How to Choose the Right Automation for your Goals

Sophie
Sophie This badge shows you’re hearing straight from the source! Team members are here to share insider tips, answer questions, and guide you through PhantomBuster with expert knowledge. They’re dedicated to helping you succeed and making sure your automation journey feels easy and exciting. PhantomBuster Official
  • Updated

To choose the right PhantomBuster automation, start with your goal: extract leads from platforms like LinkedIn or Google Maps, enrich existing data with emails or job titles, or engage contacts with connection requests and messages. Use the Solutions page in your workspace to filter automations by platform and strategy, preview what data each one needs and produces, and launch it directly. This guide walks you through the process step by step.

Start with your goal

The fastest way to choose an automation is to start with what you're trying to achieve.

PhantomBuster automations are designed to help with three core goals:

  • Extract: Find and collect leads from platforms like LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, or Google Maps
    → Example: “I want to collect LinkedIn profiles from a search result”
    → Example: “I want to get a list of companies from Google Maps”
     
  • Enrich: Add missing information like emails, job titles, or company details
    → Example: “I have a list of LinkedIn profiles and want to find their email addresses”
    → Example: “I want to use AI to generate a summary of each lead’s profile”
     
  • Engage: Send connection requests or follow-up messages to your leads
    → Example: “I want to automatically send personalized LinkedIn messages to new followers”
    → Example: “I want to connect with people who liked a post from my competitor”

These goals map directly to strategies you can filter on in the Solutions page.

Use the Solutions page to explore automations

Solutions page helps you browse all available automations, and filter by the strategy or platform that fits best.

  1. Go to the Solutions page in your PhantomBuster workspace. 
  2. Use the filters on the left-hand side to narrow your results. You’ll see three filter groups:
    • Popular: Quickly access the most popular use cases by platform, like LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Google, Instagram, or HubSpot.
    • Strategy: Filter by the type of action you want to automate: Extract leads, Enrich data, or Engage with leads.
    • Others: Includes additional platforms and categories like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, GitHub, Slack, Email, AI, Yellow Pages, and HubSpot
      PhantomBuster Solutions page showing platform and strategy filters on the left side
  3. Click Learn more on any automation card to open its overview page. You’ll see:
    • Use now: Direct access to the automation set up steps. 
    • What you give: the type of data the automation uses. 
    • What you get: a preview of the results it will generate.
    • quick in-product tutorial to guide you through setup.
    • Links to related guides for next steps. 
      Phantom overview card showing Use now button, input data preview, output preview, and related guides

Example: From goal to automation

You want to extract LinkedIn profiles from a search:

  1. Go to the Solutions page
  2. Filter by Platform: LinkedIn and Strategy: Extract leads.
  3. Select the automation called LinkedIn Search Export.
  4. Click Learn more to see:

    • What data you need to provide (e.g. a LinkedIn search URL)

    • What kind of results you’ll get (e.g. profile links, names, job titles)

  5. If it’s a fit, click Use now to add it to your workspace and start setting it up.

LinkedIn Search Export automation card with Use now button highlighted on the Solutions page

This process works for any goal, whether you’re just starting or building a more advanced sequence.

Frequently asked questions

What are the three types of automations in PhantomBuster? 

PhantomBuster automations fall into three strategies: Extract (find and collect leads from platforms), Enrich (add missing info like emails or job titles), and Engage (send connection requests or messages). You can filter by these strategies on the Solutions page.

Where can I browse all available PhantomBuster automations? 

Go to the Solutions page in your PhantomBuster Workspace. You can filter by platform (LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, etc.) and by strategy (Extract, Enrich, Engage) to find the automation that fits your goal.

What's the difference between a Phantom and a Workflow? 

A Phantom is a single automation that performs one task (e.g. extracting leads from a LinkedIn search). A Workflow chains multiple steps together into a sequence (e.g. extracting leads, then enriching them, then sending connection requests). Both are available on the Solutions page.

How do I know what data an automation needs before I set it up? 

Click "Learn more" on any automation card in the Solutions page. You'll see what data you need to provide (e.g. a LinkedIn search URL), what results you'll get back (e.g. profile names, job titles), and a quick tutorial to guide you through setup.

Was this article helpful?

1 out of 1 found this helpful