Automated Lead Response Categorization & Follow-up with OpenAI & Lemlist

Workflow Overview

This n8n workflow is designed to automatically process incoming email replies from your email outreach campaigns managed via Lemlist. It leverages the power of OpenAI to categorize these replies, identifying if a lead is 'interested', 'out of office', 'unsubscribed', or 'other'. Based on this categorization, the workflow can trigger subsequent actions, such as updating your CRM (e.g., HubSpot), creating deals, or sending follow-up messages. This automation streamlines your sales process by intelligently handling inbound communications and ensuring timely, relevant actions are taken.

Technical Logic Explained

The core of this workflow lies in the Lucas Open AI node, which is configured to interact with both OpenAI and Lemlist.

1. OpenAI Integration: A prompt is constructed that provides OpenAI with a list of possible categories ('interested', 'Out of office', 'unsubscribe', 'other') and a sample of the lead's reply text. OpenAI then predicts and outputs the most relevant category.
2. Lemlist Integration: The workflow uses the lemlistApi credential to interact with Lemlist. The resource is set to 'contact' and the operation is 'unsubscribe' (though this seems to be a misnomer in the snippet, as it's likely used for updating contact status or triggering actions based on replies).
3. Data Extraction: The workflow dynamically pulls data from incoming JSON payloads, such as leadEmail, campaignId, vid (likely a HubSpot contact ID), leadFirstName, leadLastName, and text content from replies. It also constructs a dynamic subject line for potential follow-up emails.
4. HubSpot Association: The additionalFields.associations.contactIds parameter is used to link the action to a specific contact via their vid, suggesting a HubSpot integration for contact management.
5. Dynamic URLs: The url parameter for the Lemlist API call is dynamically constructed, indicating an action to mark a lead as 'interested' on a specific campaign.
6. Conditional Logic (Implied): While not explicitly shown as a separate node, the OpenAI categorization (using prompt and output parameters) implies that subsequent nodes in the workflow would branch based on the returned 'Category' to perform different actions (e.g., HubSpot 'Create Deal' for 'interested', or potentially updating status for 'Out of Office' or 'unsubscribe').