A Person Search Source finds people directly, without an account list to start from. You describe the accounts you care about, pick the Persona that defines the roles you want, and the Source returns matching people each time the Journey runs. Use it to start a Journey from a list of prospects rather than from a list of companies.
This differs from the Person Search step, which looks for people at accounts already flowing through a Journey. The Source is the starting point; the step is buying-group expansion partway through.
Create a Person Search Source
Go to Sources in the left sidebar and select New Source.
Enter a name for the Source and set Origin Type to Person Search.
Add the Persona details such as the titles, seniority, and functions to find at each matching account. This is similar to the persona definition step.
Fill in at least one Account Criteria field. The Source will not save with every account criterion empty.
Account Countries: the locations to search.
Industries to Include and Industries to Exclude.
Keywords: niche terms matched against company descriptions and websites, OR logic within the list, AND with the other criteria.
Technology to Include and Technology to Exclude.
Minimum and maximum employee count and revenue.
Choose the Data Provider to search with. Only providers you have connected are available.
Set Max persons per run. This caps how many people a single run of the Source returns. New Sources default to 10.
Select Preview to see a sample of the people the Source will return, then save.
Account criteria:
Why Max persons per run matters
Person Search spends credits for every person it returns. A broad Persona combined with loose account criteria can return far more people in one run than you intended, and the credits are gone before the run finishes. Max persons per run is the ceiling for each execution: the Source stops once it reaches the limit and picks up where it left off on the next scheduled run.
Start low while you tune the Persona and criteria, then raise the cap once the preview and first runs return the right people.
Pair the cap with a recurring schedule on the Journey so the remaining people are processed over subsequent runs instead of in one burst.
Check Credit Usage after the first run to confirm consumption matches the cap you set.
What the Source returns
People with a valid email are prioritized. Contacts with an unverified email are kept only when no valid-email contact is found for that account.
Each person is attached to the account they were found at, so downstream steps can use account fields as well as person fields.
Use the Source in a Journey
Create a Journey and set the first step's Type to Source Ingest.
Select your Person Search Source.
Add a Person Email Validation step (NeverBounce, Hunter, or ListClean) before any email-based Destination.
Add enrichment, AI Agent, or filter steps as needed, then a Destination.
For the general Source workflow, see Know about and create Sources. For the Person Search step used mid-Journey, see How to Build the Most Common Steps in Tapistro.
Tips
One Source is used by one Journey. Copy the Source to reuse the same criteria elsewhere.
Keep account criteria specific. The Persona narrows who you find at an account, but the account criteria decide which accounts are searched in the first place.
Use Preview after every change to the Persona or criteria. It is the cheapest way to confirm the Source finds the right people before a scheduled run spends credits.