The Scenario
You are a growth marketer at a Series B SaaS company. Your CEO asked in a Monday all-hands if the team could pull a list of "senior marketers at other Series B SaaS companies in the US" for a partnership prospecting list. It was framed as a quick ask. It is now Wednesday and nobody has done it because writing an Elasticsearch DSL query against the PDL API, running it, parsing the JSON, and formatting the results into a sheet is not what anyone means by "quick."
The bad version:
- Read through PDL's person search documentation to understand the DSL syntax for funding stage filters, seniority filters, and industry filters simultaneously
- Write a query that you think is correct, run it, and get back 800 results that include Manager-level people because the seniority filter wasn't exclusive
- Refine the query, re-run it, get 200 results this time, paste the raw JSON into a text editor, extract the six fields you need into CSV format, and import it into a blank sheet
You spent a morning on a task someone described as "quick." You probably have the data now. You definitely don't have the morning back.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Google Sheet. It reads your plain-English description of the target audience, generates the PDL Elasticsearch query, runs the search, and writes the results directly into the sheet.
Generate a PDL Elasticsearch query for Head of Marketing or VP Marketing at US SaaS companies that raised Series B, run the person search, and write the top 200 results — name, title, company, email, LinkedIn — into this sheet.
What You Get
- 200 rows written into the sheet with name in column A, title in column B, company in column C, work email in column D, and LinkedIn URL in column E
- Results filtered to VP Marketing or Head of Marketing seniority at US-based SaaS companies with Series B funding in PDL's records
- The generated Elasticsearch query written into cell A1 so you can inspect it, adjust it, and re-run without starting over
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
The initial results include some individual consultants or freelancers — exclude them
Generate a PDL query for VP Marketing or Head of Marketing at US SaaS companies that raised Series B. Exclude any results where PDL's employment type suggests contractor or self-employed. Run the search, return 200 results, and write name, title, company, email, and LinkedIn to columns A through E.
You want to add company funding stage as a column so you can filter further in the sheet
Generate a PDL query for VP Marketing or Head of Marketing at US SaaS companies that raised Series B. Return 200 results. Write name, title, company, email, and LinkedIn to columns A through E, and add PDL's reported funding stage to column F.
The CEO wants only companies in the 50 to 300 employee range for a SMB partnership focus
Generate a PDL query for VP Marketing or Head of Marketing at US SaaS companies that raised Series B with 50 to 300 employees. Run the search, return 200 results, and write name, title, company, employee count, email, and LinkedIn to columns A through F.
Generate the query, run it, remove anyone already in the CRM, and segment by company size in one pass
Generate a PDL query for VP Marketing or Head of Marketing at US Series B SaaS companies. Run the search and return 300 results. Remove any row where the email matches a value in the "CRM Contacts" tab column C. Write remaining results — name, title, company, email, LinkedIn — to this sheet. Add a column F label: "Mid-market" for companies over 100 employees, "SMB" for smaller.
One prompt builds the list, cleans against the CRM, and applies the segmentation your CEO can act on — without a meeting about query syntax.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open a blank Google Sheet. Describe your target audience in plain English and ask SheetXAI to generate and run the PDL search and write the results in. Then see how to enrich those contacts with additional seniority and department data or go back to the People Data Labs overview.