Automate List Building with n8n and Airtop Integration

Opening Problem Statement

Meet Sarah, a digital marketer tasked with compiling a comprehensive list of top “Build in Public” influencers on platform X. Each week, Sarah spends countless hours manually searching Google, visiting numerous pages, and copying influencer details into spreadsheets. This manual process is error-prone and time-consuming, often leading to outdated or incomplete contact lists, lost marketing opportunities, and wasted team productivity.

Sarah needs a smarter solution that automatically searches for relevant influencers, extracts accurate details, deduplicates entries, and organizes the information neatly in a Google Sheet — all without manual copying or guesswork.

What This Automation Does

This unique n8n workflow, “List Builder,” automates the entire process of gathering influencer lists from the web and compiling them into an organized spreadsheet. Here’s what happens when this automation runs:

• Triggers manually for customized search queries (e.g., “Top ‘Build in Public’ influencers on X”).
• Uses Airtop’s AI-powered search to fetch up to 10 relevant, non-sponsored Google search results for the specified query.
• Extracts individual influencer details from each webpage, including their name, online handle or ID, and profile URL.
• Runs deduplication logic to remove repeated entries based on URLs, ensuring a clean list.
• Appends the cleaned, structured data into a Google Sheet with timestamp and query context for tracking.
• Saves hours each week by eliminating manual search, copy-pasting, and data cleaning tasks.

Prerequisites ⚙️

• n8n account (cloud or self-hosted) to create and run the workflow.
• Airtop API credentials for intelligent web search and data extraction.
• Google Sheets OAuth2 credentials to append collected data directly into a spreadsheet.
• Optional: Self-hosting option available via platforms like Hostinger.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Trigger the Workflow Manually

Navigate to your n8n dashboard. Click on the workflow named “List Builder” and press the Execute Workflow or manually trigger node named When clicking ‘Test workflow’. This launch method is ideal for ad-hoc list building.

What to expect: The workflow will begin by feeding your search parameters into the next node.

Tip: Avoid using this in frequent automated cycles unless parameters are dynamically changed.

Step 2: Set Search Parameters

Locate the Parameters set node. By default, it holds two key-value pairs: who (e.g., “Top ‘Build in Public’ influencers”) and where (e.g., platform “X”). Edit these for your targeted search.

Example: Change who to “Top remote developers” and where to “Europe”.

Outcome: Customized inputs ready for constructing the search query URL.

Step 3: Fetch Search Result URLs Using Airtop

The Get urls Airtop node dynamically builds a Google search URL based on the parameters and sends a prompt to retrieve up to 10 non-sponsored links containing curated lists.

Details: The node uses the endpoint https://www.google.com/search?q={{ encodeURI($json.who+' on ' + $json.where) }} with an AI prompt specifying to exclude ads and focus on list pages.

Tip: Ensure your Airtop API credentials are valid; otherwise, this step will fail.

Step 4: Format the Retrieved URLs

The Format results Code node parses the response JSON from Airtop, extracting the URLs into a simplified array of objects containing each URL only. Here’s the actual JavaScript used:

// Get first input item
const input = $input.first().json.data.modelResponse
// Parse list of links
const listOfLinks = JSON.parse(input).results
// Format node's output
const output = listOfLinks.map((item) => ({
  json: { url: item.url }
}))

return output;

Explanation: This prepares the URLs for the next step of detailed extraction.

Step 5: Extract Influencer Details From Each URL

The Get people Airtop node takes each formatted URL and prompts the AI to extract up to 20 items, capturing the influencer’s name, identifier (handle or ID), and related url.

Prompt example:

This is a list of {{ $('Parameters').item.json.who }} on {{ $('Parameters').item.json.where }}.
Extract up to 20 items. For each person extract: 
- name 
- handle or ID 
- URL

Note: This node uses a new session mode for each URL to ensure fresh extraction.

Step 6: Deduplicate Influencer Entries

The Dedupe results Code node aggregates all extracted influencer data, filters out items missing names, cleans URLs from query parameters, and removes duplicates based on unique URLs. Here’s the core JavaScript:

const allResults = []

for (const inputItem of $input.all()) {
  const input = inputItem.json.data.modelResponse
  const results = JSON.parse(input).items
  const cleanedResults = results
    .filter((res) => res.name)
    .map((res) => ({
      ...res,
      url: res.url.split('?')[0]
    }))
  allResults.push(...cleanedResults)
}

const uniqueList = allResults.filter((item, index, self) =>
  index === self.findIndex((t) => (t.url === item.url))
);

return uniqueList.map((item) => ({ json: {...item} }));

What this achieves: A clean, unique list ready for storage.

Step 7: Add the Curated List to Google Sheets

The Add to spreadsheet Google Sheets node appends each influencer’s data to a specified Sheet, including columns like Name, ID or Handle, URL, Who?, Where?, and Added on timestamp.

Remember: Make sure the Sheet ID and Google OAuth credentials are correctly set up in n8n.

Customizations ✏️

• Change search queries: Edit the Parameters node to target different influencers or topics by updating the who and where fields.
• Expand extraction details: Modify the Get people node’s prompt to include additional fields like email or bio if desired, adjusting the output schema accordingly.
• Automate scheduled runs: Replace the manual trigger with a time trigger node to run the workflow daily or weekly for ongoing list updates.
• Export to CSV or other destinations: Add a node after deduplication to export the data into other formats or send it via email using Gmail or other communication nodes.
• Filter by keywords: Insert a Code node between extraction and deduplication to filter influencers by keywords or relevance score.

Troubleshooting 🔧

Problem: “Airtop API connection failed or timed out.”

Cause: The Airtop API key might be invalid or the service is temporarily down.

Solution: Verify your Airtop API credentials under n8n credentials. Re-authenticate if needed. Test connectivity by triggering the Get urls node individually.

Problem: “Google Sheets append operation throws authorization error.”

Cause: Google OAuth token expired or permissions missing.

Solution: Reconnect the Google Sheets OAuth2 credentials in n8n. Ensure the Google Sheet is shared with the authenticated account email.

Problem: “Duplicate entries appearing in the Sheet.”

Cause: Deduplication failed due to varying URL parameters.

Solution: Confirm that the Code node handling deduplication strips all tracking parameters consistently. Edit the code to enhance URL cleaning if needed.

Pre-Production Checklist ✅

• Double-check Airtop API credentials and endpoint functionality.
• Ensure Google Sheets access permissions and Sheet ID are correct.
• Run test manually to confirm each node executes without errors.
• Validate output schemas in Airtop nodes to match expected JSON format.
• Back up your Google Sheet before first append in case of data corruption.

Deployment Guide

Once tested, activate the workflow in n8n. For automation, replace the manual trigger with a Cron or Interval trigger to schedule regular runs.

Monitor executions via n8n’s workflow run history. Enable detailed error logging for any node failure alerts. This setup ensures curated influencer lists stay up to date automatically with minimal oversight.

Conclusion

By building this n8n automation, you’ve turned tedious influencer list compiling into a smooth, repeatable process that saves hours weekly. The workflow’s use of Airtop’s AI to extract meaningful data from real-time search results and Google Sheets for organized storage demonstrates powerful integration potential.

Next steps? Consider extending this workflow by integrating LinkedIn or Twitter API for direct influencer engagement, or add email outreach automation for marketing campaigns targeting the curated lists.

This workflow empowers marketers, researchers, and business developers to focus more on strategy and less on busywork — a real productivity game-changer!