Boost Your Sales with Pipedrive and Zapier Integration

If you want to grow your business, you’ve got to keep selling and closing deals. But, the competition is fierce, and you’re not the only one trying to get more clients. What’s more, closing more deals is not easy. After all, both you and your salespeople have only so many hours in a day. And, for many of those dealing with sales, the majority of their time isn’t even spent on selling!

According to Pipedrive’s state of sales report, only around 53% of all salespeople report that most of their day is spent on selling. This means that almost half of all salespeople spend the majority of their workday on other activities. Just think of how many more deals they could close if they had 10%, 20%, or 30% more time every day… 

That’s where technology and automation come to the rescue.

Many sales teams already use platforms like Pipedrive to streamline their sales process. But what if you could go one step further and connect Pipedrive with an automation tool like Zapier?

With automation, you can reduce the number of repetitive, mundane tasks your salespeople have to deal with and give them more time for what you really want them to be doing – focus on closing leads. But, before we jump into connecting Pipedrive with Zapier, let’s take a quick look at Pipedrive itself.

Understanding Pipedrive – What Makes It One Of The Most Popular Sales Tools?

Pipedrive is a cloud-based sales customer relationship management tool. It’s one of the leaders in the sales CRM space, with over 1,000 employees in eight offices in Europe and two in the US. And, if you look at all its features and benefits, it’s no surprise that the number of its customers keeps growing.

First, the tool gives you a convenient way to track leads and deals across different stages. Thanks to a visual pipeline view, you can see their journey from the moment they enter your pipeline to when they’re either won or lost.

It also gives you a convenient overview of all the activities of your sales team, which allows you to see exactly what they’re doing in an hour-by-hour format. This, in turn, lets your salespeople squeeze in sales calls between other activities, increasing their performance.

Then there are things such as filtering, revenue projection, or scheduler. But where it really shines are built-in automations. For example, you can automate activity follow-ups, engage with unresponsive deals, or automatically get in touch with new deals:

The tool gives you plenty of pre-built workflows separated into four different categories: deals, leads, work optimizations, and integrations with external apps.

You can also build a template from scratch. With almost 20 different triggers across six categories and dozens of actions, Pipedrive allows you to build tens of different workflows:

But to get the most out of the tool, you want to go beyond the built-in workflows. That’s where the Zapier Pipedrive integration comes into place.

Why Choose Zapier for Your Pipedrive Workflow Setup?

Zapier is the most popular “app connector” – a tool that allows its users to connect different applications and send data between them with little to no coding. Rather than writing code, you build automation workflows by connecting the apps in a visual builder.

Of course, there are several other tools similar to Zapier like n8n or Make. But the reason why Zapier is an excellent choice for your integration is the number of different apps that you can connect to it. 

Because it’s the most widely used “app integrator”, it now boasts integrations with over 5,000 different apps. Naturally, you don’t need that many of them. 

But, unless you’re using some very rare tools in your workflows, you can be sure you’ll be able to build Zapier automations between them. 

Another reason is the number of triggers that you can choose from. And, the good news is that there are plenty of them!

Available Zapier Pipedrive Triggers

As of writing this article, there are 14 different Pipedrive Zapier triggers.

• Activity Matching Filter. Triggers whenever a Pipedrive activity matches a pre-set filter.
• Deal Matching Filter. Triggers the Zap whenever a Deal matches a filter.
• New Activity, Deal, Lead, Note, Organization, or Person. Each of these is a separate trigger.
• Organization Matching Filter. Triggers the Zap whenever an organization matches a pre-set filter.
• Person Matching Filter. Same as the previous trigger but triggers for a person instead.
• One of the following gets updated (separate triggers): An Updated Deal, Deal Stage, Organization, or Person.

Please note that not all triggers are Instant. For example, of all of the “New X” triggers, only the “New Deal” trigger is an instant one:

Available Pipedrive Zapier Actions

Of course, you may want to use Pipedrive in the middle of your workflow. In this case, there are 25 different Pipedrive Zapier actions to choose from split into two categories. First, let’s look at the triggers in the “Create” category:

• App Extensions. The app extension lets you perform an API call. These extensions are a Zapier feature and allow you to reuse them across different Zaps.
• Add Follower. This step adds a follower to a deal, organization, person, or product.
• Add Product to Deal. Just as the name suggests, it adds a product to the deal.
• Attach File. Automatically attach a file to a deal, person, organization, activity, product, or note.
• Create one of the following (each is a separate action): an Activity, a Deal, a Lead, a Note, an Organization, a Person, or Product.
• Update one of the following (similarly to the above, each is a separate action): an Activity, a Deal, a Lead, an Organization or a Person. 
• API Request. This step allows you to send an API request to the app should there be any actions you’d like to use that are not yet implemented. 

