If you’re running B2B sales, you know the drill: leads come in, someone has to sort them, and half the time, the “hot” leads turn out to be ice cold. Manual lead segmentation is tedious and, honestly, a bad use of your team’s time. This guide is for anyone who’s tired of spreadsheet chaos and wants to get their lead routing in order—specifically using Cheapinboxes, a CRM built for teams who don’t want to pay a fortune for basic automation.
Below, I’ll walk you through how to automate lead segmentation in Cheapinboxes, what works, what’s just fluff, and where the pitfalls are. If you want your sales reps talking to the right people instead of playing email detective, keep reading.
Why Automate Lead Segmentation Anyway?
Let’s level-set: lead segmentation just means sorting your incoming leads into buckets—by industry, company size, deal potential, or whatever matters to you. You want this automated because:
- Manual sorting is error-prone. People make mistakes, especially after lunch.
- Speed matters. If your competitor calls first, you lose.
- Reps should sell, not sort. Every minute wasted on admin is a minute not closing deals.
Don’t expect automation to fix bad data or magically make leads better. It just gets the right leads to the right people, faster.
Step 1: Decide What Segments Actually Matter
Before you touch a tool, figure out how you really want to segment leads. Most teams overcomplicate this—don’t. Start simple:
- Company size: Small, medium, enterprise?
- Industry: Are there sectors you specialize in?
- Geography: Do you care about region?
- Lead source: Marketing campaign, referral, cold inbound?
Pro tip: If you have more than five segments, you’ll regret it. Start with two or three that make a real difference for your team’s workflow.
Step 2: Make Sure Your Lead Capture Is Structured
Automation can’t work with garbage data. If your forms or imports are inconsistent, fix that first:
- Standardize form fields. Use drop-downs, not free text, for company size or industry.
- Kill optional fields. If you need the data to segment, make it required.
- Audit your existing list. If it’s a mess, do a one-time clean-up. No tool will solve for missing or inconsistent data.
If you’re getting leads from multiple sources (forms, imports, integrations), make sure they all map to the same fields in Cheapinboxes.
Step 3: Set Up Custom Fields in Cheapinboxes
Cheapinboxes isn’t Salesforce, but it lets you create custom fields for leads. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to Settings → Custom Fields.
- Add fields for each segment type.
- Use drop-downs for things like industry or company size.
- For geography, stick to country/state—don’t get too granular unless you have a reason.
What to avoid: Don’t create a dozen variations of the same field (“Region,” “Territory,” “Location”). You’ll confuse yourself and your automations.
Step 4: Build Your Automation Rules
Now the fun part—setting up the actual automation. In Cheapinboxes, these are usually called “Workflows” or “Automation Rules.” Here’s the basic process:
- Go to Automations/Workflows in your settings.
- Create a new rule with a clear name—e.g., “Segment by Industry.”
- Set the trigger: Most likely, “When a new lead is created.”
- Define conditions: For example, “If Industry equals ‘Software’.”
- Set the action: Assign to a specific rep, add a tag, move to a pipeline, etc.
Example:
- Trigger: New lead created
- Condition: Company size = “Enterprise”
- Action: Assign to senior sales rep, apply “Enterprise” tag
Pro tip: Start with assigning leads or tagging them. Don’t try to automate your entire pipeline on day one. You can always add more complex rules later.
Step 5: Test with Dummy Data
Don’t trust that your rules work—prove it. Create a few test leads that fit different buckets and see where they end up.
- If something doesn’t route right, double-check your field names and conditions.
- Pay attention to how Cheapinboxes handles blanks or typos. If “Software” gets spelled “Sofware,” your rule won’t fire.
- Fix your rules, not your expectations.
What doesn’t work: Hoping “AI” will figure out your messy segment logic. Keep it simple and explicit.
Step 6: Roll Out and Monitor
Once your tests work, turn the automations on for real leads.
- Watch the first week closely. Expect some weirdness—leads not assigned, odd tags, etc.
- Get feedback from the sales team. They’ll spot issues you miss.
- Adjust as needed. If a rule isn’t helping, kill it. Don’t keep automations just because you spent time setting them up.
Pro tip: Set a recurring calendar reminder to review your segmentation rules every month. Markets change, and so should your buckets.
What’s Worth Ignoring
There’s a lot of “AI-powered” segmentation hype out there. Here’s what you can skip, at least for now:
- Fancy scoring models: If you don’t have a ton of historical data, scores just add confusion.
- Overly complex routing: If you’re spending more time maintaining automations than selling, you’ve gone too far.
- Third-party enrichment tools: Unless you’re getting a real ROI, you can segment just fine with what leads give you.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
- Bad source data: Automation can’t fix a broken form or imports full of blanks.
- Too many segments: If your reps need a decoder ring to figure out who gets what, you’ll end up back at square one.
- Ignoring feedback: If sales reps aren’t happy with the segments, they’ll find workarounds—and your system breaks down.
Quick Recap: Keep It Simple, Iterate Fast
Automating lead segmentation in Cheapinboxes isn’t rocket science, but it does require clear thinking. Start with the segments that matter most, make sure your data is structured, and keep your automation rules dead simple. Watch how it works in the real world, listen to your sales team, and tweak as needed.
You don’t need a perfect system—just one that saves your team time and gets leads to the right place. Start small, see what works, and don’t be afraid to trash what doesn’t. The goal: less busywork, more selling.