Gmail to Attio Automation

Manual data entry is the silent killer of productivity.

Every day, valuable leads arrive in your inbox, especially high-intent leads from key partners. At Novlini, we're a registered Attio expert, so when a prospect contacts us through Attio's "Hire an expert" page, we know it's a golden opportunity.

In the early days, handling these leads was a manual process. The notification email from our partner, PartnerPage, would land in our inbox, and someone would have to stop, open Attio, and copy and paste all the details. It was slow and prone to errors.

We knew there was a better way. This blog will show you the exact Gmail automation we built using Make.com to send these high-intent leads directly into our Attio CRM, ensuring they are captured flawlessly and our inbox stays clean.

The Goal: A Hands-Free & Clean Lead Capture System

Our goal is to build a system where the moment a prospect contacts us, a perfect record is created in Attio, and the source email is marked as processed to keep our inbox organized and prevent duplicates.

To do this, we'll connect three tools:

1. Gmail: To receive and filter the lead emails.

2. Make.com: To act as the bridge, processing the data.

3. Attio: To receive the data and create the records.

Step 1: Create a Smart Filter & Label in Gmail

First, teach Gmail how to identify your partner emails. The emails we get from PartnerPage always have a consistent subject line, like "New Contact from PartnerPage." This is the perfect hook.

1. Create a Filter: In Gmail settings, go to "Filters and Blocked Addresses" and create a new filter.

2. Set the Criteria: In the "Subject" field, enter the exact subject line of your partner emails.

3. Create a Label: Tell the filter to apply a new label. We created one called Incoming/partnerpage

4. Apply: Save the filter.

Now, every important lead email gets automatically sorted into a specific folder, ready for our automation.

Step 2: Set Up the Trigger in Make.com

Make.com is the engine. We'll tell it to watch our new Gmail label.

1. New Scenario: Log in to Make.com and create a new scenario.

2. Gmail Module: Choose "Gmail" as your first module.

3. "Watch emails" Trigger: Connect your Gmail account and tell the trigger to watch the Incoming/partnerpage

Your automation is now officially monitoring your inbox.

Step 3: Parse the Information from the Email

Next, we need to extract the lead's information from the email body.

1. Text Parser Module: Add a "Text parser" module to your scenario to extract text from HTML content.

2. "Match Pattern" Action: Use this to find and extract specific text. For each piece of data (First Name,Last Name, Email, Company Name, etc.), you'll tell the parser what text to look for.

After this step, you have clean, individual data points ready for your CRM.

Step 4: Send the Data to Attio

We'll send our clean data to Attio using a webhook.

1. Create a Webhook in Attio: In your Attio workflows, create a new workflow with a "Webhook is received" trigger. Attio will give you a unique URL. Copy it.

2. HTTP Module in Make.com: Add an "HTTP" module in Make.com.

3. "Make a request" Action: Configure the module to "POST" a "JSON" payload to the Attio webhook URL you just copied. Map the data you parsed in all the steps before to build your JSON.

Step 5: Create the Records in Attio

The final step happens inside Attio. Your workflow has just received the data.

1. Webhook received: Webhook data payload is received from make.com

2. Parse JSON: The nextt action in your Attio workflow is "Parse JSON" to break up the data package.

3. Create Company & Person: Add actions to "Create or update a record" for both your Companies and People objects, mapping the relevant data from the webhook.

4. Populate Attributes: Set the "Lead Stage" to "New" and the "Source" to "Attio - Partnerpage." and all other required attributes.

Step 6: Best Practice: Add Error Handling & Re-label the Email

This final step is crucial for building a reliable, professional-grade automation. You need to tell your system what to do in two different scenarios: when the lead is created successfully, and when an error occurs. To do this, we use a Router in Make.com scenario after the HTTP call to Attio.

A) If the Lead is Created Successfully (Success Route)

On the "success" branch of your router, you'll mark the email as processed. This keeps your inbox clean and prevents the same lead from being processed twice.

1. Add a Gmail Module: On the success route, add a "Gmail" module.

2. Select "Modify email labels": Find the original email using its Message ID from the trigger step.

3. Update the Labels:

   • Labels to add: processed/partnerpage

   • Labels to remove: incoming/partnerpage

This action effectively removes the email from the automation queue and files it away neatly.

B) If an Error Occurs (Failure Route)

On the "failure" branch of your router, you'll handle any errors. This ensures a broken lead doesn't get stuck in an infinite loop and notifies you that something needs a manual review.

1. Add a Gmail Module: On the failure route, add another "Gmail" module.

2. Select "Modify email labels": Again, find the original email using its Message ID.

3. Update the Labels:

   • Labels to add: error/attio

   • Labels to remove: incoming/partnerpage

By adding an "error" label and removing the original trigger label, you quarantine the problematic email so you can fix it manually, without breaking your automation.

This is how your final Make scenario will look like.

Conclusion - An Automated & Robust System

This Gmail automation transforms a slow, manual process into a scalable, reliable system. With this workflow, your best leads are in your CRM in minutes, your data is always accurate, and your inbox stays perfectly organized.

At Novlini, building smart, robust automations like this is at the core of what we do. This is a powerful example of how we streamline operations for our clients, but it’s just one piece of a fully optimized GTM engine. We help businesses build much larger systems that connect their entire tech stack, automate complex sales processes, and turn their CRM into a true engine for growth.

If you’re tired of fighting with manual processes and are ready to build a truly scalable system on Attio, book a free 30-minute call with our team today here. We can help you turn your operational headaches into powerful, automated workflows.