🗺️ Google Maps Data Scraping & Lead-Gen: The Full Workflow

⏱️ ~15 min read + hands-on — Difficulty: Beginner — zero-experience friendly, just follow along

🤔 Ever felt like you're searching for a needle in a haystack when looking for prospects?

🌍 Google Maps Business Scraper Pro turns Google Maps into your live customer database. One click auto-extracts business lists and exports to CSV / Excel, with 20+ fields including name, category, phone, website, address, email, and socials.

Workflow Overview

New here? Get the big picture first, then dive in:

💡 The whole flow in one line: Install plugin → Scrape business data → Cloud email search for email marketing / Export data for social outreach.

▶️ Watch the video below, or follow the doc, and master the full workflow in 15 minutes:

📺 Video not loading? Open in a new tab →

1. Install & Prep for Scraping

🎯 What you'll do here: install the plugin — log in — prepare your "category keywords." The groundwork before scraping, done in 3 minutes.

(1) Install the Plugin

1. Download the latest version

Use the latest version

👉 Latest version 0.8.37 — earlier versions are deprecated, please update.

Download: laifaxin-chajian-ditu-0.8.37-chrome.zip

💾 After saving locally, don't delete or corrupt the package — the plugin needs it to keep running.

2. Choose a browser

We recommend these browsers, which support extensions well:

Browser	Official site	Windows	Mac
Edge	Download Edge	✅	✅
Chrome	Download Chrome	✅	✅
QQ Browser	Download QQ Browser	✅	✅
Cent Browser	Download Cent Browser	✅	❌

💡 Windows users — we strongly recommend the Cent Browser 64-bit portable edition.

Beginner tip

The plugin makes the browser jump between pages while running. To avoid disrupting your daily work, install it in a separate browser.

3. Installation steps

① Turn on Developer Mode

Open the browser you're installing into, find Extensions in the browser menu, click "Manage extensions," and turn on "Developer mode" in the top-right.

Browser extensions management page — turn on the "Developer mode" toggle in the top right — a required step before drag-and-drop installing the plugin

② Drag-and-drop install (no unzipping needed)

Drag the plugin package (.zip) you downloaded straight onto the extensions page and release the mouse to auto-install.

Drag the downloaded plugin zip package directly onto the browser extensions page — release the mouse to auto-install — no unzipping at all

③ How to tell it installed successfully

Option A: after installing, it auto-jumps to a welcome screen 👇

The welcome screen the plugin auto-jumps to after a successful install — confirming the plugin loaded and is running

Option B: the extensions page shows the installed plugin 👇

The browser extensions list showing the successfully installed "Google Maps Business Scraper" plugin

Updating the plugin version

When updating, remove the old version first, then install the new one — keeps the config environment clean and conflict-free.

To update: on the extensions page, find the old plugin and click "Remove."

Find the old scraper plugin on the browser extensions page — click "Remove" to uninstall — clear the old version before updating

Then drag-and-drop the new version package (.zip) to install.

Drag the new-version plugin zip package onto the extensions page to install — completing the version update

④ Pin the plugin icon

For easy access later, pin the plugin icon to the browser toolbar after installing:

① Click "Extensions" in the top-right of the browser, find "Google Maps Business Scraper," and click the Pin button on its right.

Click the extensions icon in the top-right of the browser — find the scraper plugin and click "Pin" — pin the icon to the toolbar for quick access

Once pinned, a blue "Laifaxin" icon appears at the top of the browser.

The blue "Laifaxin" plugin icon that appears at the top of the browser toolbar after pinning

② Click this blue icon to quickly switch and jump to the relevant screens:

The quick menu that pops up when clicking the blue Laifaxin icon — one-click switch between the Google Maps page / cloud backend / plugin search screen

Google Maps official page — extract category words, run scraping tasks
Laifaxin cloud backend — search emails, filter and manage data, email marketing
Plugin search screen — set up scraping / collection tasks, manage plugin-side data

(2) Prep Before Scraping

Click the plugin icon in the toolbar, click "Log in" in the top-right of the popup, and register/log in to your Laifaxin account via QR code or phone number.

Click the plugin icon — click "Log in" in the top-right of the popup — register and log in to your Laifaxin account by QR code or phone

🎁 After logging in, new users get a free 3-day membership (click to claim, credited automatically).

2. Search settings & cloud sync

① Search task settings: tune several parameters in the settings menu to optimize scraping performance.

The run-parameters panel in the plugin settings menu — adjust scroll delay / timeout / dedup options to optimize scraping performance

Scroll delay — lower it on a good network (e.g. 0.1s) to speed up
Timeout — raise it on a poor network (e.g. 60s) to avoid skipping pages
Dedup options — recommend checking [Remove duplicates] (based on Place ID); use other dedup options carefully as needed

② Cloud sync settings: on the plugin search screen, find and turn on the "Cloud data sync" toggle, then click "Sync settings."

