Lead Import Pipeline: every client's leads into the right outbound campaign

The problem

Lead imports were being handled by hand across multiple outbound platforms, and that manual step got more expensive as client volume grew. Each import was a one-off, so there were gaps in campaign tracking (not much of a view of what had actually been imported where). Coordinating CSVs against live campaigns was error-prone too, with plenty of room for a lead to be mis-mapped or missed entirely.

The approach

Getting a client's campaign mapping wrong is a real risk, so I kept a person in the loop for that step. The bigger fix was giving every client's imports one place to go, where before each client had its own ad-hoc process that had grown up around it. I built it so it could scale, but I didn't go to full automation before the process underneath was trustworthy enough to run unattended.

What I built

A central Airtable database holds the client and campaign settings, so there's one place that knows which leads belong to which client and campaign. From there, an automated flow validates each import before it moves anywhere, then routes it on to wherever the relevant campaign actually runs, so the agency isn't shuttling lists between platforms by hand.

The outcome

The agency now saves several hours a week that used to go into manual import work, and import errors are minimal, because every import is checked before it goes anywhere. More clients and campaigns can come on board without adding to the tracking work.