Anatomy and Life Cycle of a Lead

Anatomy: Data and Events

A LeadConduit Lead is a collection of information about an individual prospect, comprised of two types of data:

1. Submitted Data — Data fields submitted to LeadConduit by electronic means
2. Appended Data — New data captured from Events performed using the lead’s existing data

As a lead flows through LeadConduit, it grows richer with appended data from each processing step.

Life Cycle: The LeadConduit Flow

The life of a LeadConduit lead takes place in an ordered collection of Events called a Flow.

In a Flow, events occur in a customizable sequence. As events occur and data is appended, the total information about the lead increases, and is available for subsequent Events to use.

Each Event has an outcome status:

• Success
• Failure
• Skip
• Error

Event outcomes are also appended data, allowing you to make decisions based on what happened earlier in the flow.

Birth

A lead comes into being when a Flow receives a set of Submitted Data fields about an individual prospect from a Source.

Important: A single Flow can accept leads from multiple Sources, each with its own configuration and rules.

Initial Processing

When the lead is submitted, LeadConduit appends internal fields to the lead:

• Which Source submitted the data
• A unique “Lead ID” identifier
• The flow’s identifier
• The date and time LeadConduit received the submission

Acceptance Criteria

The lead’s initial acceptance is determined by Acceptance Criteria — powerful, customizable rules that ensure the submitted data meets your minimum requirements.

Acceptance criteria can validate:

• Required fields are not empty
• Field formats are correct (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.)
• Volume caps have not been exceeded
• Any other custom business rules

If acceptance criteria fail: The lead will be rejected, a “failure” response will be returned to the Source, and no further processing occurs. The lead’s life cycle stops here.

Growth

If all acceptance criteria are met, the lead is accepted and moves into the processing sequence defined in the Flow.

Processing Steps

The processing sequence consists of Steps arranged in a customizable order. There can be unlimited steps. Each step serves a specific purpose:

1. Enhancement Steps
Send requests to external services to get additional knowledge about the lead.

• Examples: phone validation, email verification, address standardization
• Append enrichment data to the lead

2. Recipient Steps (also called Deliveries)
Send lead data to external endpoints for delivery or storage.

• Examples: CRMs, call centers, buyer systems, data warehouses
• Append response data from the recipient

3. Filter Steps
Use customizable rules to determine whether to stop lead processing.

• If rules match, processing stops at that point
• A customizable response is returned to the Source
• Useful for quality control and routing logic

Data Accumulation

Enhancement steps and recipient steps both append data to the lead:

• The outcome of the request (success, failure, error)
• Response data from the external service
• Event records for tracking and reporting

Each step creates its own event record, providing detailed visibility into what happened at every stage.

Completion

If the lead successfully processes through all steps without being stopped by a filter:

1. It is marked as a “success”
2. A success response is returned to the Source
3. A Source Event record is created that captures the complete outcome from the Source’s perspective

The lead’s life cycle stops.

Storage

All lead records are irretrievably expunged from ActiveProspect’s system based on the Data Retention Settings of the account.

The default retention period is 3 months.