Turn on the "Cloud data sync" toggle on the plugin search screen — click sync settings — auto-upload scraped data to the cloud

🏷️ Set a sync tag: set a clear "sync tag" in the parameters. Scraped businesses get tagged automatically, so you can quickly locate this batch in the cloud.

3. Prepare precise category keywords

Beginner pitfall

Google Maps search relies heavily on category words and business names. Using product words directly (e.g. you make "wrenches" so you search "wrench" on the map) often misses the right businesses — prepare precise category words to lock onto your targets.

① Check a target customer's map info: open Google Maps and search one or two company names you know for sure are precise targets.

Search a known precise target customer's company name on Google Maps — view the category and other info on its business detail page

If the UI shows Chinese, add the &hl=en parameter to switch language. See 📚 How to display the Google Maps UI in English.

② Extract core keywords: find the English primary category under the company name (e.g. Light bulb supplier, Lighting contractor), then copy and record these English category words as your batch-scraping keywords.

Type	Example	Keyword analysis
Customer name	`LED Distributors`	Relatively specific — not broadly representative — not ideal as a general search term
Customer category	`Light bulb supplier`	An industry-standard category — excellent as an initial search keyword

Expand your keyword library

Check out Laifaxin's full official category list (Excel) to grow your keyword library.

📺 Video: Install & Prep

2. How to Auto-Scrape Business Data

🎯 What you'll do here: enter category words + pick regions — click "Search" and let the plugin run fully automatically — you just keep the window un-minimized.

(1) Before scraping: set search content & core features

1. Set the search content

① Enter keywords: in the plugin's keyword box, enter your 1-2 chosen category words and press Enter to confirm (e.g. Light bulb supplier).

② Select regions: click the country/region selector, pick the major country first, then check specific states, provinces, or cities.

Plugin search screen — enter category words in the keyword box + check specific states, provinces, and cities in the country/region selector

Beginner tip: let AI recommend regions

If the country you're targeting splits into tens of thousands of tiny areas, selecting everything slows scraping down.

Open an AI tool and enter this prompt, then copy the result:

"List the English names of Australia's top 50 cities by population, and output strictly in this format in a markdown code block: city, prefecture, country"

Open an AI tool and enter the prompt — let AI generate a clean English list of cities

Paste the clean English city list from AI into the plugin's "Custom regions" box in one go.

Paste the AI-generated English city list into the plugin's "Custom regions" box — precisely define the scraping scope

2. Enable core features and start scraping

① Double-check cloud sync: confirm the "Cloud data sync" toggle is on and the right tag for this batch is set.

Double-check the tag is correct 👇

Check the scraping and sync settings before starting — double-check the cloud sync tag is correct

② Turn on "Scrape socials & website": once on, the plugin scrapes not just the basic info shown on Google Maps (phone, website) but also auto-collects the target businesses' social media pages.

③ Click "Search": the system pops up a dedicated Google Maps auto-scraping window and starts the batch collection.

After clicking Search, the system pops up a dedicated Google Maps auto-scraping window and starts the batch collection task

⚠️ Make sure your proxy network (V-P-N) works properly so the browser can open the web version of Google Maps.

Beginner tip

Once "Extract website emails / socials" is on, the exported data will have that content; if off, it shows blank.

Export data comparison — with "Extract website emails/socials" on, the exported table has email and social content — with it off, those columns are blank

(2) During scraping: run status & task control

1. Keep the plugin running properly

The Google Maps auto-scraping window mid-collection — the run state where the page auto-scrolls and loads the business list

Iron rule: during scraping, never minimize the scraping window. Once minimized, the Chrome engine suspends page rendering to save power — the business list won't load, pages time out and get skipped, and scraping crawls.
Right way: shrink the scraping window (drag the edges to resize), or stack it under your normal work browser window.
As long as you don't "minimize" it to the taskbar, it keeps auto-scrolling and jumping at normal speed in the background.

2. Quickly return to the task control page

To check progress or manage the task mid-run, two quick ways back:

Two quick ways back to the task management page — click the floating blue icon on the map page / click the pinned plugin icon in the toolbar to enter the search screen

Method 1: on the auto-scrolling map page, click the floating blue Laifaxin icon.
Method 2: in the main browser window, click the pinned plugin icon in the toolbar, then click "Enter search screen" at the bottom of the popup.

3. Task control buttons

⏸ Pause — temporarily pauses scraping; data and progress are fully kept in the current session
▶ Resume — resumes scraping from where it paused
⏹ Stop — fully ends the current scraping task
✅ Done — means the current task finished scraping

The plugin's task control button area — Pause / Resume / Stop / Done states — control the running of the scraping task

Note: to change scraping keywords, switch regions, or adjust the sync tag mid-run, you must click "Stop" first, change the settings, then click "Search" again to take effect.

