Learning objective
By the end of this tutorial, you'll know how to connect your Salesforce account to lemlist, choose how your contacts are created in your CRM, and verify everything is live — so your outreach data starts syncing automatically from day one.
Why this matters
Without a connected CRM, outreach activity lives only in lemlist — invisible to the rest of your sales team. Connecting Salesforce means every email sent, opened, clicked, or replied to gets recorded against the right lead or contact automatically. Your team gets full pipeline visibility without manual logging, and no deal falls through the cracks because someone forgot to update Salesforce.
Prerequisites
A lemlist account with admin access
A Salesforce account with admin access and API access enabled
You should not be on Salesforce Essentials — API access is not available on that plan
Phase 1: Connect your Salesforce account
Step 1: Open the Salesforce integration
Go to your team settings to find the Salesforce integration. This is a team-level connection — one setup covers every campaign and every teammate.
Click your name or avatar in the bottom-left corner, then select Settings.
In the left sidebar, go to Integrations, then click Salesforce.
Step 2: Confirm the connection
After completing the Salesforce OAuth flow, look for the Connected status at the top of the page. This confirms lemlist has the access it needs to read and write to your Salesforce org.
Phase 2: Configure how records sync
Step 3: Choose your record type
Under General options, decide whether lemlist should automatically create missing records in Salesforce, and whether contacts should sync as Leads or Contacts. If your Salesforce workflow uses Lead conversion, sync as Leads. If your team works directly with Contacts and Accounts, choose Contacts.
Under General options, choose whether lemlist should create missing records in Salesforce and how contacts should be created (Lead or Contact).
Step 4: Set default property values
Under Set default properties values, define default field values for new CRM records lemlist creates. Setting Lead Source = "lemlist" or "Cold Outreach" here means you can always filter your CRM to see exactly what your outreach pipeline generated.
Under Set default properties values of new added records, set any default values that should be applied to new records created by lemlist (Contact, Lead, Account, or Opportunity).
If syncing contacts as Leads, Salesforce requires a Company field. lemlist auto-fills it from the contact's most recent company experience, or the one marked as primary.
Practical example
A 5-person SDR team connects Salesforce in under 20 minutes. They sync contacts as Leads (their workflow converts leads after a demo) and set Lead Source = "Cold Outreach" as a default. From that point on, every reply that triggers a new Salesforce Lead is tagged, visible in the SDR's queue, and ready for conversion. Zero manual CRM entry.
Troubleshooting
Connection fails during authorization
Root cause: Missing Salesforce admin permissions, or API access is not enabled in your org.
Confirm you're logged into Salesforce as an admin
Check that API access is enabled in Salesforce org settings
Salesforce Essentials does not include API access — you'll need to upgrade
Company field error when syncing as Leads
Root cause: Salesforce requires a Company value for Leads, and the contact may not have company data in lemlist.
Add company data to the contact in lemlist before the next sync triggers
lemlist auto-fills Company from the contact's most recent or primary company experience
Can't find the Integrations section in lemlist
Root cause: You may not have lemlist admin access.
Ensure you're logged in as a lemlist admin
Contact your workspace admin if the Integrations section isn't visible