In the “Search” category, you can choose between different search steps, allowing you to find one of the following: an activity, a deal, a lead, a person, a user, a product (by name), or products (by name, ID, or product code. The last two actions are similar but the latter supports line items.

Of course, to be able to use these actions, you first need to connect your Pipedrive account to Zapier – let’s take a look at how you can do that. 

How to Connect Zapier to Pipedrive

Just like connecting any app, connecting your Pipedrive account to Zapier is super straightforward. First, sign in to your Zapier account and click the “+ Create” button and select New Zap.

Next, search for Pipedrive in the trigger app list:

In the next step, you’ll be asked to choose a trigger. Once that’s done, you’ll be asked to connect an account. If an account is already connected, you can click the Change button to connect a new one:

Lastly, click the Test tab to test your Pipedrive to Zapier connection (and the selected Pipedrive trigger).

Key Zaps You Need in Your Zapier Pipedrive Setup

If you’re already using Pipedrive in your Zapier setup, it will automatically recommend workflows that include Pipedrive and some of your other connected apps. In my case, Zapier recommended connecting Pipedrive to Active Campaign and Calendly:

No matter if Zapier gives you any suggestions or not, there are a few must-have Zaps you want to build: 

Send Facebook Lead Ads Straight to Your Pipedrive Account

You’ve got to get the leads from somewhere, right? One of the most popular platforms to get new leads from is Facebook. Connecting Facebook Lead Ads to Pipedrive through Zapier is one of the most popular automations – and it’s pretty straightforward too.

First, you want to choose the right Facebook trigger – you can select between a business and a personal Facebook ad account. If you’re managing just a single ad account, the latter should work. But, if you manage multiple fan pages or that of your company, choose the former.

Keep in mind that you might have to format the incoming data first. In this setup, I’m using Zapier Formatter Numbers to format the phone number and ensure it arrives in the right format in Pipedrive.

As you can see, we also split creating a person and a deal. In some cases, you might want to first check if the person already exists – and then use paths to decide whether you need to create a new one or just assign the deal to an existing one.  

Keep Pipedrive in Sync with Your Calendly Events

Next, you want to schedule video calls or meetings. The most convenient tool to do that? Use a Calendly Zapier trigger of course! The following Zap allows us to update the deal whenever they sign up for one of our Calendly events. 

Keep in mind that because Calendly only has two Zapier triggers, we’ve got to use a Zapier Filter step to filter out unwanted events. 

The good news is that you won’t be charged any tasks for triggering the event if it doesn’t pass the filter (you’re not charged for a Zap trigger). You can find more on how the tasks are counted in this blog post about tasks and Zaps.

Note that in the above setup, we’re first searching for a person before finding a deal. That’s because in our setup, Calendly returns data that is assigned to a Person and not the Deal. We then use the person’s data to find that deal. 

Add New Pipedrive Leads to Your ActiveCampaign Email List

Another handy automation is the one to add new Pipedrive Leads data to your ActiveCampaign email list. In case you’re wondering why the trigger is a New Deal and not the “New Person” one, it’s because it’s one of the few instant Pipedrive Zapier triggers.

It’s worth noting that Pipedrive allows you to send emails to people in your pipeline. Still, there are a few benefits to creating a workflow where you add new deals to your favorite autoresponder:

• You can stay in touch with people long after they fall out of the pipeline, turning lost deals into potential customers.
• You can warm them up with automated email campaigns.
• You can create much more powerful email workflows compared to Pipedrive’s emails.
• You increase email deliverability.
• You get more room to customize the emails.

Of course, you can add people to your email list the moment they are added to your pipeline. That way, you don’t have to build separate Zaps and can potentially save on tasks. 

Update Lead Status Based on Feedback Received

The next Pipedrive Zapier automation updates lead data based on feedback received from a Jotfrom feedback form. As you can see, we’re using Paths to then move the lead to the right stage (and add the right tag) based on the feedback received. 

Naturally, the use of Jotform is just an example. The idea is to create Zaps that allows you to automatically update the deal stage or add relevant data to it the moment you receive it in another tool. Don’t forget that you could actually use Jotform as a lead generation form and create Pipedrive Deals using Zapier with it!

