How Noble Built a 10% Conversion Rate Engine on Apollo's Data Foundation

As co-founder of a company that helps brands appear in AI search results, Joshua Budman faced an existential challenge. There was no universal database mapping websites to content decision-makers who could mention his clients' brands.

Noble's entire business depends on this data. Their software automatically identifies what sources LLMs are citing, reaches out to those publishers, and negotiates content placements — all on behalf of their clients.

But without knowing exactly who to contact at each publication, the system would collapse. "We'd probably get 10% of the data we need without Apollo," Joshua explains. “The rest would have taken huge amounts of manual work.”

Here's how Noble used Apollo's Enrichment API and Waterfall Enrichment to achieve 80-90% data coverage and build an outreach engine with a remarkable 10% conversion rate from cold contact to confirmed publisher agreement.

Prospecting at scale with enrichment

Rather than relying on scattered tools, he made Apollo the enrichment backbone. "We tried a bunch of different products early on. Apollo was consistently the most reliable in terms of both completeness and performance,” Joshua notes.

The ability to combine multiple enrichment features together made the decision clear.

• Enrichment API for bulk, programmatic scale
• Waterfall Enrichment for wider data coverage
• AI Research to power personalized outreach

Noble's automation requires processing thousands of enrichments hourly to spin up agents that do everything end-to-end — from identifying publishers to managing outreach.

"Apollo's API was pretty stable in terms of being able to support that volume," Joshua says. "Setup from a developer's perspective was super easy — you only need an API key and the documentation is good."

The data foundation enables Noble’s process to kick off:

1. Their software analyzes client prompts and identifies which domains are being cited by LLMs
2. Using Apollo's API, they find contact and company data for the best person at those publications to secure mentions.
3. For high-priority articles (those appearing across multiple prompts and LLMs, for example), they use Waterfall Enrichment to ensure optimal coverage

“While Apollo’s own data often gives us what we need right out of the gate, Waterfall ensures we cover every edge case and fill in any gaps,” Joshua explains. “It has increased our match rates by 5%. Since we charge our clients on secured mentions, every additional contact we have is another shot at success.”

Standing out with AI-powered personalization

With comprehensive contact data in hand, Noble's automated agents are set up to run targeted outreach campaigns — from sending emails to handling replies. But reaching the right person is only the first step.

Publishers get pitched constantly, making personalization crucial for standing out. This is where Noble leverages another Apollo capability: using AI Research to analyze each article and generate tailored introduction paragraphs for emails.

"That personalization helps our emails stand out from all of the others publishers receive on a regular basis. That's been huge for us," Joshua points out. "These authors are very nitpicky about what they respond to. The ability to embed useful data in the first paragraph of our email is really what makes the difference.”

This AI-powered personalization is built directly into Noble's automated agents, allowing them to maintain a human touch while operating at scale — currently processing approximately 10,000 personalized contacts monthly, with plans to scale to 200,000.

Results: 10% conversion and 3x higher reply rates

With Apollo powering their process, Noble is achieving results that would be impressive for any outreach campaign:

• 80-90% enrichment coverage with Apollo, compared to just 10% without
• 10% conversion rate to publisher agreement, not just to replies or meetings
• 3x higher positive response rates through precise targeting and personalized messaging

With Apollo as their foundation, Noble has built what Joshua calls "backlinking 2.0", transforming what's always been a manual, time-intensive practice into something that can finally run at scale.

As AI increasingly shapes buying decisions, Noble is helping brands appear where it matters most: in the sources that LLMs cite. With Apollo powering their data foundation, they're building the future of brand visibility.