AutoLead AI Pipeline
Automated lead enrichment and outreach pipeline using n8n, OpenAI, and Playwright scrapers — scaled a B2B agency from 500 to 10,000 qualified leads per day.
Client background
GrowthHQ is a B2B outbound sales agency based in London, running cold outreach campaigns on behalf of 15 SaaS and professional services clients. Their competitive advantage depended entirely on lead quality and volume — but their process was entirely manual.
The challenge
Three SDRs were spending 40+ hours per week just researching leads: finding company websites, guessing email formats, writing personalised opening lines for each prospect, and manually updating HubSpot. At that pace they could process ~500 leads per week. Clients were churning because campaigns took too long to launch. GrowthHQ needed to 10× their throughput without 10× headcount.
Discovery & planning
Process Audit Call
We spent 90 minutes watching a senior SDR's screen as they processed 10 leads from scratch. We documented every step, tool, and decision — 12 manual steps per lead.
Automation Scoping
Mapped which of the 12 steps could be automated (8), partially automated (3), and required human judgment (1 — final approval before sending).
Tool Selection Workshop
Evaluated Make.com vs n8n vs custom Python. Chose self-hosted n8n for cost (no per-execution pricing) and flexibility. Agreed on OpenAI GPT-4o for personalisation copy.
Compliance Review
Reviewed GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and LinkedIn ToS implications. Added a human-approval gate before any email is sent and built in opt-out list management.
Technical solution
We built a multi-stage n8n workflow that: (1) accepts a target company list as input, (2) runs a Playwright scraper to extract company details and decision-maker profiles, (3) calls OpenAI GPT-4o to write a 3-sentence personalised opening line per prospect, (4) validates and enriches the email address, (5) scores the lead (ICP fit 1–10), and (6) syncs approved leads directly to HubSpot with all enrichment data attached.
Tech stack
Timeline
Process audit, n8n environment setup, scraper PoC for 3 target websites, API key acquisition
Playwright scrapers for 15 websites, email validation integration, PostgreSQL schema, error handling
GPT-4o prompt engineering, ICP scoring model, human-approval UI in n8n, output quality review with client
HubSpot API integration, Slack alerts, load testing (1,000 leads/hour), handover and SDR training
Results & outcomes
We went from 500 leads a week to 10,000 a day. The personalisation quality is so good our clients think we have a team of copywriters. This pipeline fundamentally changed how GrowthHQ operates.
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