🧹 Clear data: this button only clears the plugin's local browser cache, handy for starting a brand-new task. It has no effect on data already synced to the Laifaxin cloud.

The Clear Data button — only clears the plugin's local cached data — doesn't affect data already synced to the cloud

The business data shows as fully scraped, so why is it still jumping pages? — It means the business website emails and socials are still being collected.

📺 Video: How to scrape business data

3. How to Market Precisely & Convert

Once the business data is scraped, the "lead conversion" steps happen in the Laifaxin cloud backend, the WhatsApp plugin, and more.

(1) Path 1: precise email marketing

Run email search and marketing on the scraped data.

1. How to find emails in seconds

① Log in to Laifaxin: log in to the Laifaxin — Google Maps prospecting cloud backend.

Log in to the Google Maps prospecting page in the Laifaxin cloud backend — ready to batch-search emails for the scraped businesses

② Select the business list and search emails: filter the matching list quickly by the "sync tag" set before scraping, select all, then click the "Prospect" button in the top right.

Filter the business list by sync tag in the cloud backend — select all and click the "Prospect" button in the top right to batch-search emails

After submitting, the system auto-extracts the businesses' official domains in batch and pulls their matching business emails, decision-maker emails, etc.

After submitting the prospecting task, the system auto-extracts business official domains in batch and pulls their matching business and decision-maker emails

③ Check the task results: open "Prospecting Engine — Batch search tasks" to view the email results; after the task finishes, click the result to filter and save.

Open the batch search tasks list in the Prospecting Engine — view email search results — click in after completion to filter and save

Beginner fix: forgot to turn on "Cloud sync" before scraping?

Don't panic! First export the data from the plugin side, then log in to the Laifaxin cloud backend and use [Batch prospecting tasks] to search emails.

① Open the plugin operation screen, select the data and export

Where the export file goes: in the "Downloads" of the browser the plugin is in

② Open the exported table and copy the whole domain column

③ Open the Laifaxin cloud system, create a batch search task, paste the domains

When the task finishes, click Result on the current screen to filter and save.

2. How to quickly lock onto high-match businesses

After the email search finishes, click the result to filter and save. Two ways to filter high-match businesses 👇

The result list after the email search task — offers two ways to lock onto high-match businesses: "view filter" and "find similar"

Method 1: view filter — click "Filter" above the list and enter keywords for multi-dimensional filtering.

① Extract the description words of precise customers from the results

Extract the description words of precise customers from the result list — as the keyword for the view filter

② Click Filter → Add condition: choose "Description" → "contains any" → enter the extracted words, save as a view

Add a filter condition — Description contains any of the extracted words — save the matching businesses as a view

Extract as many precise description words as you can, or you'll miss some.

③ Save precise customers: select all precise customers in the view and save their emails

Select all precise customers in the filtered view — save their emails to contacts

Method 2: find similar

① When you spot a great-fit customer in the list, click the "Find similar" button — the system auto-clusters all businesses in the results with similar traits

Click the "Find similar" button on a fitting customer in the list — the system auto-clusters all businesses with similar traits

② After finding similar, preview again; for mismatched businesses, extract description words and filter them out

After find-similar clustering, preview the results again — extract description words for mismatched businesses to filter them out

③ After filtering, check the results — a match score of ≥70 is precise — select all and save the target businesses

After filtering, check the results — select all precise businesses with a match score ≥ 70 and save them

3. Multiply your target audience — AI Database

Core principle: find customers via customers

The fastest, most accurate foreign-trade method is using a "seed customer" to multiply. Lock onto one absolutely precise buyer, and AI digs out thousands of highly similar peer buyers in seconds — explosive growth in customer count!

① Copy a precise domain: in the email-search result list, find several precise businesses you filtered out and copy a website domain (e.g. globallightingsolutions.com.au).

Copy a precise business's website domain from the email search result list — as the seed for AI Database expansion

② Open the AI Database: open the [Prospecting Engine — AI Database] screen in the cloud backend, enter the precise domain in the search box, and click search.

Open the Prospecting Engine AI Database in the Laifaxin cloud backend — enter the precise domain to search for highly similar peer buyers

③ Filter and save: page through the results, filter precise customers, check and save to the contact list — quickly multiply your customer pool.

Example: if page 300 is still precise on preview, all 300 pages before it are saveable. 10 per page — click "Advanced," enter 3000, fill in the save settings, then click save.

