On Monday morning, your marketing person downloads the weekend's Facebook leads and pastes them into a sheet. Somebody copies them into the dialling list by noon. Half the people have by then forgotten filling in the form, and a few are on the list twice because the same person filled it twice.
Lead sources bring contacts in from a CSV file, a Google Sheet, Facebook and Instagram lead forms, a form on your own website, or a CRM's webhook. Then something else has to do the calling. Both parts need setting up.
Choosing the right source
A CSV file
Suits a one-off list, such as an old enquiry file for a new launch. Import and export come with every plan. Name your columns with the keys shown, and they fill the right field without any matching.
A shared Google Sheet
Suits a team that already lives in a sheet, or a partner who sends you leads that way. A sheet keeps coming in only if you switch on Read the sheet every hour. Otherwise it needs you to press Sync now. So a form that writes to a sheet can reach your dialling list within the hour, at best, and that may be slow for hot leads.
Facebook and Instagram lead forms
These connect a Page's lead forms directly, so leads don't need exporting. A paused Page ignores new submissions, and those are not collected later, so pause with care. If Facebook stops sharing a Page's leads, new ones wait and Needs you says so. Reconnect and they come in.
A form on your own website
A form built in any tool that can send a webhook can post to a private address. Each form has its own address, its own agent and its own workflow. It rings nobody until you press Start. After that, it rings a real customer on every new submission, inside calling hours, and each call is billed. Anyone with the address can send submissions, so keep it private and keep a bot check on the form. You can set a limit per minute and per day, a limit per number, and required consent. Over its limit, a form pauses itself and stops calling. A paused form ignores new submissions, and they are not collected later.
Your CRM's new-lead webhook
Suits a business whose leads already go to a CRM. See the CRM and lead sources guide. Your lead address carries its own key, so treat it like a password.
Duplicates
A contact is matched by phone number, however it is written. So importing the same list twice updates the same people, and +91 98… and 098… are treated as one person. New counts contacts a source created, and doesn't count rows that updated one you had. A source that says 40 new from 100 rows may be working perfectly.
One person can of course use two numbers. That will show as two contacts, so don't expect the match to catch it.
Bringing a lead in does not ring anyone
This is the most common surprise. A lead source only adds contacts. A campaign or a workflow does the ringing. A website form comes with its own workflow, as above. For the other sources, to call a new lead soon after it arrives:
- Make a workflow with the trigger New lead, and a Call contact step using your agent.
- Press Test workflow. It is a rehearsal: nothing is sent, nobody is called, and no contact is changed.
- Switch it on. It runs from that moment, and it doesn't act on contacts from before.
The call goes out inside your calling hours and rules. A form filled in at 11 pm waits until your hours open, and the first call will be at 9 am at the earliest. That Call contact step places a real, billed call to a real person, which is why you test it first. See also our note on why speed matters.
Keep an eye on the sources
A source can stop quietly. Someone changes a password or a sheet's sharing setting, and leads dry up, and nobody notices for a week because a slow week looks the same. The Sources page shows what each has brought in and when it last ran. Add it to someone's Monday check.
Contact limits
Past your plan's contact limit, new rows are saved but held, and never called until you activate them. Leads from a connected page or webhook over the limit are held, not dropped, and you are told. So a campaign that looks short may have leads sitting in the held state. Your plan's limit is on the pricing page.
Fields worth keeping
Decide which fields you keep beyond a name and number, by contact type. For property that may be project and budget. For loans, product and city. The agent can use what you hold, in its script and for its questions, so a field the agent would otherwise ask about can be skipped. Don't carry a field that nobody will read.
What stays with you
You need a lawful basis to call the people you bring in, and consent stays your responsibility. A lead from a form with no consent wording, or a list bought from someone, doesn't become callable just because it uploaded. Your Do-Not-Call list is checked on every outbound path, whichever source a contact came from, but the national registry isn't checked for you.
Removing a source stops new contacts, and those already in stay. Bringing contacts in has no charge of its own, and calling them is billed as usual. Sheets, lead forms and website forms depend on your plan. Start with one sheet or form, and watch a few leads go all the way through to a call before you connect the rest.