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Leads from a trade show, conference, or webinar usually arrive after the event as a list: badge scans from the booth, or the people who registered for a webinar. Each person on the list needs an owner and a first touch from that owner. In Default, you import the list into Salesforce or HubSpot, and a workflow picks up each new record, checks it against the records you already have, enriches it, gives it an owner, and starts the follow-up with that owner as the sender.

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Event lead follow-up at a glance

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Choose how the event list reaches Default

The CRM import is the most dependable path for a list. It uses your CRM’s own import and its handling of existing records, and every record it creates starts its own run. If your event or webinar tool already creates records in your CRM through its own integration, the same trigger picks those records up.

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Setup for event follow-up

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Build the workflow for an imported Salesforce list

This example follows up on a trade show list imported as Salesforce Leads. People who are already Contacts stay with their owner. Leads from a company with an Account go to the account owner, and the rest go to the next rep in a queue named Event follow-up. People who asked for a demo at the booth get a Slack alert to their rep, and everyone else joins the rep’s Outreach sequence. Before you import, add 2 columns to the file: Lead Source set to Trade Show on every row, and Rating set to Hot for the people who asked for a demo at the booth.
1

Add the trigger

In Workflows, create a workflow and add the CRM Record Created trigger. Set CRM to Salesforce and Record to Lead. Add a Condition: Lead Source is Trade Show.
2

Check for an existing Contact

Add Match Record. Set CRM to Salesforce and Record to Contact, and under Match Details, match the Contact’s Email to the Lead’s Email from the trigger.On the Match branch, add Send Slack Message. Set Recipients to the Contact’s Owner ID from the Match Record step, so the owner hears that their contact was at the event. To fold the Lead into the Contact, see Merge a duplicate lead into the existing contact.
3

Enrich the lead

On the No Match branch, add Enrich Data. Set Enrichment target to Both, Enrichment source to your waterfall, and Email / Domain (optional) to the Lead’s Email from the trigger.
4

Match the Account

Add Match Record with CRM set to Salesforce and Record set to Account. Under Match Details, choose Website and domain matches, pick the Lead’s Email from the trigger, and choose Domain from email. Under Prioritize matched records by, add Largest by employees and then Most recently modified. See Salesforce lead-to-account matching.
5

Give account leads to the account owner

On the Match branch, add Update Record. Set Platform to Salesforce, Record Type to Lead, and Record to update to the Lead’s record ID from the trigger. Under Fields, add Owner ID and choose the Account’s Owner ID from the Match Record step.
6

Round-robin the rest

On the No Match branch, add Round-Robin and set Queue to Event follow-up. Then add Update Record for the Lead and set Owner ID to Latest assigned user.
7

Alert the rep about the hottest leads

After each Update Record, add Multi-Branch with a branch named Hot, where the Lead’s Rating from the trigger is Hot. On Hot, add Send Slack Message. Set Recipients to the rep on that branch: the Account’s Owner ID, or Latest assigned user. In Message, type {{ to insert the lead’s name, title, and company.Hot leads skip the sequence, so the rep’s own follow-up reaches them first.
8

Add everyone else to the rep's sequence

On each Else branch, add Add to Outreach Sequence. Set Sequence to Trade show follow-up and Email to the Lead’s Email from the trigger. Set Sending mailbox to the Account’s Owner ID on the account branch, and to Latest assigned user on the round-robin branch.
9

Test and publish

Select Test, fill in a sample Lead with your own email and Lead Source set to Trade Show, and select Run Test. Check the Lead owner in Salesforce and the prospect in Outreach. Then select Publish and check that the status next to the deployment switch reads Live. A new workflow goes live when you first publish it. If the status reads Paused, turn the switch on.
A test performs real actions. It changes the Lead owner, counts the routing assignment, sends the Slack message, and enrolls the person in the sequence, which can send real emails. Use your own email and a test sequence.
Import 2 or 3 test rows before the full list, and check their runs. Every row in the full import starts a run, so a wrong Condition or owner field affects the whole list.
To use another sequencing tool, swap the sequencing node. See Send routed leads to sales sequences.

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Salesforce and HubSpot differences for event lists

To follow up with people the import updated instead of created, build a second workflow on CRM Record Updated with a Condition of Fields Updated contains any of the field that marks the event. In HubSpot, Default checks for changed records every few minutes. See Triggers.

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Send leads from a scanner, event app, or webinar platform

Some badge scanners, event apps, and webinar platforms can send each lead as it’s captured, directly by webhook or through Zapier. Use this path when reps should follow up during the event:
  1. Start with the Incoming Webhook trigger. Under Connected Webhook, select Create new webhook, and give the Ingestion URL and Bearer secret to the tool or to a Zap. Capture a sample, and under Identity mapping, map the email field to Person email. See Connect Zapier to Default.
  2. Check the CRM first. The person may not be in your CRM yet. Add Match Record for the Contact by the email in the request, and in Salesforce a second Match Record for the Lead on its No Match branch. Send people you find to their owner.
  3. Create the record instead of updating it. On No Match, build steps 3 to 8 above, but use Create Record in place of Update Record. In Mapped Fields, map Email, Last Name, and Company from the request or from Enrich Data, since Salesforce needs the last 2 to create a Lead and later requests find the person by email. Set Owner ID to the Account’s Owner ID or Latest assigned user.
  4. Mark hot leads from the request. Branch on a field the tool sends, for example a demo request flag from the scanner app.
Each request starts 1 run. 2 requests for the same person seconds apart can both take No Match, so keep your CRM’s duplicate protection on, for example a Salesforce duplicate rule that blocks new Leads with an existing email. To send leads from your own system, or a list row by row from a script, start the workflow with the API trigger instead. It needs a Connected Form that defines the fields each call sends. Each API key can make 30 requests per minute, about 1,800 leads an hour. See Route and book through the API.

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What to expect after you import an event list

  • 1 run per new record. An import of 300 Leads starts 300 runs. Each run uses enrichment credits for each provider that returns data, and each round-robin lead counts as 1 assignment in the queue.
  • Owners copied from the Account don’t count toward round robin. Only an owner that comes from a Round-Robin node counts as a queue assignment.
  • The owner changes in the CRM. The Lead or contact owner moves from the person who ran the import to the rep the workflow chose.
  • Every decision is in the run. Open the workflow, select Runs at the top, and open a run. The Match Record steps show which Contact or Account matched, and Multi-Branch shows why a lead took Hot or Else. See Run logs.

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Troubleshoot event lead follow-up

Related: Lead routing software from Default