Leads not syncing to your CRM: how to find where they stop
Leads usually stop syncing because one hand-off between your tools is refusing the record, skipping it or not running at all: a rule rejects it, a field mapping points at the wrong place, a login or daily limit has run out, or the record was never meant to sync yet. Find the last place the lead exists, then check that hand-off.
What should I check first?
Three questions take five minutes, need no admin rights, and narrow the search a lot.
- Is it every lead or only some? If none arrive, suspect the connection itself. If only some arrive, suspect a rule or a field that those leads share (a country, a product, a rarely used answer).
- When did it start? Find the last lead that did arrive. Then ask who changed a form, a field, a rule or a login that day. Most syncs break because someone changed something nearby, in our reading.
- Is the lead supposed to sync yet? Some connections create a CRM lead only after a qualifying step, such as a score threshold or a status change. If so, a missing lead may be waiting, not lost.
How do I find where the leads stop?
Treat the path as a chain of hand-offs: form, marketing tool, CRM, sales tool. A lead that exists at hand-off two and not at hand-off three has been dropped between them. Work in this order, fastest first.
- Look at the form's own submission list (5 minutes; you). Confirm the submissions are there. If they are not, the problem is the form or the page, not the sync.
- Submit one test lead and follow it (15 to 30 minutes; you). Use a distinctive email address you control. Wait one full sync cycle, often 5 to 15 minutes, but check your connection's schedule. Then look for the record at each hand-off. Warn the people downstream first: a test lead may be routed to a rep, enrolled in a sequence and counted in reports. Delete it or mark it as internal when you are done.
- Open the connection's error log, if it has one (10 minutes; you or the marketing tool's admin). Sort by error text. Many connections show sync failures only inside their own screens, so nobody sees them unless somebody looks.
- Compare counts at one hand-off for one week (30 minutes; you). Export last week's form submissions and last week's new CRM leads. Count both, then match by email.
- Read the unmatched group (30 minutes; you with your CRM admin). Look at the answers of the people who did not arrive. The same rare picklist value, an empty required field or an odd country across the unmatched group points at a rule.
- Check the connection's login and limits (20 minutes; your CRM admin). Look at whether the connecting user is active, still has permission to read and write the fields in the mapping, and has any call allowance left today.
- Review recent changes (1 to 2 hours; your CRM admin or sales ops). Ask for the list of fields, rules and validation rules changed in the last 90 days and lay it beside your field mapping.
Stop at the first step that explains the gap. In our reading, steps 3 to 5 explain most cases.
What are the usual causes at the hand-off that breaks?
The same few causes come up in most stacks. These are listed in the order we would check them.
A rule refuses the record. A field was made required in the CRM, a picklist no longer accepts a value the form sends, or a validation rule fires. One public forum thread describes leads failing to sync after a field was made required in the CRM while the marketing forms did not include it. A form builder's help article says a restricted-picklist error can mean you are sending a value that is not one of the allowed values; it does not say what then happens to the submission, so check yours. In a related case, a vendor employee wrote that the marketing side cannot see which validation rule in the CRM fired. That means your CRM admin often has to look from the CRM side.
A mapping points at the wrong place. A sales tool's help article lists a mapping to a deleted field as a reason records do not sync. A renamed or retyped field can do the same quietly; see the guide to renamed fields.
A daily limit was reached. One marketing tool's knowledge base says a CRM's web form post accepts at most 500 submissions a day. One platform's documentation says an integration that exceeds its limits receives an error response for all later calls, and that the daily limit resets at midnight in your time zone setting. What each tool does with the overflow is not documented in the sources we read, so look at your busiest day: if the gap appears only on peak days, suspect a limit.
The connecting login changed. In many setups the sync runs as one named user. If that person leaves, changes password or loses a permission, the sync can stop without anyone being told. This is our reading, not a measured share; check the connection's status screen.
The lead was never meant to sync. A filter, a list membership or a qualifying step decides which leads go over. Read the sync's own rules before assuming it is broken.
How do I avoid false alarms?
Three habits keep you from chasing a problem that is not there.
- Compare first-time addresses. A returning contact who fills a form again updates an existing record instead of creating a new one. Count only email addresses that did not exist before the period, or you will see "missing" leads that were merged.
- Exclude internal tests. Remove submissions from your own team and your agency, plus obvious test addresses, from both counts.
- Allow for the schedule. If the sync runs every hour, a lead from ten minutes ago is not missing. Check the schedule, then compare only leads older than one full cycle.
Also set both tools to the same time zone when you count by day. Late-evening leads can fall on different days in each tool.
How do I get the missed leads back?
Do not re-submit them by hand until you know the cause, because the same rule will refuse them again. Fix the cause first (the field, the rule, the login). Then export the missed submissions from the form and load them into the CRM through your normal import, with the duplicate warning switched on. Tell your reps first, since imported leads may be routed and enrolled the moment they appear.
Questions people ask
Why do some leads sync and others do not?
Usually because the missing ones share an answer or a field that a rule rejects, or because a filter on the sync lets only some through. Export the unmatched group and look for what they have in common.
How long should a lead take to sync?
It depends on the connection. Many run on a schedule of a few minutes to an hour, and some create CRM leads only after a qualifying step. Check your connection's settings before calling a lead late.
Can a lead be missing from the CRM and the form still say thank you?
Yes. The form's confirmation usually shows that the form received the answers, not that the CRM accepted the record (our reading). That is why you compare counts between the form and the CRM instead of trusting the thank-you page.
Watching this all the time
Navceed is being built to watch hand-offs like this continuously: follow each record through every step, notice when one breaks, show the cause in plain words and prepare the fix for the data owner to approve. Today it works on an example company; connecting your own tools is coming next. Take the workflow break check on your own setup.