How to Prospect on Google Maps Effectively

Knowing how to prospect on Google Maps means accessing a wealth of information about millions of local businesses — without purchasing an expensive database. Addresses, phone numbers, emails, ratings, customer reviews: it’s all there, structured, searchable, and usable. This guide shows you how to turn this public data into an operational prospecting file.

Why Google Maps is an Underutilized Lead Source

Google Maps lists hundreds of millions of business profiles worldwide. Each Google Business Profile contains valuable business information: contact details, hours of operation, business category, average rating, number of reviews, website.

This data is public. It is also regularly updated by the owners themselves, making it more reliable than many third-party databases.

For a salesperson or founder looking to grow their client portfolio, this is a solid starting point. The question is not "do the data exist?" — they do exist. The question is how to extract and utilize them effectively.

The 3 Concrete Advantages of Prospecting via Google Maps

1. Very Low Acquisition Cost

Buying a B2B database is expensive. Traditional providers often charge several hundred euros for a few thousand contacts — with variable data freshness.

Google Maps, on the other hand, is free to access. The information is public. With the right tool, you can build a prospecting file of 10,000 businesses for a fraction of the price of a traditional database.

2. Precise Geographic Targeting

Few data sources allow for such fine targeting by location. On Google Maps, you can search by city, district, postal code, or an entire country.

This is particularly useful for local agencies, service providers, or any business whose offering is geographically constrained. You don’t pay for contacts outside your area — you target exactly where you can close deals.

3. Data Qualified by Users Themselves

Google reviews are a unique quality signal. A business with 200 reviews at 4.8 stars does not have the same profile as a business with 12 reviews at 3.1 stars. These signals allow you to prioritize your sales efforts.

You can also identify poorly rated businesses — these are often prospects with a problem to solve, making them more receptive to a solution.

How to Succeed in Google Maps Prospecting: Key Steps

Step 1 — Define Your Targeting Criteria Before Searching

Prospecting without targeting is a waste of time. Before opening Google Maps or a scraping tool, answer these questions:

What geographic area? A city, a region, a department, an entire country?
What business category? Plumbers, restaurants, accounting firms, real estate agencies?
What company profile? Businesses with a website? With more than 50 reviews? With a rating below 4 stars?

The more precise your criteria, the more qualified your list will be. A file of 500 well-targeted prospects converts better than a list of 5,000 generic contacts.

Step 2 — Extract Data with a Suitable Tool

Prospecting manually on Google Maps is feasible for 20 contacts. Beyond that, it’s unrealistic. Google Maps limits display to about 120 results per search, and copying each profile would take hours.

The solution: use a Google Maps data extraction tool. Two approaches exist.

The real-time scraper approach: the tool performs a search on Google Maps at the moment you export. You wait for the scrape to run. If the area or sector hasn’t been requested recently, the data may be incomplete or missing.

The pre-indexed database approach: all data is already collected and indexed. You filter, you export — in seconds. This is IBLead’s approach: 50M+ businesses in 37 countries, updated weekly, available immediately.

With IBLead, you search by city, postal code, region, or entire country. You filter by Google Maps category, average rating, number of reviews, technologies used on the website. Then you export to CSV. No waiting, no scraping to initiate.

The cost: €44 for 10,000 leads, or €0.004 per contact.

Step 3 — Enrich and Qualify Your List

A raw export contains name, address, phone number, website, rating, number of reviews. This is already usable. But you can go further.

The emails: IBLead automatically enriches each profile with the email extracted from the business’s website. No need for a third-party tool for this step.

The web technologies: IBLead detects 160+ technologies on each business’s site — CMS (WordPress, Shopify, Wix), analytics tools, advertising pixels, payment solutions. If you sell a Shopify-compatible solution, you can filter only Shopify stores. This is a level of targeting that no traditional directory offers.

The Google reviews: IBLead extracts up to 500 reviews per profile — full text, rating, date, author. You can identify businesses with recurring issues mentioned in reviews and adapt your sales approach accordingly.

The SIRET (French market): for French businesses, IBLead automatically matches with SIRET data — name of the manager, legal form, APE code, date of creation. Useful for personalizing your emails or qualifying the size of the business.

Step 4 — Segment Before Sending

Don’t treat all your prospects the same way. Segment your list according to criteria relevant to your offer.

