What Is a Company Lookalike API? Scale Prospecting by Cloning Your Best Customers
You don’t need more leads. You need better ones – the kind that already look like your top customers.
Yet most teams still rely on guesswork: lists are built manually through LinkedIn or Sales Navigator, reps follow intuition instead of clear signals, and target accounts live in spreadsheets with no consistent method behind the selection. The result is scattered outreach and inefficient prospecting.
Surfe tech offers a more systematic approach. It uses real customer data to identify companies that match the profile of your best accounts. The output is structured, ranked, and ready to plug into your existing workflows.
Businesses can use it in one of two ways: the Surfe Company Lookalikes App lets reps and operators generate lists through a no-code interface, while the Surfe Company Lookalikes API is built for teams who want to automate list creation, connect results to internal systems, or scale lookalike matching across the funnel.
In this post, we’ll look at how the Surfe Company Lookalikes function works, what kind of data it returns, and how top revenue teams are using it to drive faster, more targeted prospecting.
Ready? Let’s get started.
What Is a Company Lookalike API?
A Company Lookalike API takes the domains of companies you already work with – for example, stripe.com or klarna.com – and returns a ranked list of businesses that share similar characteristics. It’s designed to help sales teams scale prospecting by identifying companies that resemble their best customers.
What you input:
- At least one company domain, or
- Multiple domains to improve pattern recognition and similarity accuracy (this is optional)
Feeding in more than one domain helps the API identify consistent traits across your top accounts – rather than relying on a single example. This improves the quality and relevance of the lookalikes returned.
What you get per lookalike company:
- Company domain
- Employee count
- Industry
- Headquarters location
- Estimated revenue
- Relevant keywords
- Technology stack
This gives sales teams a scalable, data-driven way to identify accounts that share traits with their best customers – making prospecting more targeted, more consistent, and easier to operationalise.
Why Clone Your Best Customers?
Your current customer base holds the clearest signal of what works. If certain accounts are generating revenue, renewing contracts, and expanding their footprint within your business, they’re the model to replicate.
Cloning those customers means finding new accounts that share the same traits. This makes prospecting more focused and increases the likelihood of converting high-fit leads.
There are clear advantages:
- Higher conversion rates from companies that resemble existing customers
- Better alignment between messaging and market fit
- Less time wasted on low-quality accounts
- More structured, data-backed targeting for RevOps and sales teams
Lookalike matching doesn’t just improve targeting – it makes the entire go-to-market motion more consistent.
For example, if your strongest customers are HR tech startups in Europe, the Surfe Company Lookalike API can return dozens of companies that match on location, size, tech stack, and industry keywords. That data can then be pushed into downstream systems for enrichment, scoring, or outreach – without slowing your team down.
Surfe App vs. Surfe API – What’s the Difference?
Surfe offers two ways to generate company lookalikes: a no-code app and an API. Both use the same underlying data model, but they serve different needs depending on how your team works.
Surfe Company Lookalikes App
The app is designed for individual reps or RevOps users who want a fast, accessible way to generate new account lists.
- Input: upload a list of CRM companies or select filters inside the web app
- Output: view similar companies in-app and push directly to your CRM
No technical skills are required.
This option is best for one-off list building, manual workflows, or making the feature accessible to a wider team without involving engineering.
Surfe Company Lookalike API
The API is built for technical teams or operators looking to integrate lookalike lead generation into existing systems.
- Input: send one or more company domains (e.g. stripe.com) via an API request
- Output: receive a list of similar companies with firmographic and technographic data
It’s compatible with internal systems, scoring models, and enrichment workflows.
The API supports automation, scalability, and integration – making it ideal for RevOps, sales engineers, and growth teams building repeatable processes. Some setup is required, but no advanced coding knowledge is needed to get started.
When and Why to Use the API
The Surfe Company Lookalike API is designed for teams that want to operationalize lookalike generation across their systems, for example:
- Automate prospect list generation inside internal tools
- Build custom account-based workflows using lookalike logic
- Score and segment companies before routing them to reps
- Process large batches of companies or run recurring queries
- Work with dynamic inputs that update in real time
- Integrate lookalike results directly into your CRM or enrichment pipeline
It’s a fit for RevOps, sales engineers, and growth teams managing prospecting at scale. By embedding lookalike matching into your infrastructure, you turn targeting from a manual task into a repeatable, high-leverage function.
