How lead sources work
What happens between someone asking about your business and their lead appearing in FollowThroo.
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A lead source is a place where people ask about your business: an ad, a listing, your website. You connect it once. After that, every new enquiry appears in FollowThroo on its own.
- You connect a source. Mostly you copy a link from Settings, then Lead sources, and paste it into the other service. For Facebook you click a button and sign in. Adding by hand, spreadsheets and LinkedIn happen inside FollowThroo.
- A new enquiry arrives. FollowThroo picks out the name, email, phone, company and message. It needs an email address or a phone number to make a lead. Without one, nothing is created.
- FollowThroo checks if you already know them. If the person is already in your contacts, the enquiry is added to their history instead of making a second copy. Someone who asked not to be contacted is recorded but never put into your pipeline or your follow-up steps.
- Someone is given the lead. Each source has a rule for who gets it: nobody yet, taking turns, whoever has the fewest, or always one person. You choose it on the source's box in Settings.
- You can see it is working. Each source's box shows the time of the last enquiry received, or the last problem and why.
What the status words mean
- Ready: a source you use inside FollowThroo (adding by hand, spreadsheets, LinkedIn). Nothing to connect.
- Configured: FollowThroo has received a real enquiry from this source, so it works.
- Awaiting provider test delivery: it is set up, but nothing has arrived yet. Send a practice lead.
- Awaiting provider credentials: this source isn't switched on for FollowThroo yet. Contact us.
- Last failed delivery: the time, and a short reason, for the most recent enquiry that was refused. FollowThroo never keeps the contents of a refused enquiry.
Good to know
- A lot of enquiries arrive at the same moment.
- FollowThroo takes up to 300 a minute from each source. Above that it asks the other service to try again shortly, which they do automatically.
- Don't assume a source works until a real enquiry has arrived.
- Pasting a link proves nothing by itself. Send a practice lead, or wait for a real enquiry, and check it appears in Leads and the box says Configured.