Beyond lead generation, a large share of Apex Automation Team projects are research datasets: founders validating a market, analysts tracking a sector, agencies sizing an opportunity. Four common sources and how we handle each.
Job boards
Postings reveal hiring trends, salaries, required skills and which companies are growing. We collect title, company, location, salary, posted date, description and skills, then deduplicate cross-posted ads. Sampling weekly builds a time series.
Real estate listings
Price, size, location, days on market, agent and photos from portals and agency sites — normalised into a schema that supports price-per-square-metre analysis and heatmaps. Listings change fast, so scheduled runs matter more than one-off exports.
Customer reviews
Reviews from marketplaces, app stores and review sites with rating, date, text and verified-purchase flags. We keep the raw text for sentiment/topic analysis and respect platform terms on volume.
Business directories
Category listings with name, address, phone, website, rating and opening hours — the base for local-market sizing or B2B lists. Cross-referencing with company websites improves accuracy.
Working with the data
- Ask for a small sample first; adjust fields before the full run.
- Keep source URLs and timestamps in every row for auditability.
- Prefer scheduled snapshots over one huge crawl if you need trends.
Only public data is collected and personal data is minimised. Custom research scrapers start from $100 after a free feasibility test — see custom web scraping or describe your study.
Quick checklist
- Define the research question before choosing sources
- Ask for a 100-row sample and refine the schema
- Keep source URL and timestamp on every row
- Prefer scheduled snapshots for trend analysis
- Minimise personal data and document the purpose
Frequently asked
Can you deliver data ready for analysis?
Yes — clean CSV/Excel or a database with consistent types, plus a data dictionary.
Do you sign NDAs for research projects?
Yes, on request, before any details are shared.