Examples of useful segments:

Businesses without a website → proposal for website creation
Businesses with fewer than 10 reviews → proposal for reputation management
Businesses with a rating below 3.5 → proposal for customer service solution
Businesses using WordPress without a security plugin → proposal for web maintenance

Each segment receives a different message, tailored to its context. The response rate increases mechanically.

Step 5 — Build Your Prospecting Sequence

One email is not enough. Most conversions happen after 3 to 5 touchpoints. Build a sequence:

Email 1 — short introduction, concrete benefit, simple call to action
Follow-up Day 3 — different angle, social proof or statistic
Follow-up Day 7 — last attempt, direct tone

Export your CSV from IBLead, import it into your emailing tool (Lemlist, Instantly, Brevo, etc.), and launch your sequence. IBLead provides the data — you manage the sequence in the tool of your choice.

Best Practices to Maximize Your Results

Analyze the Local SEO of Your Targets

A well-filled Google Maps profile — photos, complete hours, responses to reviews — indicates that the business cares about its online presence. This is a signal of interest in digital. These businesses are often more receptive to web or marketing-related offers.

Conversely, an incomplete or unclaimed profile may signal a business that is less digitally mature — potentially harder to convince, but also an opportunity if your offer includes support.

IBLead indicates whether a profile is "claimed" or not. Filter according to your strategy.

Personalize Each Message

Personalization is not optional. A generic email ends up in spam or the trash. Mention something specific: the city, business category, number of reviews, a technology detected on their site.

Example: "I saw that your restaurant in Lyon uses Wix — I work with several restaurateurs who have multiplied their online reservations by switching to a more suitable solution."

This level of personalization is possible because your data is accurate from the start.

Measure and Adjust

Track your metrics with each campaign: open rate, click rate, response rate, appointments obtained. If a segment is not responding, change the angle. If a segment converts well, double down.

Google Maps prospecting is not a one-time action — it’s an iterative process. Each campaign teaches you something about your market.

What Google Maps Doesn’t Tell You (and How to Compensate)

Google Maps has limitations. The limit of 120 results per search is the most well-known — you cannot extract more than 120 businesses for a given query directly from the interface.

Scraping tools bypass this limit by multiplying requests. IBLead circumvents it differently: the database is already complete. You search for "plumbers in Île-de-France" — you get all the listed plumbers, not just the first 120.

Another limitation: Google Maps does not directly provide emails. Email addresses must be extracted from the businesses’ websites. IBLead automatically performs this enrichment for each profile.

Finally, Google Maps does not provide legal information about businesses. For the French market, IBLead’s SIRET matching fills this gap — you get the name of the manager, legal form, and APE code directly in your export.

FAQ — Google Maps Prospecting

Is it legal to scrape Google Maps?

The extraction of public data is subject to legal debates. In Europe, GDPR regulates the use of personal data. Business information (company name, address, business phone) is generally considered public data. Consult a lawyer if you have doubts about your specific case. IBLead collects data on businesses, not individuals.

How long does it take to build a list of 1,000 prospects?

Manually on Google Maps: several hours, with the limit of 120 results. With IBLead: less than 5 minutes. You filter your criteria, export, and you have your CSV.

What information can be obtained from Google Maps?

Business name, address, phone number, website, business category, average rating, number of reviews, hours, photos. With IBLead, you also get enriched emails, web technologies, complete reviews, and for France, SIRET data.

Do you need technical skills to extract Google Maps data?

No. Tools like IBLead require no coding skills. You filter via an interface, click "Export," and retrieve a CSV. If you want to automate via API or Python, IBLead also offers a REST API on all plans.

What is the difference between a scraper and a pre-indexed database?

A scraper extracts data at the moment of your request — you wait. A pre-indexed database like IBLead has already collected everything. You export instantly, without waiting, with data updated weekly.

Conclusion

Prospecting on Google Maps works because the data is there, public, structured, and regularly updated by the businesses themselves. The real question is not whether it’s a good source — it is one. The question is how to leverage it without spending hours.

Define your criteria, extract the right data, segment, personalize, measure. It’s a simple, repeatable process, and significantly less expensive than most alternatives.

Try IBLead with 200 credits included.

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