How to Use the Web Element Extractor

Step 1: Add your web pages and choose what to extract

1. Tell the Phantom which pages to process with your URL(s):
   • Single web page → Paste the URL directly in the setup.
   • Multiple web pages → Paste a Google Sheet URL with one page per row in column A (make sure it's shared to “Anyone with the link”).

2. Choose what to extract with CSS selectors:

   The Phantom needs to know which parts of the page you want to collect. To do this, you’ll use something called a CSS selector. Think of it as the “address” of an element on the page.

   Here’s how to find them:

   1. Open the web page in your browser.
   2. Right-click the element you want (e.g. the product name).
   3. Select Inspect to open the developer tools.
   4. Hover over the code until the right element is highlighted on the page.
   5. Copy the CSS selector shown, and paste it into the Phantom setup.

If your elements don’t appear right away when the Phantom runs, you can increase the “Number of milliseconds to wait for the selector to appear” setting to 10,000 ms (10 seconds).
→ This gives the page more time to load dynamic content before extraction starts.

Good to know about selectors

• CSS selectors are the most precise way to tell the Phantom which part of a page to extract.
• You can add more than one selector if you want to capture multiple things (for example, both the product name and the price).
• Always add a label so your results file is easy to read.
  • Example:
    • Selector: .product-title → Label: Product Name
    • Selector: .price → Label: Price

The Phantom will collect all instances of the elements you’ve defined on every page in your input list.

Step 2: Select launch frequency

Choose how often the Phantom should run:

1. Launch manually: Start the Phantom yourself whenever you need.
2. Launch once at a specific time: schedule a one-time run at a set date and time.
3. Launch repeatedly: schedule regular runs (e.g. once per day, several times during working hours).
4. Launch after another Phantom: chain automations together so this Phantom starts right after another finishes.
5. Advanced scheduling: customize the exact minutes, hours, days, or months when the Phantom should run.

→ For a complete walkthrough of scheduling options, see our guide to scheduling Phantoms automatically.

Step 3 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Phantom runs, but by default they’re already optimized for most use cases.

We recommend leaving them as they are unless a guide specifically instructs you to change something.

→ For a detailed overview of all advanced options (like execution limits, retries, email notifications, proxies, webhooks, and file management), see our Advanced settings guide.

Launch and results

When you’re ready:

1. Click Launch to start your Phantom.
2. Once finished, your extracted data will appear in the Results tab.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file.

→ To learn how to export your data to Google Sheets, integrate with other tools, or reuse it in more automations, check our Access and Export your Phantom Results guide.

Export and input limits on the Free plan
If you’re on the Free plan or Free trial, some features are limited:
- CSV exports include only the first 10 rows of results.
- CSV download links (for dynamic viewing in Google Sheets or integrations) are not available.
- JSON exports are not available.
- CSV upload as an input method is not supported.
To unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

What you give (Input) and What you get (Output)

This section gives you a detailed breakdown of everything you need to provide to run this Phantom, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Using a private spreadsheet (make sure it’s set to “Anyone with the link”).
• Selectors not working: Double-check you copied the right CSS selector. Try again with another part of the element if needed.
• No data returned: Add a short delay before scraping so dynamic content loads.

If you run into issues

• Check how to troubleshoot your phantom using Logs.
• Browse the Fix Issues & Troubleshoot Errors section for solutions to common problems.
• Review our Automation Rate Limits by Platform guide.
• Check our Best Practices for Social Media Automation guide.

Suggested automations

• Data Scraping Crawler → Crawl multiple pages to generate input URLs, then pass them to the Web Element Extractor Phantom.
• AI Advanced Enricher → Summarize, classify, or analyze the elements you’ve extracted.