How To Automatically Assign Lead Owners with HubSpot and Salesforce

Automating lead assignment is essential to reduce your speed to lead with HubSpot and Salesforce. When new contacts enter your database, they need to get into the right hands as soon as possible for conversion.

If you’re using the HubSpot Salesforce integration, you have several options for lead assignment. You can manage this in HubSpot or Salesforce. Before picking the tool for assignment, first consider how you want to assign leads.

Types of Inbound Lead Assignment

Round Robin Lead Assignment

First, round robin lead assignment. Round robin lead assignment means that you want all users on a team to be assigned an equal amount of new leads. Round robin lead assignment could apply to your entire sales team - or it could apply to all users within a division of your sales team. For example, you may want all new leads in the state of New York to be distributed evenly between 5 team members. In this example, you’d want to use a combination of round robin and criteria-based assignment.

Criteria-Based Lead Assignment

Now, let’s talk about criteria-based lead assignment. Criteria-based lead assignment means that leads have to meet a certain set of qualifications before they can be assigned. These criteria usually include a combination of their geographic location, industry, company size, or product interest. 

Should I Assign Leads in HubSpot or Salesforce?

If you decide to use round robin lead assignment, HubSpot Workflows will be your best route. Using the HubSpot “rotate owner” Workflow action, you can easily add criteria-based if/then branches for new leads and then assign the leads evenly throughout a specific team. Or, you can enroll all new leads in a Workflow without criteria and distribute them evenly throughout your sales team. Round robin assignment can also be accomplished in Salesforce using queues, APEX code, or a custom app. But, the HubSpot Workflows route is far easier to implement and takes less work to maintain.

If you’d like to use criteria based assignment and assign a specific user to new leads, you can stick with HubSpot Workflows or begin to explore your options in Salesforce. 

Salesforce Options for Automatically Assigning Lead Ownership

Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules

Lead assignment rules in Salesforce are very easy to navigate. Lead assignment rules can be activated in the Setup section of Salesforce. To create lead assignment rules, you’ll create a formula in the Lead Assignment rule builder. This creation experience is similar to the other formula tools in Salesforce. You’ll select the specific criteria for each individual users that should be assigned new leads. Once activated, this will recalculate your current lead owners and reassign leads accordingly.

If you’d rather use a lead assignment method that will only apply to net new leads, rather than updating all existing leads in Salesforce, consider using a Salesforce Flow for lead assignment.

Salesforce Flow

Salesforce Flows are similar to HubSpot Workflows in that you can use decision splits and actions to segment records by criteria and update records with new property values. Using a Flow, you can enroll all new leads, review the criteria you’ve set, and assign the appropriate owner.

To summarize, the best options for lead assignment in HubSpot and Salesforce are the HubSpot Workflows tool, Salesforce Lead Assignment rules, or Salesforce Flows.

The easiest method to maintain is round robin lead assignment in HubSpot Workflows. So, if you’re looking for a light administrative lift, this is the way to go.

Now that we’ve discussed the options, here’s a look at how to implement each of these three lead assignment approaches.

Wrap Up: Automating Lead Assignment

To recap, we've shown you three ways to set up lead assignment in HubSpot and Salesforce by using HubSpot workflows, Salesforce lead assignment rules, and Salesforce Flows. Of these, HubSpot workflows are the easiest to create and maintain for both round robin and criteria-based assignment.

Looking for help with automating lead assignment? Reach out to our team at Coastal Consulting for help with automation with HubSpot and Salesforce.

Need to learn more about the HubSpot Salesforce integration fast? Enroll in our 8 module HubSpot Salesforce integration course.