Automate Lead Enrichment & Slack Alerts with n8n & Clearbit

Opening Problem Statement

Meet Sarah, the community manager for a fast-growing tech startup. Her daily challenge? Monitoring new signups on their Discourse community platform to identify potential high-value leads. With hundreds of new users joining weekly, manually checking each email to find key decision-makers wastes hours and often lets valuable contacts slip through unnoticed. Sarah’s team tried searching each user on LinkedIn, but inconsistent data and sheer volume made it unsustainable.

Every missed lead could mean lost sales opportunities worth thousands, and every hour Sarah spends doing manual research takes away from crucial strategic tasks. This bottleneck is frustrating, inefficient, and expensive — a perfect problem for automation.

What This Automation Does

This carefully crafted n8n workflow takes the burden off Sarah’s shoulders by automating the process from new Discourse signups to actionable Slack alerts. Here’s what happens when this workflow runs:

• Automatically triggers when a new user signs up on Discourse.
• Filters out common personal emails (e.g., gmail.com, yahoo.com) to focus on professional contacts, saving Clearbit API credits.
• Enriches user data using Clearbit’s person and company APIs to gather full names, roles, company details, and social profiles.
• Filters companies based on employee size and Alexa ranking to identify high-value leads likely to be good prospects.
• Posts a rich, interactive message in a Slack channel to notify your sales or community team instantly with profile photos, job titles, and direct contact buttons.
• Handles missing data gracefully by stopping the workflow or suggesting manual follow-up, ensuring no errors break the automation.

This approach saves Sarah hours every week, reduces human error, optimizes API usage, and enables the team to jump on qualified leads quickly.

Prerequisites ⚙️

• n8n Account — to build and deploy the workflow.
• Discourse Community Platform — with admin access to set up webhooks.
• Clearbit API Key — to enrich contact and company data.
• Slack Workspace & Bot Token — to post notifications in your preferred channel.

Optional: If you want full control, you can self-host n8n with providers like Hostinger.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Set Up the Discourse Webhook Trigger

Navigate in your Discourse admin to https://{YourDiscourseDomain}/admin/api/web_hooks/new/edit. Create a new webhook with the following settings:

• Payload URL: Use the webhook URL generated by the n8n On new Discourse user node.
• HTTP Method: POST
• Trigger: New user signups

This webhook sends new user data to n8n, triggering the workflow. Save it and make sure it’s active.

Common mistake: Forgetting to use the exact webhook URL from n8n will result in no triggers.

Step 2: Add the “On new Discourse user” Webhook Node in n8n

In n8n, add a Webhook node named On new Discourse user. Set the HTTP Method to POST and the path to a unique string (e.g., abde7a49-208b-4bce-bcb9-910c4e529b06). This path forms part of your webhook URL to provide to Discourse.

Save and activate the workflow temporarily to capture a test payload when a new user signs up.

Expected outcome: n8n receives a JSON payload containing the new user’s email and profile data.

Step 3: Filter Out Personal Email Addresses

Add a Filter node named Filter out common personal emails. Configure it with “does not contain” conditions for the email domains: @gmail., @yahoo., @hotmail., and @proton.. Use the expression {{$json.body.user.email}} as the email input.

This prevents wasting Clearbit credits enriching free email users unlikely to be valuable leads.

Common mistake: Not using the expression syntax properly can cause all emails to be passed or blocked.

Step 4: Enrich User Data with Clearbit Person API

Add a Clearbit node called Enrich user with Clearbit. Configure it to use your Clearbit API credentials and map the email field to {{$json.body.user.email}}. Choose the Person resource type.

Set error handling to “Continue On Error” because Clearbit returns empty output for unknown emails.

Expected outcome: If found, Clearbit returns detailed user info including name, avatar, LinkedIn handle, and company employment data.

Step 5: Enrich Company Data with Clearbit Company API

Add another Clearbit node called Get company info. Map the domain field to {{$json.employment.domain}} gathered from the previous node.

This fetches company metrics like employee count and Alexa global rank.

Step 6: Filter for High-Value Leads

Add another Filter node named Filter for high value leads. Configure two numeric conditions:

• Employees >= 30
• Alexa Global Rank <= 100000

This ensures only companies with significant size and online presence are notified.

Step 7: Post Lead Notification Message to Slack

Add a Slack node called Post message in Channel. Connect it to the filter output for high-value leads.

Configure the message as a Slack Blocks JSON with dynamic placeholders from Clearbit data:

• User’s profile picture
• Full name, job title, and company
• Industry category
• Buttons linking to LinkedIn profile and email compose

Choose the Slack channel like #team-design or your sales channel.

Common mistake: Not updating the channel ID or Slack credentials will cause message failures.

Step 8: Optional Fallback and Workflow Notes

If Clearbit returns no data, the workflow continues to the No clearbit enrichment available node with a NoOp node, allowing you to add alternative enrichment or manual alert steps (like a Slack notification for manual verification).

Throughout the workflow, Sticky Notes provide helpful setup instructions and customization tips.

Customizations ✏️

• Adjust “High Value” Criteria: In the Filter for high value leads node, modify the employee count or Alexa rank thresholds to better fit your target market.
• Expand Email Filters: Update the Filter out common personal emails node to exclude additional personal or competitor domains.
• Slack Message Formatting: Customize the Slack message Blocks JSON in the Post message in Channel node to include more fields or interactive buttons tailored to your team’s workflow.
• Add Alternative Enrichment: Connect the No clearbit enrichment available node to other enrichment services or trigger Slack alerts for manual follow-up.

Troubleshooting 🔧

Problem: “Clearbit 404 errors or empty output”

Cause: Clearbit does not have data for some personal or uncommon email addresses.

Solution: Ensure your Filter node excludes common personal emails before enrichment to save API credits. For missing data, optionally add another enrichment API or manual Slack alert by connecting from the NoOp node.

Problem: “Slack messages not posting”

Cause: Incorrect Slack channel ID or lack of permissions.

Solution: Verify Slack node credentials, update channel name, and test permissions by sending a test message directly from the node UI.

Pre-Production Checklist ✅

• Confirm Discourse webhook is active and sending test payloads.
• Verify Clearbit API key is valid and has enrichment credits.
• Test Slack bot permissions and channel ID for message posting.
• Run manual tests by signing up test users on Discourse with different email domains.
• Make sure filter conditions correctly exclude or pass expected emails and companies.

Deployment Guide

Activate your n8n workflow once testing completes successfully. Monitor incoming Slack messages to ensure quality and relevancy of lead notifications. Adjust filters and message formatting over time as your targeting criteria evolve. Optionally, enable workflow error notifications in n8n to stay ahead of issues.

Conclusion

With this n8n workflow set up, Sarah can now instantly identify promising leads from new community signups without lifting a finger. It saves her team hours weekly, reduces wasted Clearbit credits on personal emails, and keeps the sales team focused on diving directly into high-value prospects.

Try customizing the filter rules to match your ideal customer profile, or extend this automation with other enrichment services like FullContact or LinkedIn integrations. Next, you could automate follow-up emails or CRM entries for these enriched leads to complete your sales funnel automation.

Embrace automation confidently, and watch your community and sales align for faster growth!