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In modern B2B growth, more leads is not the goal. Better leads are. The Waterfall ICP engine (/api/search/waterfall-icp) is designed to solve one specific problem: Finding the single best decision-maker at a target company without manual sorting.

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The “Smart Routing” Concept

Most APIs return a list of 50 employees and leave you to filter them. BlitzAPI works differently. You define a Hierarchy of Preference (a Cascade), and our engine executes a sequential search logic. It attempts to find your “Dream Contact.” If---and only if---that fails, it moves to your “Plan B.”
1

Priority 1: The Decision Maker

“I want the CMO.”The API scans the company. If a CMO is found, the search stops immediately. You get the top-ranked result.
2

Priority 2: The Deputy

“If no CMO, give me the Marketing Manager.”If Priority 1 yielded no results, the engine automatically triggers the second level of your cascade.
3

Priority 3: The Fallback

“If no Marketing team, give me the CEO.”As a last resort, the engine looks for the founder to ensure you don’t leave the account empty-handed.

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Real-World Example: The “Marketing First” Strategy

Let’s look at a complex query. Here, we want to target Welcome to the Jungle, but we have a very specific preference order. The Strategy:
  1. Tier 1: Get the Marketing Director/CMO (Global).
  2. Tier 2: If missing, get a Growth Manager (Global).
  3. Tier 3: If missing, get a Brand/Comms Director (Global).
  4. Tier 4: If missing, try a broader keyword search in North America only.
  5. Tier 5: If all else fails, get the CEO.
{
  "company_linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/wttj-fr",
  "cascade": [
    {
      "include_title": ["Marketing Director", "Head Marketing", "Chief Marketing Officer"],
      "exclude_title": ["assistant", "intern", "product", "junior"],
      "location": ["WORLD"],
      "include_headline_search": false
    },
    {
      "include_title": ["Marketing Manager", "Head Growth", "Growth manager"],
      "exclude_title": ["junior", "assistant", "intern", "hacker"],
      "location": ["WORLD"],
      "include_headline_search": false
    },
    {
      "include_title": ["Communication Director", "Brand Director", "Content Director"],
      "exclude_title": ["junior", "assistant", "intern", "UX", "UI", "Design"],
      "location": ["WORLD"],
      "include_headline_search": false
    },
    {
      "include_title": ["Communication", "marketing", "growth", "brand"],
      "exclude_title": ["junior", "assistant", "intern", "product"],
      "location": ["US", "CA"],
      "include_headline_search": true
    },
    {
      "include_title": ["CEO", "founder", "cofounder", "owner", "General Director"],
      "exclude_title": ["junior", "assistant", "intern"],
      "location": ["WORLD"],
      "include_headline_search": false
    }
  ],
  "max_results": 10
}

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Why this query is powerful

  • Precision: By using exclude_title, we ensure we don’t pay for interns or assistants.
  • Flexibility: In step 4, we switch include_headline_search to true. This allows us to catch people who write “Helping companies grow” in their bio, even if their job title isn’t exactly “Growth Manager”.
  • Safety Net: The final step ensures that if the Marketing team is invisible, we still capture the CEO to start a top-down conversation.

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Choosing Your Engine: Standard vs. Real-Time

We offer two processing modes for this logic. Choose based on your need for speed vs. niche accuracy.
Smart Strategy: Always try the Standard endpoint first. It is faster and cheaper. Only switch to Real-Time if the standard search returns results_length: 0.

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Parameter Reference

Optimize your search filters with these parameters.
ParameterTypeDescription
include_titlearrayRequired. Job titles to match (e.g., ["CEO", "CTO"]).
exclude_titlearrayTitles to strictly ignore. Useful to filter out ["Assistant", "Intern", "Junior"].
locationarrayLinkedIn Country Codes (e.g., ["US", "FR"]). Use ["WORLD"] for global search.
include_headline_searchbooleanIf true, keywords are searched in the user’s bio/headline, not just their formal Job Title.
Need the Country Codes? Check our Reference Appendix for the correct 2-letter ISO codes expected by LinkedIn.