A Lead is a prospect — a company or person you'd like to sell to but haven't established a relationship with yet. Leads are the busiest object in AB Sales: every piece of automation, every template send, every “is this worth pursuing?” decision happens here.
What a lead carries
- Name — usually the company name. Required; it's the anchor for AI research.
- Contact name — the primary person at that company. Optional.
- Email, Phone, Website — the three that, with Name, move the lead to “Information filled”.
- Industry and Source — light categorization for filtering.
- Notes — freeform context; also fed into AI prompts, so more here means better research.
- Labels — colored tags for segmenting. See Labels.
The status pipeline
Every lead sits in one of five outreach statuses, moving left to right as you work it:
New
Information filled
Contacted
Qualified
Disqualified
- New — just added; maybe only a name or email. Not ready to email.
- Information filled — has Name, Website, and Email. Set automatically the moment those three are present, whether you typed them or the Agent found them. This is the gate for automated outreach.
- Contacted — an outbound email has been sent (manual or automated).
- Qualified — the lead responded and is worth pursuing. Convert to a customer when ready.
- Disqualified — ruled out. Kept for context, no further outreach.
Status vs. the funnel. Status tracks outreach (have we emailed them yet?). The funnel tracks structure (Lead → Contact → Opportunity → Customer, based on what you add). They're two independent axes on the same lead.
Finding a website with AI: the “Get URL” button
When a lead has a name but no website, the detail panel shows a Get URL button. It runs the same logic the Agent uses:
- If the lead has a corporate email, its domain is tried first — instant, no AI call.
- Otherwise an AI (grounded in web search) is asked for the official URL, using everything known about the lead.
- The URL must respond AND the page must mention the company name before it's saved.
- If it fails, the panel shows a short reason so you know what to try next.
AI confidence alone isn't trusted — the respond-plus-mention check is what keeps hallucinated URLs out of your CRM.
How leads get created
- Manual — Leads list → New Lead.
- Bulk import — paste a CSV of names and emails.
- Automation — the Agent fills gaps on existing leads, but doesn't create new ones.
Tips
- The Email field is treated strictly as an address — paste
info@example.com (general)and it's saved as justinfo@example.com. Keep memos in Notes. - Search matches name, contact, email, phone, or the lead's ID — paste a long row key and the right lead surfaces.
- Disqualified isn't deletion — move a lead back to New whenever the situation changes.