Automatically Tag Incoming Leads by Source

Manually tracking where your leads come from eats up precious time—and mistakes happen. With a little automation magic, you can use tools like Google Forms, Sheets, n8n, OpenAI, and HubSpot to automatically tag every new lead by their source or industry. It takes a bit of setup, but your future self (and sales team) will thank you for cleaner data and faster responses.

Why Automate This?

Knowing where your leads come from—whether it’s social media, your website, or word-of-mouth—helps you focus on marketing that works. Tagging leads the moment they arrive means:

• No more manual sorting (and fewer mistakes!)
• Instant segmenting for sales or follow-up campaigns
• Cleaner CRM data for smarter decisions

And the best part? You don’t need to be a coder to get this working, thanks to modern no-code tools and a boost from AI.

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Google Forms + n8n + OpenAI: Instantly Tag Leads from Web Forms

What’s happening?
You create a simple Google Form to collect incoming leads—fields like name, email, company, website, and “How did you hear about us?” When someone submits, n8n (the workflow automation tool) jumps in, grabs the form data, and sends company info to OpenAI for classification. The AI reads the input (like the company name or website), figures out the industry (say, “e-commerce” or “SaaS”), and n8n logs it all to Google Sheets—complete with new tags.

Workflow Visual:

• Google Form → n8n (triggers on new response)
• n8n → OpenAI (asks: What’s the industry/source?)
• n8n → Google Sheets (logs details + tags)

Sample JSON Payload:

{
  "name": "Jess Lee",
  "email": "jess@techco.io",
  "company": "TechCo.io",
  "website": "techco.io",
  "referral": "LinkedIn",
  "ai_industry_tag": "SaaS",
  "ai_source_tag": "Social Media"
}

Tips for customizing:

• Add more custom form fields if you want deeper tags (such as company size, location, etc.).
• If your audience is mostly in one sector, adjust your OpenAI prompt in n8n to be even more specific—like “Tag this company only if it’s healthcare-related.”
• Map source/industry tags in Sheets for easy sorting later.

2. Google Sheets Triggers with AI Enrichment

What’s happening?
If you’re already collecting leads in Google Sheets (from imports, forms, or manual entry), n8n can monitor new rows. For each arrival, it fires off to OpenAI, which analyzes company names, websites, or even clues in free-text fields to suggest useful tags (like “Fintech” or “Consulting”). n8n then writes those tags back to the same row—keeping everything neat and searchable.

Workflow Visual:

• Google Sheets (new row detected) → n8n
• n8n → OpenAI (classifies data)
• n8n → Google Sheets (updates tags)

Sample JSON Payload:

{
  "company": "Healthwise Inc.",
  "website": "healthwise.com",
  "description": "Digital patient services portal",
  "tags": ["Healthcare", "Software"]
}

Tips for customizing:

• Use Google Sheets’ “On Change” or “On Form Submit” triggers for instant reactions.
• If you get lots of incomplete data, tweak your OpenAI instructions to fill in what’s missing (“Guess the industry based on the name and website.”).
• Set up color-coded conditional formatting in Sheets for each major tag—makes spotting patterns easy.

3. HubSpot + n8n Tagging Automation

What’s happening?
For businesses that live in HubSpot, this workflow automates tagging inside your CRM. When new leads arrive (from web forms, imports, or integrations), n8n monitors HubSpot. It grabs contact data—like job titles, company, or entry source—passes it to OpenAI for smart categorization, then updates the contact record directly in HubSpot using its API. No more manual tagging, and your whole team sees the updates live.

Workflow Visual:

• HubSpot Contact Created → n8n
• n8n → OpenAI (analyzes for industry/source)
• n8n → HubSpot (adds/updates tag properties)

Sample JSON Payload:

{
  "contact_id": "12345",
  "company": "Agile Marketing Group",
  "website": "agilemktg.com",
  "source": "Referral partner",
  "tags": ["Marketing", "Referral"]
}

Tips for customizing:

• Change when or how often n8n polls HubSpot for new leads based on your lead volume.
• Add extra filters in n8n to only process relevant leads (for instance, “ignore free email addresses”).
• If you use lead scoring in HubSpot, include score-based tags for easier sales prioritization.

4. Prebuilt n8n Templates for Lead Tagging

What’s happening?
Don’t want to build from scratch? n8n offers handy templates—like a lead qualification workflow (see this community post). Just copy a template, swap in an OpenAI node for smarter tagging, and connect your favorite inputs/outputs. For example: automatically tag a lead as “Social Media” if it mentions “LinkedIn” in the form, or “B2B” if the company sector matches.

Workflow Visual:

• Lead Data In (Form or Sheet) → n8n Template
• n8n → OpenAI for tagging
• n8n → Sheets or HubSpot (sync tagged data)

Sample JSON Payload:

{
  "company": "PixelShift Studios",
  "website": "pixelshift.io",
  "lead_source": "Instagram Ad",
  "tags": ["Creative Agency", "Social Media"]
}

Tips for customizing:

• Use a template as a base, then add your own business-specific rules (like custom industry lists, or check for keywords).
• Experiment with the OpenAI prompt so that it returns tags in your ideal format—single words, comma-separated, or even emojis (if that’s your thing).
• Connect output nodes to whatever tool your team uses most—Google Sheets, HubSpot, or even an email alert system.

Real Example: Tagging Leads for a Small B2B Software Company

Let’s say you run a SaaS startup and most leads come from your website form, LinkedIn ads, or personal referrals. With the above automations, here’s how a typical lead flows through:

1. A prospect fills in your web form: “Hi, I’m Elena from Healthwise Inc., found you via LinkedIn.”
2. n8n picks up the new entry, passes name and website to OpenAI, which classifies the company as “Healthcare SaaS”.
3. n8n updates your leads sheet or CRM, adding tags like "Healthcare", "SaaS", and "Social Media".
4. Your sales team now filters leads by industry or source with one click, prioritizing outreach.

Bonus: If you run further automations, leads tagged as “Referral” or with high-value industries can trigger instant email alerts for white-glove handling.

Tools You’ll Need

• Google Forms or Google Sheets to capture or store leads
• n8n (cloud or self-hosted): your automation platform
• OpenAI account for smart enrichment/tagging
• HubSpot (optional, for CRM users)
• Some headspace and a coffee ☕

Related Articles

• How to Enrich Leads in Google Sheets Using AI (n8n Tutorial)
• Qualify Leads with GPT-4 and n8n [Community]
• Automating Lead Management in HubSpot
• OpenAI Text Classification Guide

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to be a technical wizard to automate lead tagging. With tools like n8n and OpenAI, a basic form or spreadsheet can become a smart system that instantly organizes your leads by what matters: source and industry. Start small, use templates, and tweak as you go. Your team (and your future self) will thank you.