# How Leads Work A **lead** in AutoReach is a unified profile of a potential buyer that combines data from both X and LinkedIn. Leads are automatically discovered, enriched, scored, and tracked throughout the entire outreach lifecycle. ## What Is a Lead? A lead represents one person across one or both platforms. AutoReach automatically matches X profiles with LinkedIn profiles to create a unified view, giving you: * **Social presence** across both platforms * **Professional history** (education, experience, skills) * **Company and role** information * **Recent activity** and engagement patterns * **Intent and fit signals** extracted from content * **Buyer score** predicting purchase probability ## Where Do Leads Come From? AutoReach discovers leads through several different sources: ### 1. Tweet Search Search for keywords on X using natural language. AutoReach finds tweets matching your keywords and enrolls the authors as leads. **Example:** Search for "looking for workflow automation tool" finds people actively discussing this problem. ### 2. LinkedIn Search Multiple LinkedIn discovery methods covering content, people, companies, and hiring signals. * **Content search:** Find people posting about keywords (hiring, switching to competitor, etc.) * **People search (By Role):** Target by job title, location, industry, and other filters * **Company search (By Company):** Find companies matching descriptors (e.g., "B2B SaaS Sales Tooling") and add the top decision-maker from each as a lead * **Job search (Hiring Signals):** Find companies actively hiring for relevant roles, then extract the most senior decision-maker at each. Integrated into Content Search as the Hiring Signals intent category ### 3. Lookalike Audiences AutoReach uses AI to find influencers, thought leaders, publications, and communities whose followers match your ideal customer profile. It then extracts followers from those accounts and scores them against your ICP. You do not upload a list. AutoReach discovers the right seed accounts automatically based on your offer definition. **Example:** If you sell to B2B SaaS leaders, AutoReach might find an industry newsletter whose followers include VPs of Sales and Directors of Revenue Operations. It extracts those followers and scores them as leads. ### 4. Follower Extraction Extract followers from specific X accounts or LinkedIn profiles you choose as seed accounts. AutoReach processes the followers and scores them against your offer. ### 5. Comment Extraction AutoReach can extract leads from the comments on tweets or LinkedIn posts. When a post has high engagement from your target audience, the commenters are captured and scored as leads. ### 6. Link Extraction AutoReach extracts profile links found during searches and other discovery methods. These are processed and added as leads. ### 7. Lead Pool AutoReach maintains a shared lead pool of pre-enriched profiles. When you create or update an offer, the system uses vector embeddings to match existing leads against your ICP. This is the fastest way to get scored leads because they skip enrichment entirely. ### 8. Chrome Extension On LinkedIn, you can click the **Add to Leads** button on any profile page to add them directly to your CRM via the Chrome Extension. ### 9. Manual Add Add individual leads manually by URL or username. ### 10. CSV Import Bulk import leads from a spreadsheet with X handle, LinkedIn URL, or email. > **Note:** Lead pool matches are instant because they are pre-enriched. Intent-based sources (Tweet Search, LinkedIn Content Search) are next fastest. CSV imports take longest because they need full enrichment from scratch. ## Lead Enrichment When a lead enters AutoReach, it goes through automatic enrichment in the background: 1. **Profile enrichment:** Enrich LinkedIn and X profiles in parallel- extract bio, headline, experience, education, skills, and company data. 2. **Activity enrichment:** Fetch recent posts, engagement patterns, and social activity 3. **Location enrichment:** *(conditional)* Resolve lead location when geographic targeting is enabled 4. **Scoring:** Run Buyer Intelligence to calculate fit, intent, and timing scores As each stage completes, the lead's profile gets richer. You can view partial data during enrichment. Scoring runs after enrichment completes, but partial enrichment failures do not block scoring- the lead is scored with whatever data is available. > **Warning:** Enrichment speed varies. X and LinkedIn rate limiting can affect enrichment speed. Large batches may take time to fully enrich. ## Lead States Every lead has a buyer state that determines where it appears in the UI and whether it is eligible for outreach: | State | UI Tab Label | Description | Where It Appears | | ------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------ | | **Active** | **Ready** | High-scoring leads ready for outreach | Buyers page (Ready tab) | | **Monitor** | **Emerging** | Promising leads not yet ready for outreach | Buyers page (Emerging tab) | | **Poor Fit** | **Low Priority** | Low-scoring leads unlikely to convert | Buyers page (Low Priority tab) | | **Disqualified** | **Disqualified** | Leads that do not match your ICP | Buyers page (Disqualified tab) | | **Not Scored** | **Analyzing** | Enrichment not yet complete | Buyers page (Analyzing tab) | | **Manual Outreach** | **Manual** | User override - treated as Active | Buyers page (Manual tab) | See [Buyer Intelligence](/core-concepts/buyer-intelligence.md) for full details on each state and how transitions work. ## Cross-Platform Profile Matching You can search for a lead's profile on the other platform by selecting leads, clicking Enrich, and enabling "Find LinkedIn" or "Find X Profile" under Profile Discovery. This cross-platform data makes enrichment and scoring far more accurate than single-platform data alone. See [Lead Pool](/finding-leads/lead-pool.md) for details. ## Lead Profile Data Each lead's profile includes: ### Basic Info * Name, headline, bio * X and LinkedIn URLs * Email (if found via web enrichment) * Location (city, state, country) * Company and job title ### Professional Background * Education (school, degree, field, dates) * Work experience (company, role, tenure, description) * Skills (extracted from profiles) ### Social Activity * Recent posts and engagement * LinkedIn post activity * Follower/following counts ### Signals and Scoring * All detected intent signals (with dates and strength) * Company-level signals * Buyer state (Active, Monitor, Poor Fit, Disqualified) * Buyer score, fit score, intent score, timing score ## Filtering Leads The All Leads view and Sequence Leads view support filtering by: * **Buyer state** (Ready, Emerging, Low Priority, etc.) * **Connection status** (Pending Sent, Connected, Pending Received, Withdrawn, Not Connected) - filter by LinkedIn connection state * **Next action** - filter sequence leads by their upcoming action type Connection status badges appear inline next to lead names for quick visibility. ## Lead Lifecycle in a Sequence Once enrolled in a sequence, a lead progresses through these statuses: | Status | Meaning | | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- | | **Pending** | Enrolled but not yet started | | **Active** | Currently progressing through sequence steps | | **Paused** | Manually paused mid-sequence | | **Replied** | Lead replied to a message | | **Meeting Booked** | Meeting scheduled | | **Completed** | Finished all sequence steps | | **Lost** | Lead went cold or opportunity closed without conversion | | **Failed** | Error during execution (invalid profile, rate limit) | ## Best Practices > **Tip:** 100 highly-scored leads from LinkedIn search will outperform 1,000 random CSV imports. Focus on signal-rich sources first. > **Tip:** If you are just getting started, the lead pool gives you scored leads instantly without waiting for enrichment. > **Tip:** Do not ignore Poor Fit leads entirely. Re-scoring happens when new signals are detected. A lead can jump significantly based on a job change or new social activity. ## Next Steps * [**Buyer Intelligence**](/core-concepts/buyer-intelligence.md): Learn how AutoReach scores leads across fit, intent, and timing * [**Finding Leads Overview**](/finding-leads/overview.md): Explore all the ways to discover new leads --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://doc.autoreach.tech/core-concepts/leads.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.