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George Kioko
George Kioko

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My Apify Promotion Filter: Scale Clean APIs, Hold Back Noisy Demand

I pulled a fresh read-only Apify Store check on June 6 after seeing revenue cool down from the better days earlier in the week.

The portfolio is not dead. The traffic is still moving:

  • 63,720 total runs
  • 2,532 total users
  • +426 runs since the last fresh read
  • +25 users since the last fresh read

The problem is not whether the actors exist. The problem is where the promotion is pointed.

When I promote the whole catalog, the message is too broad. A buyer does not wake up looking for "66 Apify actors." They wake up needing validated emails, YouTube transcripts, domain/company intelligence, local business lists, or a way to score prospects before outreach.

So today's rule is simple:

Promote the monetized actors that are reliable enough to absorb traffic.

Hold back the ones with demand but weak completion until they are repaired.

The Scale Lane

These are the actors I am comfortable putting in public today because the current 30-day Store stats show strong reliability.

Actor Rolling 30d runs 30d success
Email Validator API 1,575 100%
Domain WHOIS Lookup 1,654 99.9%
YouTube Transcript Scraper 1,123 98.8%
Telegram Channel Scraper 861 98.6%
AI Content Detector 621 99.8%
Company Enrichment API 395 96.0%
Google News Monitor 232 100%

That list has two jobs.

First, it proves the portfolio is not just a batch of abandoned demos. These actors are getting used and completing at a level I can defend.

Second, it gives the buyer a clean entry point. A developer building an AI workflow can start with transcripts, enrichment, WHOIS, news monitoring, or validation without taking on the risk of a noisier scraper.

The Money Lane

The second lane is the buyer-outcome stack.

These actors are not the highest-volume tools in the catalog, but they map more directly to business value:

Actor Rolling 30d result
HVAC Contractor Lead Finder 40/40 succeeded
Law Firm Lead Finder 35/35 succeeded
Dental Practice Lead Finder 31/31 succeeded
Google Maps Leads + Website Audit 29/29 succeeded
Google Maps Lead Intelligence 29/30 succeeded
Restaurant Lead Finder 33/34 succeeded

The pitch here is not "scrape a website."

The pitch is:

  1. Find local businesses.
  2. Score the website and digital presence.
  3. Pull vertical-specific prospect lists.
  4. Enrich the company data.
  5. Validate emails before outreach.

That is a workflow an agency, consultant, or local sales team can understand.

The Hold-Back Lane

This is the part that matters if you care about revenue instead of vanity traffic.

Some actors have demand, but I do not want them as the main CTA today:

Actor Current issue
TikTok Shop Affiliate Intelligence 84.0% 30d success
Google Scholar Scraper 80.1% 30d success
Reddit Scraper Pro 87.5% 30d success
Lead Enrichment Pipeline 65.6% 30d success
Influencer Marketing Intel 86.8% 30d success

Demand is useful. Broken demand burns trust.

If an actor has buyers but too many aborts, timeouts, or failures, the move is QA first and promotion second.

The Promotion Filter

This is the filter I am using today:

  • Scale anything above 95% 30-day success with meaningful use.
  • Use high-volume utility APIs as trust proof.
  • Put buyer-outcome lead actors in the main CTA.
  • Keep 90-95% actors in the careful lane.
  • Hold back anything under 90% until reliability improves.

That means the main public profile is still the best single entry point:

https://apify.com/george.the.developer

But the copy should not say "here are all my actors."

The copy should say:

Use the clean APIs for reliable data workflows.
Use the local lead stack when you need a buyer outcome.
Do not push noisy actors until the completion rate is fixed.

That is the playbook for today.

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