Step by step guide to integrating Unless with Salesforce for lead enrichment

If you want to stop wasting time on half-baked leads in Salesforce, you’re in the right place. This guide is for sales ops, admins, and marketers who want to actually use the data Unless gives you — without spending all week wrestling with setup. We'll walk through connecting Unless to Salesforce so every new lead is automatically enriched and ready for your team to act on. No fluff, just steps, side notes, and a few honest warnings about what doesn’t work.

Why bother connecting Unless to Salesforce?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Salesforce doesn’t make it easy to get a complete view of a lead out-of-the-box. Unless pulls in useful info (like industry, company size, or tech stack) and can add it right where your reps look every day. If you’re tired of blank fields and incomplete records, this is how you fill the gaps — without making reps Google everything themselves.

What you’ll need before you start

  • Admin access to both Salesforce and Unless.
  • A clear idea of which lead fields you want to enrich (don’t just dump everything in).
  • Some patience. This isn’t rocket science, but there are a few screens to click through.

Step 1: Prep Salesforce for enrichment

Let’s not pretend every org is set up the same way. But unless you’re running a totally locked-down Salesforce, here’s what you need to check:

  • Custom Fields: Decide which fields you want Unless to fill. If they don’t exist yet (e.g. “Company Tech Stack”), create them now:
    • Go to Setup → Object Manager → Lead (or Contact if that’s your game).
    • Click Fields & Relationships → New.
    • Create fields that match the data types you’ll get from Unless (text, picklist, etc.).
  • API Access: Make sure your Salesforce user has API access. If not, talk to your admin or get the right permissions.

Pro tip: Don’t try to map every field Unless offers. Stick to what your team will actually use. More fields = more mess.

Step 2: Get your Salesforce connection info

You’ll need the following from Salesforce:

  • Instance URL: Like https://yourcompany.my.salesforce.com
  • Username & Password: For the integration user (use a dedicated integration user if you can — audit trails matter).
  • Security Token: Salesforce sends this to your email. You’ll need it for API authentication.

If your org uses OAuth or has IP restrictions, be ready for a few extra steps. Check with IT if you hit a wall.

Step 3: Set up Unless for Salesforce

Now let’s get Unless ready to talk to Salesforce.

  1. Login to Unless.
  2. Head to the Integrations section.
  3. Find Salesforce in the list and click Connect (or Add Integration).
  4. Enter the Salesforce details you gathered:
    • Instance URL
    • Username
    • Password
    • Security Token

Sometimes Unless asks for permissions — don’t just hit “allow” and hope for the best. Review what it’s requesting. If you’re unsure, check their docs or ask support. They’re usually responsive, but don’t expect miracles.

Step 4: Map fields between Unless and Salesforce

This is where things go sideways if you’re not careful.

  • Pick only the fields that matter. (Did I mention this already? Because it’s important.)
  • In Unless, you’ll see a list of available enrichment data — like company name, location, industry, employee count, etc.
  • Map each Unless field to its matching Salesforce field. Make sure the data types match (text to text, picklist to picklist).

What to watch out for: - If you map a text field from Unless to a picklist in Salesforce, you’ll get errors or, worse, blank data. - Some enrichment fields (like revenue ranges) might not fit your current picklist options. Update Salesforce if you want those values, or skip them.

Step 5: Set up triggers for enrichment

Decide when you want data to flow from Unless to Salesforce:

  • On new lead creation: Most common. As soon as a lead hits Salesforce, Unless enriches it.
  • On update: If a lead’s email or domain changes, re-enrich it.
  • Manually: Some teams prefer to push a button for enrichment (usually if you’re worried about API limits or cost).

Set this up in the Unless integration settings. Test with a few dummy leads before rolling it out company-wide.

Step 6: Test the integration

This is where you catch mistakes before your team does.

  1. Create a fake lead in Salesforce with a real company email (your own, or a test domain).
  2. Wait for Unless to enrich it (usually a couple minutes, sometimes longer).
  3. Check all mapped fields:
    • Did the right data show up?
    • Anything missing or weirdly formatted?
    • Did it overwrite any existing info you care about?

Honest take: Don’t get cute and try to test with “test@test.com” or fake domains — Unless won’t enrich those. Use real data.

Step 7: Roll it out (but keep it simple)

If everything works, flip the switch for your whole team. But don’t go wild:

  • Start with a subset of leads or a pilot group if you can.
  • Let reps know what’s changing (and where new data will show up).
  • Monitor for errors or weirdness the first week. It happens.

What actually works (and what doesn’t)

Here’s the straight talk:

  • Good: Automatically enriching basic firmographic and technographic fields. Saves your team hours of research.
  • Works, but meh: Enriching everything Unless offers. You’ll end up with cluttered records and annoyed reps.
  • Doesn’t work: Expecting enrichment to solve bad lead quality. If your inputs are garbage, the output will just be more colorful garbage.
  • Ignore: Overcomplicating with custom code or extra middleware unless you really need it. Unless’s built-in integration is fine for 90% of use cases.

Pro tips and gotchas

  • API limits: Salesforce has daily API call limits. If you’re enriching thousands of leads, watch your usage or you’ll hit a wall.
  • Duplicates: Unless won’t fix your duplicate leads. Clean up before you integrate.
  • Data privacy: Make sure you’re not enriching or storing data you shouldn’t (GDPR, CCPA, etc.).
  • Support: Both Unless and Salesforce support can be helpful, but be specific — “my fields aren’t mapping” goes further than “it’s broken.”

Keep it simple, iterate, and don’t overthink it

You’ve connected Unless to Salesforce, mapped the right fields, and tested things end-to-end. That’s the hard part. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good — start with the basics and see how it helps your team. Add more fields or automation only if people ask for it. The best integrations are the ones people actually use.

If you hit a snag, double-check your field mappings and permissions. Nine times out of ten, that’s where things go wrong. Good luck — and don’t forget to clean up your test leads.