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Research Business Leads with Perplexity AI & Save to Google Sheets using OpenAI

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Created by: Robert Breen || rbreen

Robert Breen

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Last update a month ago

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Automatically research new leads in your target area, structure the results with AI, and append them into Google Sheets — all orchestrated in n8n.

✅ What this template does

  • Uses Perplexity to research businesses (coffee shops in this example) with company name + email
  • Cleans and structures the output into proper JSON using OpenAI
  • Appends the new leads directly into Google Sheets, skipping duplicates

Trigger: Manual — “Start Workflow”

👤 Who’s it for

  • Sales & marketing teams who need to prospect local businesses
  • Agencies running outreach campaigns
  • Freelancers and consultants looking to automate lead research

⚙️ How it works

  1. Set Location → define your target area (e.g., Hershey PA)
  2. Get Current Leads → pull existing data from your Google Sheet to avoid duplicates
  3. Research Leads → query Perplexity for 20 businesses, excluding already-scraped ones
  4. Write JSON → OpenAI converts Perplexity output into structured Company/Email arrays
  5. Split & Merge → align Companies with Emails row-by-row
  6. Send Leads to Google Sheets → append or update leads in your sheet

🛠️ Setup instructions

Follow these sticky-note setup steps (already included in the workflow):

1) Connect Google Sheets (OAuth2)

  1. In n8n → Credentials → New → Google Sheets (OAuth2)
  2. Sign in with your Google account and grant access
  3. In the Google Sheets node, select your Spreadsheet and Worksheet

Example sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MnaU8hSi8PleDNVcNnyJ5CgmDYJSUTsr7X5HIwa-MLk/edit#gid=0

2) Connect Perplexity (API Key)

  1. Sign in at https://www.perplexity.ai/account
  2. Generate an API key: https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/getting-started
  3. In n8n → Credentials → New → Perplexity API, paste your key

3) Connect OpenAI (API Key)

  1. In n8n → Credentials → New → OpenAI API
  2. Paste your OpenAI API key
  3. In the OpenAI Chat Model node, select your credential and a vision-capable model (e.g., gpt-4o-mini, gpt-4o)

🔧 Requirements

🎨 How to customize

  • Change the Search Area in the Set Location node
  • Modify the Perplexity system prompt to target different business types (e.g., gyms, salons, restaurants)
  • Expand the Google Sheet schema to include more fields (phone, website, etc.)

📬 Contact

Need help customizing this (e.g., filtering by campaign, sending reports by email, or formatting your Google Sheet)?