How leads enter a pipeline
Who is added to the board, when, and how to choose which pipeline receives each new lead
Path: Communication > Leads → pipeline selector → Pipeline settings → More options
New leads are placed on the entry stage of one pipeline, automatically. Nobody has to accept them.
When a contact is added to the board
A contact that is not on any stage is added when one of these happens:
| What happens | Needs a setting? |
|---|---|
| The bot notices buying interest in the conversation | No |
| The conversation's interest reaches Medium interest or High interest | No |
| The person's first message comes from one of your ads | Yes: Add everyone who writes from an ad (details) |
| The person comments on one of your posts and the bot replies to the comment | Yes: Add everyone who comments on your posts |
| The person receives a WhatsApp campaign that is set to add its recipients to a pipeline | Yes, on the campaign |
| An integration connected to your account sends the lead | No |
| An order or an appointment of the contact is confirmed, and a stage of their pipeline has that automatic event | The event on a stage |
| Someone on your team chooses a stage for the contact in Messages | No |
Three rules always hold:
- A contact already on a stage of any pipeline is never added again or moved by these rules. Entry happens once. The one exception is an automatic event: a confirmed order or appointment still moves the lead forward to the stage that carries that event.
- A declined lead is never added again automatically. The same is true after someone sets a contact to No stage. A person can still choose a stage for it.
- The pipeline is chosen once, when the contact first becomes a lead. Later changes to the rules do not move existing leads.
Which pipeline a new lead goes to
Your main pipeline receives every new contact that no other pipeline takes. Every other pipeline receives only what you tell it to, under Which new contacts come here. A pipeline with no choices there only gets the leads you move to it yourself, the recipients of a campaign pointed at it, and the pipeline suggestions you accept.
Which new contacts come here has these categories:
- Connected accounts — tick the accounts you connected under Channels (for example a WhatsApp number, a Facebook page or an Instagram account) whose conversations belong here.
- Other channels — Website chat, Email, Added by hand.
- Ads — tick Any ad, or pick specific ads. See Leads from ads, comments and campaigns.
- Interests — labels that an integration attaches to the leads it sends, such as buy_house. Type one and press Enter. Use lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, 1 to 32 characters.
- Which pipeline goes first — a number. A lower number is checked first.
How a contact is matched:
- Within one category, one match is enough.
- Across categories, the contact must match every category you filled in. A pipeline with one Instagram account ticked and Any ad ticked receives only people who wrote to that Instagram account from an ad.
- If a contact matches two pipelines, the one with the lower Which pipeline goes first number wins.
- Each category accepts up to 50 entries.
- An interest can send contacts to only one pipeline. Adding it to a second one is refused with a message naming the first.
The line under the stages list in Pipeline settings summarizes in words which new leads the pipeline receives.
Add a contact by hand
Open the conversation in Messages and choose a stage in the Stage selector of the contact's profile. With several pipelines, the selector lists the stages of each one. This is also how you bring back a declined lead.
After the lead arrives
- If the pipeline shares leads among the team, the new lead gets an owner. See Results and lead owners.
- The bot starts using that pipeline's goal and the entry stage's instruction, if you wrote them. See How the bot works a pipeline.
- If the lead looks like it belongs on another pipeline, the bot can suggest it while the lead is still on the entry stage.
If a lead did not appear
- The contact asked a routine question. Only contacts with buying interest are added, unless the ad or comment switch is on.
- It was declined before, or set to No stage. Choose a stage for it in Messages.
- It is already on another pipeline. Check the Stage in its Messages profile.
- It went to the main pipeline instead. The other pipeline's choices did not all match; remember that every filled-in category must match.
- The column shows 50 cards. Older leads are still counted in the column's number.