How you can connect Smartlead and HeyReach [Step-by-step guide]

Speaking to a few users recently, they said that it would be great to see a how-to guide on what's the best way to integrate Smartlead and HeyReach. Basically, go multichannel and reach out to prospects via LinkedIn and email simultaneously.

Now, here's the deal: these two tools aren't exactly best friends yet - there's no native integration. But fear not! We can make these two play nice using a tool called Make.

The goal is to make this guide super simple so you can launch multichannel campaigns easily even if you never used Make before. We're talking "connect the dots" simple - literally.

To make sure I don't completely mess this up, I brought in my friend Nenad Pavlov who's the Managing Director @SimplyGrow. He's basically the Tony Stark of Make automation, while I'm more like... well, that dummy assistant robot in Iron Man 1 trying to keep up. But together, we Make this work! (pun intended)

Let’s cook!

How to use Make to connect Smartlead and HeyReach [Video]

If you prefer to learn visually and follow along with a video tutorial, here it is. Nenad will guide you through the entire process:

For those who prefer written instructions, I've detailed all the steps below.

Reach bounced emails with LinkedIn outreach

High bounce rates in cold email campaigns waste valuable potential leads. Common causes include:

• Catch-all email addresses that don't exist
• Strict spam filters that block outreach emails

Generally speaking, as an outreach practitioner, your goal is to keep the bounce rate below 5% at all costs. I’d say push it to <2%.But just because an email bounced, it doesn’t mean your work ends there. To ensure no leads go to waste, you can do a counter and reach this people on LinkedIn instead.. That's why this scenario will be valuable for you.This is the flow we wanna achieve:

1. Lead bounced in Smartlead
2. Send lead info to Make
3. Get lead info from Smartlead (e.g. first name, last name, LinkedIn profile URL…)
4. Push lead info to HeyReach
5. Send HeyReach follow-up campaign

Let me show you how can you can do this step-by-step.

Step 1: Create a Webhook in Smartlead

1. Open your Make account, start a new scenario, and choose “Custom webhook module”

2. Click the “Create a webhook” red button, give it a name, skip IP restrictions field, and tap save

3. Copy the generated URL by pressing the “Copy address to clipboard” button

4. Log into Smartlead and navigate to the Settings.

5. Go to the webhook section and click "Add Webhook."

6. Define your webhook name, copy/paste the URL from Make, choose "email bounce" for the event type, and for level, keep "account" or select "campaign".

7. Test the webhook connection using SmartLead's test data feature.

You should be all good.

Step 2: Create an HTTP module

1. Go to Make and choose the "Make a request" option. Bring the HTTP step close to your Webhooks first step in Make to create a connection (the dotted line between the steps will appear automatically)

2. Open HeyReach API and go to “AddLeadsToListV2” section because you want to add lead to a list within HeyReach that will later become a trigger to send a LinkedIn campaign.

3. Copy this URL from the HeyReach API

Here’s also the URL if you wanna copy it from here:

^{https://api.heyreach.io/api/public/list/AddLeadsToListV2}

4. Paste the link into your HTTP request in Make (under URL)

5. Choose POST as your Method

6. Go back to your HeyReach API and scroll to this section

7. Copy/paste “X-API-KEY”, “Content-Type”, and “Accept” headers into your Make HTTP request. Keep in mind that instead of <string> in “X-API-KEY”, you need to put your HeyReach API key that you can find in Integrations when you enter your HeyReach account.

8. Choose “Raw” in your Body type, “JSON” as the Content type, and pick “Yes” in Parse Response

9. Copy this code below

{
"leads": [
{
"firstName": "John",
"lastName": "Doe",
"location": "USA",
"summary": "SDR @ HeyReach",
"companyName": "HeyReach",
"position": "SDR",
"about": "I like LinkedIn",
"emailAddress": "john_doe@example.com",
"customUserFields": [
{
"name": "favorite_color",
"value": "blue"
}
],
"profileUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-doe"
}
],
"listId": 123
}

‍

10. Paste it in “Request content” in your Make’s HTTP request

11. Go to HeyReach and create your lead list

12. Copy this number from the HeyReach list URL

13. Paste it here

14. Click save, then right click on your HTTP request, and choose to run this module only

You should be all good and you will see a sample lead in your lead list in HeyReach.

