AI-Powered Lead Generation & Cold Outreach Automation

What we built

Built a scheduled trigger that kicks off the pipeline automatically, pulling a fresh list of previously-contacted Apollo IDs from Google Sheets before each run to seed the deduplication check.
Configured an Apollo.io Mixed People Search integration targeting specific titles (CEO, Founder, COO, Head of Operations), seniorities, company sizes, and multi-region targeting (Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, UK, Brazil) with verified/likely-to-engage email filters.
Designed a multi-stage lead validation pipeline: split individual leads from the bulk search response, filter for verified email presence, and run a custom validation pass checking name, title, and company completeness before any enrichment credits are spent.
Integrated Apollo's People Match endpoint to enrich qualified leads with full profile data (verified email, personal email fallback, employment history, organization firmographics) while preserving original lead context through the pipeline via custom Code nodes.
Implemented a Google Sheets-backed deduplication filter that cross-references each lead's Apollo ID against a running log of contacted IDs, preventing duplicate outreach across workflow executions.
Built a Claude-powered email generation step that crafts concise, non-salesy, personalized cold emails (under 120 words) referencing the lead's title, company, and inferred business need — with a strict JSON-only response format for reliable downstream parsing.
Added a JSON parsing and validation layer with error handling (parse_error flag) so malformed AI responses are filtered out before reaching the send step, protecting email deliverability and reputation.
Used SplitInBatches with a Wait node to throttle outbound sends, avoiding Gmail rate limits and reducing spam-flagging risk during bulk outreach runs.
Closed the loop by appending each successfully contacted lead's Apollo ID, name, title, email, and company back to Google Sheets — feeding directly into the next run's dedup check for a self-maintaining outreach log.
Architected the entire pipeline as a modular n8n workflow with clearly documented sticky notes at each stage, making it easy to adjust ICP filters, swap AI prompts, or extend to additional outreach channels.

AI-Powered Lead Generation & Cold Outreach Automation

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