Lead follow-up automations

Two triggers deal with leads, and they do different jobs.

New lead — the instant auto-reply

New lead fires the moment a lead arrives, however it arrived. This is the highest-value automation in Marketli: a website enquiry that gets a reply in ten seconds converts very differently to one that gets a reply tomorrow.

To build one:

1. Company → Automations → New automation.
2. Name it — Website enquiry auto-reply is the example the field itself suggests.
3. Choose New lead.
4. Create and add steps.
5. Add an SMS step, pick the number it sends from, and write something short and human.
6. Optionally add an Email step as well, for leads with an email but no phone.
7. Switch the automation on.

Because a lead can arrive with only a phone number or only an email, it is worth having both steps. The one that cannot apply skips with Recipient has no email address or Recipient has no phone number, and the other still sends.

Wait steps work here too, so you can add a "still keen?" text a day later in the same chain.

Lead follow-up — the scheduled chase

Lead follow-up does not fire on its own. It fires when a scheduled follow-up message on a lead falls due, which you set per lead — see Follow-ups and scheduled messages.

So the two halves work together:

• The scheduled message on the lead is your one-off, written for that person.
• The Lead follow-up automation is the repeatable sequence that runs at the same moment for every lead.

Set the follow-up date on the lead, and your automation handles the rest of the sequence.

Points to be aware of

Award points is not available on lead automations. A lead is not yet a client, so there is nobody to award points to. The option is hidden on this trigger, and if a legacy automation has one it skips with Points can only be awarded on booking or workspace automations.

It is not retrospective. Switching an automation on affects leads that arrive afterwards, not the ones already sitting on your board.

Sending limits still apply. Opt-outs, suppressed addresses and per-recipient rate limits are all enforced at send time. A skip in the run log tells you which one applied.

A sensible starting setup

1. A New lead automation with one SMS: acknowledge the enquiry, give a name and say when you will call.
2. A parallel Email step in the same automation for leads with no phone number.
3. A Lead follow-up automation with one SMS, so every lead you diarise gets chased whether or not you get to it.

That is three messages of setup that then runs for every enquiry you ever receive.