Step 3: Create Smartlead module

You will notice that, with this current Make setup, you don’t have data like “First Name” or “LinkedIn profile URL”, being sent from Smartlead into HeyReach when working with Bounced leads.Which means we need to add a new step in Make between these two and ask Smartlead for additional information.Here’s how this will look like:

1. Unlink Webhooks and HTTP steps in Make (right click on the dotted line, press unlink)

2. Add a new step in Make that’s called “Smartlead - Fetch Lead by Email Address”

3. Name your connection and copy/paste your Smartlead API key (Settings > Your Profile), then press save

4. Choose “to_name” for your email field

5. Connect your 3 steps in Make with dotted lines

6. Right click on SmartLead AI and press “Run this module only to test it. You can copy/paste one of the emails from your lead’s list in Smartlead. Make sure it’s a test email from a test list, and not your actual lead list. This is done for the testing purposes.

7. Click on your HTTP request and update your fields in the “Request content” section. Here’s how it should look like (keep in mind I eliminated all custom fields for this one)

8. Test it by clicking “Run this module only”

9. Once ready, in the bottom part, toggle on “Immediately as data arrives” and press save right next to it. You’re live!

That’s basically it. The hard part is done!

Step 4: Create a HeyReach campaign

Finally, let's create your HeyReach campaign. Here's an example:

Here's how the campaign works:

1. Starts with “If connected” step, so I can have tailored flows for leads I’m already connected with versus those I’m not
2. If we are connected, I send a message
3. If we are not connected, I start by sending a connection request
4. If they accept the connection request, I send a message a day later
5. If they don’t accept my connection request within 3 days, I send an InMail

All 3 messages can have identical copy - the only difference is which flow the lead follows. Simple and easy!

Remember to update your HeyReach lead list ID if you create a new list to replace your testing list in Make. Then paste the new ID in your Make HTTP request.

That's it, you're good to go.

Converting LinkedIn profile views to email campaigns

For the reverse workflow, I’ll show you a quick example how you can capture LinkedIn profile interactions and add them to your cold email campaigns. Basically, you view a LinkedIn profile and then you fire a cold email.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Create a Webhook

1. Go to Make, create a Webhook, and click save

2. Click the “Create a webhook” red button, give it a name, skip IP restrictions field, and tap save

3. Copy the generated URL by pressing the “Copy address to clipboard” button

4. Go to HeyReach, open integrations, and create a Webhook

5. Fill in the details like this and press create. You can pick the specific campaign if you want, of coruse

6. You can test to see if it’s working in Make by right clicking on your Webook and pressing “Run this module only”… also click “Test Webhook” in HeyReach right at the same time

It should work like a charm.

Step 2: Make an API call

1. Create a new step in Make, search Smartlead modules, and choose “Make an API call”

2. Name your connection and copy/paste your Smartlead API key (Settings > Your Profile), then press save

3. Connect the two actions in Make with the dotted line

4. Go to Smartlead API documentation and find the “Add leads to a campaign by ID” API call to add a lead to campaign - here it is

5. Copy/paste this URL (everything after the word API in the url → /v1/campaigns/{campaign_id}/leads) into Make and add your campaign ID from Smartlead instead of {campaign_id} in the url

Example how it would look: /v1/campaigns/1357233/leads

6. Choose POST as your Method

7. In the Headers, add “Content-Type” in “Key” and “application/json” in “Value”

8. Copy/paste this code below in the body (available in Smartlead API documentation)… I just deleted the excess you don’t need as Smartlead had some code errors (missing commas and quotation marks)

{
"leads": [
{
"firstName": "John",
"lastName": "Doe",
"location": "USA",
"summary": "SDR @ HeyReach",
"companyName": "HeyReach",
"position": "SDR",
"about": "I like LinkedIn",
"emailAddress": "john_doe@example.com",
"customUserFields": [
{
"name": "favorite_color",
"value": "blue"
}
],
"profileUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-doe"
}
],
"listId": 123 \
}

‍

9. Test in Make to see if it works… it should work :)

10 Clean the data so you pull in the right lead info from HeyReach to Smartlead (choose see the image below)

11. Turn this toggle on, save everything, test if you want, and you’re good to go

Step 3: Create your campaigns

All that's left for you to do is create a campaign in HeyReach. There, you can add a step to "View Profile."After that, create a campaign in Smartlead and add your emails into the mix—that's it!Just remember to update the campaign ID in Make in Step 2.5 above.

Best practices for successful integration:

• Always test your integration with dummy data first
• Maintain proper JSON formatting with correct quotation marks
• Include necessary headers in API requests
• Monitor your automation history for potential issues

By following this integration guide, you can create a seamless workflow between your email and LinkedIn automation tools, ensuring no lead falls through the cracks in your outreach efforts.

Btw, if you wanna go crazy with Make playbooks and deepen your HeyReach <> Smartlead workflows, but need some help, ping Nenad. He can help set you up lighting-fast.

Useful links:

• HeyReach API
• Smartlead API
• Create your free Make account
• Create your free HeyReach account
• Create your Smartlead account