## Introduction
For sales teams in startups and fast-growing companies, one of the most time-consuming yet critical tasks is lead aggregation. Leads often come from various sources such as web forms, email campaigns, social media platforms, and CRM systems. Manually collecting and consolidating these leads wastes valuable time and risks introducing errors or missed opportunities. Automating the aggregation process allows sales teams to focus on engagement and conversion rather than data collection.
In this article, we will walk through building an automated workflow using n8n, an open-source workflow automation tool, to aggregate leads from multiple sources such as Gmail, Google Sheets, and Facebook Lead Ads. We will cover how to set up triggers, extract and transform lead data, and consolidate it into a single Google Sheet or send it to your CRM or Slack channel for instant notifications. This guide is tailored for sales operations specialists and automation engineers who want a robust, scalable lead aggregation pipeline.
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## Problem Statement and Who Benefits
**Problem:** Leads are scattered across multiple systems (email, ads, forms), making lead management fractured and inefficient. Manual aggregation is error-prone and causes delays.
**Who benefits?**
– Sales teams who want real-time, consolidated lead data.
– Automation engineers setting up scalable lead handling.
– Startup founders wanting cleaner sales pipelines.
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## Tools and Services Integrated
– **n8n:** The automation platform orchestrating the workflow.
– **Gmail:** To capture leads coming via email (e.g., inbox leads from contact forms).
– **Google Sheets:** As a central hub for storing all aggregated leads.
– **Facebook Lead Ads:** For capturing leads generated from Facebook campaigns.
– **Slack:** Optional step to notify sales reps instantly.
The workflow will trigger on new lead arrivals from these sources, unify the data into a single record format, append it to Google Sheets, and notify the team.
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## Architecture Overview: How the Workflow Works
1. **Multiple Triggers:**
– Gmail: Triggered when a new lead email arrives.
– Facebook Lead Ads: Triggered when a new lead form is submitted.
– Google Sheets (optional): Triggered on spreadsheet rows for leads collected outside automated sources.
2. **Data Extraction & Transformation:**
– Extract relevant fields such as name, email, phone number, source, and lead metadata.
– Normalize the data structure so that leads from different sources have uniform fields.
3. **Lead Consolidation:**
– Append the unified lead record to a master Google Sheet.
4. **Notification (Optional):**
– Send Slack message to alert sales reps about new leads.
5. **Error Handling:**
– Implement error workflow nodes or conditional checks.
– Use retries and logs.
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## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial
### Prerequisites
– n8n installed and running (self-hosted or n8n cloud).
– Google account with access to Google Sheets.
– Facebook Lead Ads access with permissions.
– Slack workspace and bot token (optional).
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### Step 1: Set up n8n Credentials
1. In n8n, navigate to ‘Credentials’.
2. Create credentials for:
– Gmail (OAuth2)
– Google Sheets (OAuth2)
– Facebook Lead Ads
– Slack (optional)
Make sure you have API permissions configured correctly.
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### Step 2: Create New Workflow in n8n
Open the n8n editor and create a new workflow.
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### Step 3: Add Gmail Trigger Node
1. Add **Gmail Trigger** node.
2. Configure to trigger on new emails.
3. Apply filters to restrict to lead emails, e.g., from your website contact form address or subject contains “New Lead”.
Configuration details:
– **Label:** Gmail Lead Trigger
– **Filters:** Subject includes “Lead” OR specific sender email
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### Step 4: Parse Email Content
Emails often have unstructured content. Use a **Function** node after the Gmail trigger to extract lead data.
“`javascript
// Example to parse email body for name, email, phone
const text = $node[“Gmail Lead Trigger”].json[“text”];
// Implement regex or string operations based on your email format
const nameMatch = text.match(/Name:\s*(.*)/);
const emailMatch = text.match(/Email:\s*([\w\.-]+@[\w\.-]+)/);
const phoneMatch = text.match(/Phone:\s*([\d\-\s\+]+)/);
return [{
json: {
name: nameMatch ? nameMatch[1].trim() : “”,
email: emailMatch ? emailMatch[1].trim() : “”,
phone: phoneMatch ? phoneMatch[1].trim() : “”,
source: “Email”,
}
}];
“`
Adjust the regex patterns according to your email format.
