AI Lead Generation is the lead sourcing area of Sales. It is where leads from outside NearSync arrive, and where you review them before they become contacts and deals.
Where Leads Come From
NearSync does not sell, supply or source lead data. There is no built-in database of companies or contacts, and nothing here fills your CRM with people you have not chosen.
Leads reach this screen by one of two routes, and the "Connect a lead source" panel at the top of the page is the whole list.
Send Leads To NearSync
This is the route that works with any provider, and the one most teams use.
Rather than giving NearSync your provider's credentials, you go the other way: you create a NearSync API key, and point your provider at us. The provider sends leads in; we hold nothing of theirs.
- Go to Settings, then API Keys and create a key with the Leads (write) permission. That key can create leads and read nothing at all.
- Copy the endpoint address from the panel on the Lead Generation page.
- In your provider, or in an automation tool like Zapier, Make or n8n, add a step that sends new records to that address with the key attached.
Apollo, ZoomInfo, Hunter, Lusha, Cognism and Clearbit all work this way, as does anything else that can call a webhook.
Why not just paste an API key? Because we would then be holding your provider credentials, and most of these providers issue keys that never expire and cannot be scoped. Reversing the direction means the only key involved is one you created here, limited to a single permission, and revocable by you in seconds.
Upload A File
A spreadsheet you exported yourself. No credentials involved at all. Use Import on the Lead Generation page.
What Each Provider Supports
Expand How each provider connects on the panel for the current list. In short:
| Provider | How it connects |
|---|---|
| Apollo | Send to NearSync. Their sign-in method is limited to approved partners |
| ZoomInfo | Send to NearSync. They do offer a sign-in method, but distributing it to customers needs an approved partner app, which we have not built yet |
| Hunter, Lusha, Clearbit, Cognism | Send to NearSync, directly or through an automation tool |
| Anything else | Send to NearSync, if it can call a webhook |
Moving From Another CRM Is A Different Job
Connecting HubSpot or Pipedrive imports your existing contacts, companies and deals into Operations, then Data Management. That is a migration, not lead sourcing, and those records do not appear here as leads. If you want them treated as leads, send them through the route above.
Reviewing Leads
Leads land in a single list with the source recorded against each one, so you can tell an Apollo record from a webform enquiry at a glance. Filter by source, status or owner.
Accepting a lead creates the contact and moves it into your pipeline. Duplicates are matched on email, so the same person arriving twice attaches to the record you already have.
If your provider sends its own record identifier along with the lead, repeat deliveries are recognised and will not create a second copy.
A Lead Is Not Permission To Email
This is worth being precise about, because getting it wrong is what turns a sales team into a spam problem.
A lead arriving here records an introduction. It does not create marketing consent, and a contact created this way is not eligible for campaigns or cadences on the strength of having been imported. If your provider tells us where consent came from, we store that as a note about what was claimed, attributed to that provider.
Sending marketing to someone requires their consent, tracked separately. See Campaigns.
Common Questions
Does NearSync come with leads? No. Every lead here arrived from a system you connected, a provider you pointed at us, or a file you uploaded.
Do I still pay my data provider? Yes, directly, for whatever you subscribe to. NearSync adds no markup and resells nothing.
Can I email a lead as soon as it arrives? You can send an individual email to someone you have a genuine reason to contact. You cannot add them to a marketing campaign without consent.
Someone asked to be removed. What now? Unsubscribes are honoured automatically and permanently across every campaign. See Campaigns.
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