API request, make sure you have:
An active LeadsFriday account - API requests need to belong to an account.
An API key - This authenticates the request.
Enough credits - API usage draws from your LeadsFriday balance based on the tool you’re using.
The required input - This depends on the scraper or enrichment service.
For a scraping request, that might include a supported search URL.
For enrichment, it may be a list of records or fields required by that particular endpoint.
Check the documentation for the tool you’re using before building the request.
Choose the right tool
Different LeadsFriday tools do different jobs.
An Apollo people export isn’t the same as an Apollo company export. Email enrichment isn’t the same as phone enrichment.
Make sure your integration is calling the correct service for the data you want.
This sounds obvious, but it’s worth checking before you automate thousands of requests.
Start with one known input that you’ve already tested manually if possible.
That gives you something to compare your API result against.
Send your export request
Build your request using the endpoint and fields shown in the LeadsFriday API documentation.
Include your authentication and the required parameters for the tool.
When LeadsFriday accepts the request, your application should receive information that lets you identify and track it.
Store that identifier.
You’ll need it later if your workflow checks the status of the request or connects a completed result back to the original order in your system.
What happens after submission
A successful API submission doesn’t necessarily mean the entire export is already finished.
Large scraping and enrichment requests take time to process.
Think of the API submission as placing the order.
LeadsFriday accepts the request, processes it on our infrastructure, and makes the result available when the work is complete.
Your application doesn’t need to keep a browser open while any of this happens.
Check the request status
Your integration needs a way to know when the export has finished.
Depending on the workflow you’re building, you can use the supported status functionality or webhooks to handle completion.
For simple integrations, checking the request status may be enough.
For more automated systems, webhooks are usually cleaner because your application can receive an event when the result is ready instead of repeatedly checking.
Handle errors before retrying
Don’t automatically retry every failed request forever.
First look at why it failed.
A request may contain an invalid input, use the wrong format, have insufficient credits, or encounter another issue that won’t be fixed by sending the exact same request again.
Your integration should record errors so you can understand what happened.
If the problem isn’t clear, contact LeadsFriday support with the request details.
Start small before scaling
Before submitting 100,000 requests through a new integration, test the full workflow with a small amount of data.
Confirm that:
- 1 - Authentication works
- 2 - The correct service receives the request
- 3 - You can track its status
- 4 - The completed data looks right
- 5 - Your system handles failures properly
Scale once it works
Once the full loop works, scale it.
Automate the workflow after you’ve proved it works manually - not before.