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### Step 5: Add Facebook Lead Ads Trigger
1. Add **Facebook Lead Ads Trigger** node.
2. Connect your Facebook Lead Ads credentials.
3. Choose the lead form and page to monitor.
4. Set to trigger when a new lead is submitted.
This node outputs the lead data in structured JSON, so no parsing is necessary.
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### Step 6: Normalize Facebook Lead Data
Use a **Function** node to map Facebook lead fields to the standard structure (name, email, phone, source).
Example:
“`javascript
return [{
json: {
name: $json[“field_data”].find(f => f.name === “full_name”)?.values[0] || “”,
email: $json[“field_data”].find(f => f.name === “email”)?.values[0] || “”,
phone: $json[“field_data”].find(f => f.name === “phone_number”)?.values[0] || “”,
source: “Facebook Lead Ads”,
}
}];
“`
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### Step 7: Merge Lead Data Streams
1. Use the **Merge** node to combine outputs from the Gmail lead parser and Facebook lead parser.
2. Set the Merge mode to **Merge by pushing** to stack incoming leads sequentially.
This step consolidates leads received from different triggers for the next processing step.
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### Step 8: Append Leads to Google Sheets
1. Add the **Google Sheets** node configured to your master leads spreadsheet.
2. Use the ‘Append’ operation.
3. Map the normalized fields (name, email, phone, source) to sheet columns.
Configuration example:
– Spreadsheet ID: Your Google Sheet ID
– Sheet Name: “Leads”
– Values:
– Name: `{{$json[“name”]}}`
– Email: `{{$json[“email”]}}`
– Phone: `{{$json[“phone”]}}`
– Source: `{{$json[“source”]}}`
– Timestamp: Use `{{ $now.toISOString() }}` or add a timestamp function
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### Step 9: Optional Slack Notification
1. Add a **Slack** node to send messages.
2. Configure to your sales team’s channel.
3. Message template example:
“`text
New lead captured:
Name: {{$json[“name”]}}
Email: {{$json[“email”]}}
Phone: {{$json[“phone”]}}
Source: {{$json[“source”]}}
“`
This step provides immediate visibility for the team.
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### Step 10: Add Error Handling and Logging
1. Utilize n8n’s built-in error trigger node to catch errors.
2. Log errors to a Google Sheet or notify via Slack.
3. Consider adding retries with delay if external API calls fail.
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## Common Errors and How to Make the Workflow Robust
– **Credential errors:** Ensure all API keys and OAuth tokens are valid and have proper scopes.
– **Data parsing failures:** Data format changes, especially from emails, can break regex parsing. Use try/catch blocks in function nodes.
– **API rate limits:** Watch for limitations from Gmail, Facebook, and Google Sheets APIs. Implement delays and retries.
– **Duplicate leads:** Add a duplicate check step against your Google Sheet (e.g., using the ‘Lookup’ operation) to avoid redundant entries.
– **Network failures:** Use n8n’s built-in retry feature on nodes connecting to external services.
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## How to Adapt and Scale the Workflow
– **Add new lead sources:** Extend triggers with more nodes (e.g., LinkedIn Lead Gen, HubSpot, Typeform).
– **Enhance data enrichment:** Add nodes to enrich leads with social profiles or company info via external APIs.
– **Integrate CRM:** Instead of just storing in Sheets, push leads directly to Salesforce, HubSpot, or your preferred CRM.
– **Performance scaling:** For very high lead volume, consider batching or rate limiting inputs.
– **Advanced filtering:** Add conditional nodes to qualify leads before appending.
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## Summary
Automating lead aggregation with n8n helps sales teams centralize and cleanly track leads from multiple sources without manual overhead. This article showed how to connect Gmail, Facebook Lead Ads, and Google Sheets, with structured parsing and normalization. With optional Slack notifications and error handling, this workflow is production-ready and highly adaptable.
By implementing this approach, startups can ensure faster lead follow-up, improved data quality, and a scalable pipeline suited to growth. Automation engineers should prioritize modular, maintainable workflows with centralized error management for ease of troubleshooting.
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**Bonus Tip:**
Use n8n’s Version Control feature or export your workflow definitions regularly as JSON. This ensures you can rollback or share workflows with your team efficiently. Also, consider integrating with a ticketing or task management system (like Jira or Trello) to automatically assign leads requiring manual review.
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Feel free to customize this workflow further to match your exact lead sources and sales process.