« Back to Solutions

The Balanced Lead Gen Automation Playbook: From LinkedIn Prospect to HubSpot Contact in Seconds

Your sales team is drowning in manual data entry. Every time a rep finds a promising lead on LinkedIn, they waste precious minutes copy-pasting details from Apollo.io into HubSpot. This tedious process is not just slow; it's a recipe for errors, incomplete data, and delayed follow-ups. The result? A leaky sales pipeline, inaccurate reporting, and a frustrating disconnect between your lead generation efforts and your CRM.

This playbook implements a powerful, automated bridge between your team's prospecting and your CRM. Using the flexible 'no-code' platform Make.com, we'll connect the Apollo.io browser extension directly to your HubSpot CRM. Now, when a sales rep saves a new prospect on LinkedIn, the automation instantly triggers. It checks for an existing contact in HubSpot, creates a new one if needed, logs the lead source, and even assigns a follow-up task to the correct rep. Say goodbye to data silos and hello to a seamless, real-time lead management workflow.

Expected Outcomes

  • Eliminate 100% of manual data entry between Apollo.io and HubSpot.
  • Increase sales rep productivity by saving hours of administrative work each week.
  • Ensure lead data in your CRM is always accurate, complete, and up-to-date.
  • Accelerate speed-to-lead by instantly creating contacts and follow-up tasks.
  • Improve sales pipeline visibility and ROI tracking with consistent data capture.
  • Drastically reduce the risk of human error in data transfer.

Core Tools in This Stack

Make

Visit website

Make is a visual platform that lets you design, build, and automate anything—from tasks and workflows to apps and systems—without needing to code.

Key Features
  • Visual drag-and-drop workflow editor
  • Extensive library of 1,700+ app integrations
  • Real-time execution and monitoring
  • Advanced error handling and data manipulation tools
  • Support for custom webhooks and API calls
  • Pre-built workflow templates
  • Team collaboration and user management features
  • Custom App builder for internal tools
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription, Usage-based

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Easy

HubSpot CRM

Visit website

A comprehensive CRM platform that includes a suite of tools for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service, with a completely free CRM at its core to help businesses manage customer relationships and accelerate growth.

Key Features
  • Contact & Lead Management
  • Sales Pipeline Visualization
  • Deal Tracking and Management
  • Email Tracking and Templates
  • Meeting Scheduling Tool
  • Live Chat and Chatbots
  • Reporting and Analytics Dashboards
  • Task and Activity Automation
Ideal For

Company Size: Small, Medium

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Starter

Ease of Use

Very High

Apollo.io

Visit website

Apollo.io is an all-in-one sales intelligence and engagement platform that provides access to a B2B database of over 275 million contacts, along with tools for prospecting, sequencing, and analytics to help sales teams find and engage their ideal customers.

Key Features
  • B2B Prospecting Database with over 275M contacts and 60+ filters
  • Automated Sales Sequencing (email, calls, LinkedIn tasks)
  • Real-time Data Enrichment for leads and accounts
  • Buying Intent Data to identify companies in-market
  • AI-powered features for email writing and call analysis
  • Advanced Analytics & Reporting on sales activities
  • Seamless integration with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Medium

Ease of Use

Moderate

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "Balanced Lead Gen Automation" direction LR N0["Make"] N1["HubSpot CRM"] N2["Apollo.io"] N2 -- "Webhook: New Contact Saved" --> N0 N0 -- "Search for Contact by Email" --> N1 N0 -- "Update Contact (if found)" --> N1 N0 -- "Create Contact (if not found)" --> N1 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • Apollo-HubSpot Lead Bridge

    This integration is triggered when a new contact is saved to a list in Apollo.io. Make receives the contact's data via a webhook. It then uses the contact's email address to search for an existing record in HubSpot CRM. A router directs the workflow: if a matching contact is found, the HubSpot 'Update a Contact' module is executed, enriching the existing record with fresh data from Apollo. If no match is found, the HubSpot 'Create a Contact' module runs, creating a new, fully populated contact. This ensures no duplicates are created and that CRM data remains current.

Automate Your Lead-to-CRM Pipeline

Stop wasting time on manual data entry and turn LinkedIn prospects into HubSpot contacts instantly.