How discovery works

When you run a discovery search, the platform looks in two places at once:

Live web search — the system searches the web for journalists, outlets and beat writers currently covering your topic, so the list reflects who is active right now, not a stale directory.
Your saved journalist database — any journalists you’ve saved from previous searches are matched against the topic too, so your own curated list stays in the picture.

Results are deduplicated and ranked for relevance, then enriched with contact details so you can build a campaign.

Why list sizes vary

The number of results depends on how broad or niche your topic is:

  • Broad topics (e.g. “AI startups”, “health & wellness trends”, “fintech funding”) — expect 50+ fresh, relevant contacts.
  • Genuinely niche topics (e.g. “plumbing supply-chain SaaS for the Midwest”, “marine archaeology podcasting”) — fewer results is expected; there are simply fewer journalists actively covering that beat.

If you’re searching a niche topic, try slightly broader wording to widen the net — for example, drop the region or use the category instead of the sub-niche.

Why did my search only return a handful of journalists? Discovery searches the live web PLUS your saved journalist database. For broad topics you should get 50+ fresh, relevant contacts; genuinely niche topics return fewer — that’s expected. If a broad topic returns very few, our team fixed search reliability on 2026-09-09 — try the search again.

“Find Missing Emails” enrichment

Not every journalist profile has a public email. The Find Missing Emails step automatically fills in the gaps:

  • It looks up each journalist’s verified contact details from their outlet, public profiles and professional sources.
  • It only adds emails it can verify — contacts that can’t be confirmed stay marked as missing.
  • Enrichment is part of paid plans — free trials include a limited number of enrichment lookups so you can try it on your first campaign.

After enrichment, review the list, pick the contacts you want, and the platform drafts your pitch for each one.

Tip: Save journalists you like as you go — they become part of your saved database and get matched automatically on future discovery searches.

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