01
Trigger
New lead from Meta Lead Ads (or your CRM if that’s your source of truth).
- Capture campaign / ad set / ad if available
- Capture full form answers
- Capture timestamp
A clean Zap structure
Keep it boring. “Works every time” beats “clever and fragile”.
02
Formatter step
Create a readable message payload in one place (Zapier “Formatter” or “Code”).
- Lead name + phone
- Postcode/town + job type
- Budget band + timeframe (if present)
03
Delivery
Send to WhatsApp (or SMS) and optionally create a CRM record.
- Primary: WhatsApp notification
- Backup: email/SMS to a shared inbox
- Optional: add to a CRM pipeline
Fail-safes (don’t skip)
This prevents “we didn’t see it” and duplicate notifications.
Dedupe
- Store lead IDs you’ve processed (Google Sheet / Airtable / CRM)
- Before sending, check if ID exists — if yes, stop
- If Meta doesn’t provide IDs, hash phone + timestamp
Delivery redundancy
- Send WhatsApp to the operator
- Send email/SMS to a shared address as backup
- Daily summary of leads (optional)
Response loop
Automation is pointless if nobody replies. Pair this with a first-touch script and a response-time target.
Apply this to your niche
Each industry page uses a slightly different set of fields (job type, budget, property details).