Leadfeeder gives you two sources of contact data: our own B2B database and, if your account has it enabled, extra contact details from an external enrichment provider. External data sources power the Find contact details button on contacts missing an email address or phone number.
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You'll find the setting at Settings > Account > Data > External data sources. Only users with the General settings permission can change it.
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Every Leadfeeder account includes our own company and contact database, covering companies and contacts worldwide, with our deepest coverage in Europe.
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We build this database ourselves from publicly available sources: entries in national trade registers and chambers of commerce, company websites, official commercial registries, news articles and press releases, and business networks. You can read more about how we collect and verify it on our data page.
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Because the data comes from public sources, we can usually show you where a detail came from. Contact details from our own database carry a source indicator, and we re-validate email addresses on a rolling basis. See Contact Data for how to read those indicators.
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You always have access to this data, whatever the External data sources setting.
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Our database has gaps, most often a direct phone number or an email address for a contact who doesn't appear in any public source. External data sources help fill them.
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Leadfeeder integrates with FullEnrich, a contact and company data enrichment provider. FullEnrich uses a waterfall approach: it queries many premium data providers in turn. If the first has nothing for that contact, it tries the next, until it finds a verified email address or phone number.

This finds more than any single provider would, especially in markets where our own coverage is thinner than in Europe.
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For how to use the button itself, see Contact Data.
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The right choice depends on your account, so the decision is yours. Read the next section before you make it.
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When external data sources are enabled, you are instructing us to pass a lookup to FullEnrich on your behalf and return what it finds. The result is stored with your account's own data, where we act solely as your data processor. It does not become part of our global company and contact database described above, which we build and maintain ourselves and for which we are the data controller. We also do not independently verify what an external provider returns.
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In practice, this means:

For the contact data you obtain this way, you are the data controller. Only you can decide whether third-party enrichment suits your organisation: your markets, your outreach practices and your own legal basis for contacting people. That's why the setting stays off until someone in your account, authorized to do so by your company, turns it on, and why enabling it requires accepting additional terms.
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If you're unsure, leave it off. You can enable it at any time, and your Leadfeeder company and contact data stays the same either way.
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Before you start: you need the General settings permission. If you don't see the Account tab in your Settings, you don't have it. See If you can't see this setting below.

The setting applies to the whole account, not to individual users or companies. You can switch it between Enabled and Disabled as often as you need.
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When you disable it, we stop querying external data providers for every user in the account. You keep full access to Leadfeeder's own company and contact data.
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Contact details you already found through an external provider stay in your account. Disabling only stops new lookups.
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We record every change to this setting, because it's a compliance decision.
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The panel shows who last enabled or disabled providers, with the date and time. Select Show changelog to see the full history: each change, who made it and when. You and our support team can both see this record.
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Enriching contacts through an external provider uses credits. Your subscription sets how many credits you have and what your plan includes without them. See How Are Credits Spent? for the current rules and rates.
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If the External data sources page doesn't appear, there are two possible reasons:

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Questions, comments, feedback? Please let us know by contacting our support team via the chat or by sending us an email at support@leadfeeder.com.