Add Leads that Reach a Particular Stage to an Airtable Database

The last sample Pipedrive Zapier automation adds deal’s data to an Airtable database. Why a database? Unless Pipedrive is your Single Source of Truth, you might want to use Zapier to send deal data to your SSoT – in our case, that’s an Airtable database:

Why is the trigger “Updated Deal Stage” and not a “New Deal”? To keep the database clean, you can choose to add people to Airtable only once they reach a certain stage in their buyer’s journey. 

Obviously, you don’t have to implement an SSoT to still benefit from using Airtable. But, there are a few reasons to use Airtable as part of your automation workflows – the two main ones are:

• Easy access to all the lead’s latest data in one place.
• It creates a central point that you can use to trigger different automation workflows.

Common Issues with the Zapier Pipedrive Integration

Unfortunately, there are certain limitations that you have to keep in mind if you want your Zapier Pipedrive setup to function properly:

The Phone Number Gets the Wrong Country Code

If the country of your deal is using a single or double-digit country code, Pipedrive might incorrectly format it into a triple-digit country code. Similarly, it may format a double-digit country code to a single or triple-digit one.

To prevent this, you may need to add an extra Zapier Formatter step where you format the phone number before sending it to Pipedrive. 

When doing that, make sure that you select the country code in the step settings:

Old Deals Trigger the Zap

One of the most popular Pipedrive Zapier automations is the one triggered by a change in the deal’s stage. The problem is, it can sometimes accidentally trigger an old deal that’s:

• Have been accidentally moved back to a particular stage
• Have been in this stage for a while and got recently updated

The reason for the second issue is the fact that Zap can only process the 500 most recently updated deals. If the deal in question got out of the initial 500, it might get treated as a new deal that got added to the stage. 

The easiest way to go around this is to add a step in Zapier that will “mark” each deal whenever it gets processed the first time around. Then, simply add a Zapier filter to stop the Zap from triggering for those particular deals:

Another solution to this problem is to create a filter right inside Pipedrive that’d look at when the deal was created. You can then choose to use this Filter while setting the Zap.

Facebook Doesn’t Send Data to Pipedrive Zapier Integration

This issue is more related to Facebook Lead Ads and Zapier integration than to Pipedrive itself. But considering the popularity of the Facebook and Pipedrive Zapier automation, it’s worth noting it down.

Whenever you discover you’re not receiving lead data for a particular Facebook form, this may be because of the lack of permissions. To test this out, you want to:

1. Go to Facebook Leads Ads Testing Tool and select the page and forms that don’t work.

1. Click “Delete Lead” – don’t worry, it won’t delete any live leads, just Facebook’s example lead.
2. Next, click “Preview Form” and fill out the form with sample data. Submit it.
3. Then click the “Track Status” button and wait for the results.
4. Lastly, review the “Track Status” section for any errors or messages.
5. If you get the 103 error, please go to the Lead Access page and click “Restore Default Access” in the upper right corner:

Now, try sending a test lead once again. You should now be able to download the lead from Zapier. 

Timezone Discrepancies in Pipedrive and Zapier

When sending dates to Pipedrive, the timezones don’t always get converted correctly – that’s even if you select the timezone in the Pipedrive step settings:

If that’s the case, try adjusting the time zone manually by adding the number of hours directly to the correctly formatted time. As you can see in the above screenshot, we’re adding it despite selecting the right timezone. 

Pipedrive Activities Don’t Trigger the Zap

Another type of popular Pipedrive Zapier automations are those triggered by Pipedrive activities. Unfortunately, a common problem is that if the user that created the activity is not the same as the one that’s connected to Zapier, the activity won’t trigger the Zap.

There are two things you can do to solve this issue:

• Select “everyone” to trigger for activities from all users (recommended)
• Create all activities using one main user connected to Zapier.

Of course, there might be some other issues – but these are the ones that are the ones that I came across the most often. If you know of any other issues, please leave a comment and I’ll add them to the article.

Take Advantage of Zapier Pipedrive Automation Now!

Pipedrive is a powerful sales relationship management tool that can give your sales team a competitive edge. By adding a Pipedrive and Zapier integration to the mix, you can 10x that edge, save massive amounts of time and give your sales team more time to focus on what matters the most – building relationships and closing deals.

Are you already using Pipedrive with Zapier? If so, leave a comment with the most helpful workflow that you’ve created.

And if you want to boost your team’s productivity or need help setting up Pipedrive with Zapier, let’s talk. Reach out and let’s see how Zapier can help your team boost its productivity.