Company Lookalike API: Final Thoughts
Your best customers show you what works. The more closely you can match those accounts, the more efficiently you can build a pipeline that converts.
Surfe offers two ways to find companies with similar traits. The Surfe Company Lookalikes App helps reps and operators build new lists through a visual interface. The Surfe Company Lookalike API allows teams to scale that process, embed it into internal systems, and automate how new lookalikes are discovered.
Whichever route you take, Surfe doesn’t stop at identification. You can enrich and sync those companies into your CRM for immediate action – so your team is always working with the most relevant, up-to-date data.
FAQs
What Is a Company Lookalike API?
A Company Lookalike API is a tool that takes the domains of your existing customers and returns a ranked list of similar companies. The idea is simple: if certain accounts have already proven to be a good fit for your business, it makes sense to target others with similar traits. The API identifies those lookalikes based on real data – such as industry, employee count, tech stack, location, and revenue estimates. This gives sales and RevOps teams a faster, more reliable way to build targeted prospecting lists. Instead of relying on filters or manual research, you can use the API to scale what’s already working and feed high-fit accounts directly into your pipeline.
How Does a Company Lookalike API Work?
A Company Lookalike API works by analysing the firmographic and technographic profile of companies you already sell to. You input one or more domains – for example, stripe.com or klarna.com – and the API looks for patterns across those accounts. The more domains you provide, the more accurate the match. It then returns a list of similar companies, ranked by relevance, with data points like employee count, industry, location, revenue, keywords, and tech stack. This output can be used to build outbound lists, enrich lead records, or power account-based workflows across your existing systems. It’s a practical way to scale prospecting using data you already have.
What Data Does a Company Lookalike API Provide?
A Company Lookalike API returns structured data for each similar company it identifies. This includes the company domain, estimated employee count, industry category, headquarters location, revenue range, relevant keywords, and known technologies used. These data points help sales and RevOps teams quickly assess whether a lookalike account fits the profile of their top customers. By using the API output, teams can segment leads more effectively, personalise outreach, and prioritise accounts based on relevance – without having to research each prospect manually. The result is a more efficient pipeline, built on the traits of companies you already know convert well.
What’s the Difference Between the Surfe App and the Surfe Company Lookalike API?
The Surfe Company Lookalikes App and the Surfe Company Lookalike API offer the same core capability – identifying companies that resemble your best customers – but they serve different use cases. The app is no-code and designed for reps or RevOps users who want to upload a list or select filters to build lookalike lists inside a visual interface. It’s best for manual or one-off workflows. The API, on the other hand, is for teams that want to automate list generation, connect directly to internal tools, or integrate lookalike data into scoring and enrichment flows. It’s built for scale and repeatability.
When Should I Use a Company Lookalike API?
Use a Company Lookalike API when you want to automate and scale how you generate high-fit account lists. It’s ideal for teams that need to process large batches of companies, run recurring queries, or work with dynamic inputs that update in real time. The API is especially useful if you want to integrate lookalike logic into your CRM, enrichment tools, or internal scoring models. It’s a good fit for RevOps, sales engineers, or product-led teams that need precision and repeatability – not manual effort. If your current prospecting motion involves too much guesswork or too many spreadsheets, this is a better way.
How Do I Get Started With the Surfe Company Lookalike API?
Getting started with the Surfe Company Lookalike API is straightforward. You don’t need advanced coding skills – just a basic understanding of how to send an API request. You input one or more company domains, and the API returns a ranked list of similar companies with relevant firmographic and technographic data. It’s compatible with most internal systems and can be integrated into your CRM, scoring models, or enrichment workflows. If you prefer a no-code option, Surfe also offers an app with a Company Lookalike search function. Whether you’re automating prospecting or experimenting with lookalike logic, you can start quickly and scale as needed.
