If you’re tired of chasing cold leads, relying on outdated spreadsheets, or wondering if your sales team is missing warm prospects, you’re in the right place. This guide is for sales leaders, revenue ops folks, and anyone who wants to actually get value from automation—not just tick another “digital transformation” box. We’ll walk through setting up automated prospect tracking in Usergems, step by step, with an eye for what’s worth your time (and what isn’t).
Let’s get to work.
Why bother with automated prospect tracking?
Let’s be honest: prospect tracking can become a mess fast. Reps forget to update fields, contacts change jobs, and your CRM turns into a graveyard of “maybe someday” opportunities.
Automated prospect tracking isn’t about adding another tool for the sake of it. When it works, it surfaces real, actionable signals—like when your buyers move to new companies—and hands them to your reps in a way they’ll actually use.
But not every automated solution is magic. The key is to set it up in a way that fits your team’s workflow, avoids noise, and doesn’t create busywork. That’s what we’ll cover here.
Step 1: Know what you’re solving for
Before you start clicking through Usergems menus, pause. What’s your actual goal?
- Chasing job changes? (The classic Usergems use case.)
- Tracking key accounts for expansion?
- Surfacing warm intros via alumni?
- All of the above?
Get specific. Automated tracking can spiral into “automate everything!” territory fast. Pick 1–2 goals to start. Write them down. If you can’t measure it, you won’t know if it’s working.
Pro tip: If your reps already ignore “hot lead” lists, more alerts won’t help. Focus on the signals they actually act on.
Step 2: Connect your data sources
Usergems is only as good as the data you feed it. Here’s what you’ll need:
- CRM integration: Usergems plugs into Salesforce, HubSpot, and a few others. Connect your CRM first.
- Email/calendar data: Optional, but helps track relationships.
- Usergems admin access: You’ll need someone with admin rights to set things up.
What to skip: Don’t bother connecting every dusty data source. Start with your main CRM. If your CRM data is junk, clean that up first—Usergems can’t fix garbage-in, garbage-out.
Step 3: Define your prospect lists
This step makes or breaks your setup. In Usergems, you define which contacts to track. Think:
- Closed-won customers (to catch champions who switch jobs)
- High-fit prospects (for ongoing account-based work)
- Key personas (like VPs or above)
- Custom lists (if you’re targeting a niche)
How to set it up:
- Import or sync the right segment from your CRM. Don’t just sync everyone—that’s a recipe for noise.
- Use filters (like industry, deal stage, title) to narrow it down.
- Test your list: Does it surface people you’d actually want to reach out to?
Watch out: If your CRM is cluttered with dead contacts, clean up before syncing. Otherwise you’ll get a flood of irrelevant alerts.
Step 4: Configure tracking rules and frequency
Here’s where most teams go wrong—they set up tracking too broadly or too often, and reps get overwhelmed.
- Job change tracking: This is Usergems’ bread and butter. Decide how often you want to be notified—weekly is usually enough. Daily alerts will just annoy everyone.
- Persona filters: Only track the roles that matter (e.g., don’t ping your AE when a junior marketing coordinator leaves).
- Account triggers: You can track by company, too, for expansion plays.
What matters: Quality over quantity. It’s better to get one great alert a week than a dozen useless ones.
Pro tip: Run a test cycle for a week and ask your reps: “Which of these alerts would you actually act on?” Adjust accordingly.
Step 5: Set up automated workflows (but keep it simple)
Usergems can push job changes or new prospect alerts directly into your CRM, email, or Slack. Automation is great—until it’s not.
- CRM task creation: Automatically create follow-up tasks or opportunities for the right rep.
- Email workflows: Trigger templated emails (but personalize them—nobody likes a robot).
- Slack alerts: Good for smaller teams, but be wary of notification overload.
What to skip: Don’t automate LinkedIn connection requests or outreach at first. It’s tempting, but canned messages rarely work and can get you flagged.
Keep in mind: The goal is to make sure reps see and act on the best signals. If your workflow creates more noise, dial it back.
Step 6: Train your team (and get their feedback)
Automation is useless if no one uses it. Take 30 minutes to walk your reps through:
- Where the alerts show up (CRM, email, Slack)
- What actions you expect
- How to give feedback if something’s off
What works: Make it dead simple—“When you get a Usergems alert, check the account and log a follow-up.”
What to ignore: Don’t get bogged down in Usergems’ bells and whistles on day one. Get the basics working, then layer on more features later.
Step 7: Measure, tweak, repeat
You won’t get everything right the first time. That’s normal.
- Track outcomes: Are you booking more meetings from Usergems alerts? Are reps actually following up?
- Cut what doesn’t work: If nobody acts on a certain kind of alert, turn it off.
- Keep it lean: The best setups are the simplest ones that get results.
Pro tip: Set a monthly fifteen-minute check-in to review what’s working. Don’t wait for quarterly reviews—by then, you’ve wasted months on noise.
What’s worth your time (and what’s not)
Worth it: - Tracking job changes for champions—especially if you sell to mid-market or enterprise. - Pushing alerts where your reps already live (CRM or email, not another new dashboard). - Starting with a focused list and expanding once you see results.
Not worth it: - Tracking every contact in your CRM. More data isn’t better—better data is better. - Automating every possible workflow. You’ll just create more to clean up later. - Focusing on vanity metrics (“number of alerts sent”) over real pipeline impact.
Keep it simple, keep it useful
Setting up automated prospect tracking in Usergems is about making your sales team’s life easier, not harder. Start with a clear goal, keep your workflow dead simple, and only expand once you see real results. Don’t get seduced by every feature—focus on what actually moves the needle. Iterate, listen to your team, and cut what doesn’t work.
Most “automation” projects fail because they try to do too much. Yours won’t—because you’ll keep it simple and stay focused on what actually helps your team close more deals.