Page through the AI Database results — click Advanced and enter the save count to batch-save precise customers to the contact list

More details

More on filtering 👉 How to filter precise customers

More on saving 👉 How to save precise customers

4. Start email marketing

After saving the precise data, you can view the saved records, customer emails, and company info 👇

After saving precise data, view the contact records — customer emails and company info at a glance

Next, you can start email marketing. What are the key points and what to watch out for? 👇

Next step

👉 How to run automated marketing? — single blast + smart follow-up + reading your marketing data

1. Export the precise business table (get multi-dimensional contacts)

① Filter target businesses: on the map plugin search side, click Filter, add filter conditions, and save as a view.

Example: target category word is "Wholesaler" and shop name contains "lighting" — click Filter and enter these two conditions.

Businesses meeting both conditions are pulled together — save as a view for easier management.

② Export the precise business data: in that view, select all businesses and export, then download the Excel or .csv report with full fields from the export records.

Select all businesses in the filtered view and export — download the Excel or csv report with full fields

③ Open the data table: in the browser the plugin is in → Downloads → table file → open.

Find and open the exported table file in the Downloads of the browser the plugin is in

The exported table includes the Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram links scraped earlier, plus contact phone numbers.

2. WhatsApp check & outreach

Open the data table, find the "WhatsApp" header column, check the data, and reach out. When the "WhatsApp" column is empty, use the WhatsApp plugin to check whether the business numbers are registered.

How to get the WhatsApp plugin?

Click the link to install in one click 👇 WhatFa · WhatsApp checker plugin

Get a Chromium-based browser, open the link, and add the plugin

After installing, pin the icon and log in to your WhatsApp account

Check whether businesses are registered: have the business phone data ready.

① Open the plugin and log in to your WhatsApp account ② Use the number-registration check — click Add number

After logging into the WhatFa plugin — click the "Add number" entry of the number-registration check feature

③ Paste numbers → Save config → Start check: paste the business numbers in the check box, adjust the verification interval, and click Save config.

Paste business numbers in the WhatFa check box — adjust the verification interval and click Save config

Click Start check, and the system begins running the number-registration check task

④ First WhatsApp outreach: for registered business numbers, export a table or add them as contacts, then send your first outreach script.

For business numbers detected as registered on WhatsApp — export a table or add as contacts to prepare for outreach

⚠️ Be careful opening conversations — messaging too frequently risks a ban.

Many overseas wholesaler and retail-shop owners or purchasing managers run their business Facebook or Instagram accounts themselves.

① Open the plugin's local data (plugin search screen) and click a business's social icon in the filtered precise data to jump there; or copy and open the business social link from the exported Excel.

② Follow the business account on the matching social platform, or send a tailored DM as appropriate, backed by image or video intros — this often builds a more direct, trustworthy connection.

Use the social links from plugin data or the exported table to open a business's Facebook / Instagram account, follow, and DM for outreach

📺 Video: How to market precisely

✅ Beginner Checklist

First time? Follow this checklist so you don't skip a step:

Install the plugin — download 0.8.37 — drag-and-drop install in Developer mode — pin the icon
Log in + turn on cloud sync — log in — turn on "Cloud data sync" — set the sync tag
Prepare category words — switch the UI to English — extract your target customers' English primary category words
Run scraping — enter keywords + pick regions — turn on "Scrape socials & website" — click Search (don't minimize the window)
Search emails + filter precise — cloud prospecting — use view filter / find similar to lock onto high-match businesses
Convert — email marketing + AI Database expansion — or export for WhatsApp / social outreach

💾 How to install the Google Maps plugin — detailed install guide
🤖 AI fast & accurate Google Maps business filtering — one-click refine massive data
✉️ How to batch-extract business emails — get contacts efficiently after finding businesses
📈 How to run automated marketing — single blast + smart follow-up + reading the data

🔗 Permanent link: https://laifa.xin/en/chajian/google-maps-data-collection-workflow

Workflow Overview​

1. Install & Prep for Scraping​

(1) Install the Plugin​

1. Download the latest version​

2. Choose a browser​

3. Installation steps​

(2) Prep Before Scraping​

1. Log in​

2. Search settings & cloud sync​

3. Prepare precise category keywords​

📺 Video: Install & Prep​

2. How to Auto-Scrape Business Data​

(1) Before scraping: set search content & core features​

1. Set the search content​

2. Enable core features and start scraping​

(2) During scraping: run status & task control​

1. Keep the plugin running properly​

2. Quickly return to the task control page​

3. Task control buttons​

📺 Video: How to scrape business data​

3. How to Market Precisely & Convert​

(1) Path 1: precise email marketing​

1. How to find emails in seconds​

2. How to quickly lock onto high-match businesses​

3. Multiply your target audience — AI Database​

4. Start email marketing​

(2) Path 2: social follow-up & instant WhatsApp outreach​

1. Export the precise business table (get multi-dimensional contacts)​

2. WhatsApp check & outreach​

3. Reach out directly on social platforms​

📺 Video: How to market precisely​

✅ Beginner Checklist​

📚 Related reading​