Contact Data API: What It Is, How It Works & Getting Started

A contact data API gives your GTM teams access to verified B2B contacts, so sales, marketing, and RevOps can quickly enrich, route, and reach decision-makers.

If your teams are still guessing email formats or dialling dead numbers, or you’ve outgrown spreadsheets.

This page covers what a contact data API is, why it matters, key features and use cases, how it differs from a company data API, how to choose a provider, and how Cognism’s contacts API works.

What is a contact data API?

It’s a REST API that returns verified business contact info (emails, mobile/direct dials, titles, LinkedIn) so your systems can search, preview, enrich, and redeem contacts at scale.

Why use a contact data API?

Teams adopt contact search APIs to increase connect rates, improve routing/scoring, and eliminate manual data fixes across the funnel

Sales teams

• Verified emails and mobile/direct dials = more live conversations.
• Less time wasted on bounces and wrong numbers.
• Net-new decision-makers added to buying groups.

Marketing teams

• Instant enrichment on form submit = better scoring & routing.
• Higher match rates and tighter audiences for ABM/paid.
• Personalised messaging using job changes & hiring signals.

RevOps / CRM teams

• Automatic data enrichment keeps CRM clean and compliant.
• Consistent schemas and entitlements across tools.
• Better forecasting and attribution with trustworthy data.

Key features to expect from APIs

Look for real-time enrichment, verified contact records, account context, and field-level control via entitlements.

• Real-time lookups & enrichment via REST & standard HTTP verbs.
• Verified contacts: emails with quality indicators; mobile/direct dials with scoring and DNC flags.
• Professional profile & LinkedIn: title, function, level, education, skills, career events (join/leave/move).
• Account context: industry, size, revenue, locations, technologies, funding/IPO/acquisition/hiring events.
• Entitlements: return only the fields your contract allows (Standard/Advanced) for predictable payloads.

Common contact data API use cases

Use a contact data API to find and reach the right people, automate enrichment, and keep CRMs accurate.

• Sales prospecting & lead generation: add net-new decision-makers with verified emails/phones.
• Marketing automation: enrich forms, boost match rates, improve segmentation.
• CRM enrichment: scheduled updates reduce manual clean-up and routing errors.
• Recruitment: verified candidate contact data with role/seniority filters.

Contact data API vs company data API

Company data defines your universe; a contacts API fills buying groups with reachable people.

How to choose the right contact data API

Focus on accuracy, compliance, performance, entitlement control, and integration fit.

• Accuracy & coverage: verified emails; mobile/direct dials with scoring; rates by region/seniority.
• Compliance: GDPR/CCPA/PECR alignment, opt-out endpoints, consent metadata, DNC flags.
• Performance & scale: low latency, predictable pagination, fair rate limits.
• Entitlements: Standard/Advanced field sets keep responses focused and audit-friendly.
• Ease of integration: clean JSON schema; works with Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Snowflake, S3, BigQuery, dbt.

APIs and Data-as-a-Service (DaaS)

A contact data API is the building block; DaaS is the fully managed delivery model that uses APIs (plus warehouses and flat files) to power GTM at enterprise scale.

Where the API fits:

• The contact data API lets you programmatically enrich, preview, and redeem individual records or sets of contacts in real time.
• In Cognism DaaS, the same API endpoints deliver contact and company data into Snowflake, S3, BigQuery, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Marketo, without manual list pulls or CSV uploads.
• DaaS wraps the API with custom logic, cadence, and professional services: enrichment rules, dedupe handling, consent metadata, and compliance audit trails.

Why it matters:

• For SMBs and scale-ups, the contact data API alone is enough for CRM enrichment or lead scoring.
• For enterprises, DaaS provides an always-on data layer across the entire tech stack: CRM, MAP, CDP, BI dashboards, and AI models.
• Both models are compliance-first: GDPR/CCPA metadata, DNC flags, and opt-out endpoints.

How Cognism’s Contact Data API works

Cognism’s API is fast, simpler to query, and compliance-first, with entitlement-aware payloads, rich phone coverage, and robust rate limiting.

• Simple, faster responses; configurable fields to match entitlements.
• Unlimited displayed results and first-to-last pagination (no page hopping).
• Richer context: multiple emails/company phones; all open positions per contact.
• Authentication: API keys have a time-to-live (TTL) of 6 months, and you can authenticate HTTP requests using a header field or a query string.
• Rate limits: up to 1,000 requests/min with headers to track remaining and reset.
• Preview vs Redeem: previews draw from preview pool (credits × 10); redeem consumes standard credits.
• Note: API and in-app results may differ due to ongoing updates and system improvements.

FAQs

Quick answers to common evaluation questions (schema, compliance, integration).

What is a contact data API?

Immediate access to verified B2B contact info; emails, mobile/direct dials, titles, LinkedIn, and more.

How is it different from a company data API?

Contact APIs focus on people; company APIs focus on organisations. Use both: company data to define ICP/TAM; contact data to reach buying personas.

Is it GDPR-compliant to use a contact data API?

Yes, when data is legally sourced, opt-outs are honoured, DNC flags observed, and consent metadata is retained. Cognism delivers privacy-first data with audit trails.

What can I do with it?

Automate lead enrichment, keep CRM accurate, fuel ABM/paid with precise personas, and boost connect rates using verified contact databases.

How do I integrate it?

REST endpoints, predictable JSON, 1,000 req/min rate limits, entitlement-aware payloads. Start with preview, then redeem; map fields to your CRM/CDP schema.