Keaz Signals vs store directories
Looking for an alternative to a store directory?
A directory answers which stores exist. We answer which of them is worth contacting this week, and who to write to.
You are running outbound and need the person, the trigger and the message, not just a list of domains.
You are doing market or technology research across far more platforms than two, and you already own contacts and sending.
Side by side
| keaz signals | Store directories | |
|---|---|---|
| Core idea | ✓Buying signals with contacts | Searchable store directory |
| Platforms covered | Shopify and WooCommerce, EU and NA | ✓Far more platforms, varies by directory |
| Live buying signals | ✓Yes, with triggers that start campaigns | Dated fields at best, no triggers |
| Contact data included | ✓Yes, including non listed founder addresses | Store level, enrichment usually needed |
| Email written for you | ✓Yes, from the signal | No |
| Data export | No, leads move into campaigns | ✓CSV, usually lookup based |
| Access model | Released per market | Usually lookup based |
Two rows where they win, on purpose. Feature and access comparisons only, no prices.
One row in that table usually surprises people, so it is worth being direct about it. We do not offer a CSV download and we do not plan to. Every other tool on this page sells you a file. We move leads into campaigns instead.
The trade is real and it goes both ways. You cannot take the data somewhere else, and that is a genuine limitation if a portable list is what you are buying. In exchange, releasing access market by market actually protects something, and the store you unlock today is still yours in six months without paying for it again.
What a store directory is good at
A store directory answers one question well: which stores exist, and what technology do they run. That is useful for research and for building a target list.
It does not answer the question that decides whether outreach works: which of these stores did something this week that makes contacting them worthwhile, and who exactly do I write to. A directory is a map. A signal is a reason to leave the house.
Directories are also priced and structured around lookups rather than campaigns, so the contact data and the sending usually live somewhere else. See what is actually in the database, the signals we track and what each plan includes.
A dated field is not a trigger
The better directories do record change. They will tell you an app was installed on a given date, or that a follower count moved over the last quarter. That is real data, and it is more than a plain listing gives you.
The gap is what happens next. To act on a change you export again, compare the new file against your last one, work out which rows moved, and load the difference into a sending tool. By hand, in batches, on whatever schedule you get round to. The event happened weeks before you noticed it.
A campaign that subscribes to the event does not have that lag. The store starts running ads, it enters the campaign, and the email is written from that specific event. Nothing to export, nothing to diff, nothing to reimport. See the signals that trigger campaigns and what each plan includes.
Contacts are usually the second invoice
Most directories hold data at store level: the domain, the platform, sometimes a public info@ address. To reach a named person you export the domain list and enrich it with a separate contact tool. That is another subscription, another step, and another place where rows go stale between the two systems.
We find founder addresses ourselves, by testing name combinations against the domain and verifying what resolves, and we verify again before anything is sent. Generic providers refresh on their own schedule, so records decay between refreshes, and because everybody draws from the same well, everybody inherits the same decay. Method and coverage are in what is actually in the database.
Where a directory is the better choice
If your question is which stores exist on a given platform, or which technology a market has adopted, a directory answers it across far more platforms than our two. We cover Shopify and WooCommerce in the EU and North America and nothing else, so for research breadth we are the wrong tool and we would rather say so here than in a demo.
The same applies if you already run a contact tool and a sending stack you are happy with. At that point you are buying domains, and a directory sells domains more cheaply than we do.
Every tool on this page can write with AI. What they write is a template: one script per campaign, with the company name and a few fields dropped in. Ours writes a different email for every store, built from the specific thing that store just did. That is why the reply rates are not comparable.
See both side by side, on your market.
Set your agent up in 90 seconds and it hands you the stores that moved this week, with the email we would send them.
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