The Three Pillars of Filtering
On the left-hand sidebar of SmartSearch, you have three primary categories. Mastering these allows you to drill down from 150M+ leads to the exact 1,000 people who need your product.
1. Person Filters (Who they are)
These filters relate to the individual human you are contacting.
Job Titles: The most common filter. Search for "CEO", "Founder", "VP of Sales".
Tip: The system understands hierarchy. Searching "VP" often captures "Vice President".
Location: Filter by Country, State, or City.
Functional Area: Useful if you don't know exact titles. Selecting "Marketing" finds CMOs, VPs of Marketing, and Marketing Managers.
2. Company Filters (Where they work)
These filters relate to the organization.
Industry: Broad categories like "Software", "Construction", "Hospitality".
Headcount: The size of the company (e.g., 11-50, 51-200). Crucial for segmenting by business maturity.
Tech Stack: A powerful "Technographic" filter. You can search for companies that use specific software (e.g., "HubSpot", "Shopify", "AWS").
Strategy: If you sell a Shopify plugin, filter for companies using "Shopify" to ensure 100% relevance.
Funding: Filter by "Series A", "Seed", or "Bootstrapped". Useful for finding startups with fresh capital to spend.
3. Exclusion Filters (Who to avoid)
This is your safety net. Use this section to remove specific criteria from your search.
Exclude Competitors: Enter the domains of your competitors (e.g., competitor.com) to ensure they never see your outreach.
Exclude Industries: If you sell high-ticket B2B services, you might want to exclude "Non-profit" or "Education".
Exclude Job Titles: Filter out "Intern", "Student", or "Assistant" to ensure you are only paying for decision-makers.
Hiding the Sidebar
If you want to view more columns of data in your results grid, click the "Hide Filters" button in the top left. This collapses the sidebar, giving you a full-width view of the lead data (Name, Title, Company, etc.) to verify quality before enriching.