Available in Align.ly Lead-to-Account 1.8+

Align.ly Lead-to-Account has the ability to auto-convert a Lead in a Salesforce flow via an "action" called "Auto-Convert Lead".

CAUTION: If you have other systems syncing with Salesforce (ie marketing automation platforms, sales engagement platforms, customer success platforms), you will want to test that auto-converting a Lead when it is immediately created doesn't cause sync problems with these systems. To be safe, we recommend having a slight delay of a few minutes before auto-converting for newly created Leads to give your systems a chance to settle down and sync before initiating the conversion.

How do I set this up?

The ability to auto-convert a Lead in a Salesforce flow is very flexible in how it can be used. Here is how to implement the flow action:

1. In your flow, click the "+" to add an element
2. Under Interaction, select "Action"
3. In the action search box, search for "Auto-Convert Lead"
4. Provide a Label and API name
5. Under "Set Input Values for the Selected Action" turn the toggle to "Include" and set the leadId to "{!$Record.id}"
6. Save and activate the Salesforce flow and you're done!

Does this feature work with the "On Auto-Conversion, Merge Duplicates" setting?

Yes, if you have this setting turned on, a Lead that is auto-converted via the flow action will merge with an existing Contact with the exact same email address.

Does this feature work with the "Set Contact Owner to Account Owner" setting?

Yes, if you have this setting turned on, a Lead that is auto-converted via the flow action will have the Contact Owner be updated to the "Account Owner API Name" setting you've configured.

Does this feature work with the "WHERE Clause for Auto-Conversion" setting?

No, because you as the Salesforce admin set the Salesforce flow criteria this feature works independently of this setting.

Once Align.ly Lead-to-Account Matching has been implemented, it is common for customers to then want to source and import into Salesforce a list of all Accounts within their total addressable market (TAM). Most common data sources we see include DiscoverOrg, ZoomInfo, Clearbit, and LinkedIn.

Why import all TAM Accounts?

There are a few different reasons to import all TAM Accounts into Salesforce that can dramatically improve the productivity and effectiveness of your marketing and sales teams:

1. Imported Accounts will have accurate and complete data (Company Name, Email Domain, Employees, Industry, HQ Address, etc)
2. Leads already in Salesforce will match to Accounts
3. Account Owner is much easier to update and maintain than Lead Owner
4. With more Accounts, a higher percentage of new Leads will match to an existing Account and be properly routed to the right Salesforce user
5. Lead forms can be shortened as matched Leads can be enriched with Account data
6. With accurate and complete data on Lead, marketing can be more effective with nurturing
7. Sales and marketing can better execute on an account-based strategy

How to properly import a list of TAM Accounts with email domains

Use your preferred method of importing records into Salesforce (ie Data Loader) make sure you set the following:

• Map all the Account fields in your CSV to Account field in Salesforce
• On Account, Email Domain(s) will include the email domain (ie @coca-cola.com)
• Be sure to include the "@" sign
• On Account, Lock Account will be equal to TRUE
• Since Accounts are being imported without Contacts, in order to "lock" the value in the Email Domain(s) field, Lock Account needs to be equal to TRUE.

In this video we walk through how to set up a notification email to the Lead Owner when Align.ly Lead-to-Account matches a Lead to an Account.