This n8n template demonstrates how to automate personalized cold email follow-ups using AI personalization and database tracking. Perfect for sales teams, recruiters, and agencies managing high-volume outreach.
Use cases: Follow up with cold leads, re-engage trial users, nurture conference contacts, recruit candidates, or follow up with proposal recipients.
PS: 1) This was created as a Follow Up workflow
it was not meant for inital outreach. (However if you can customize it to include initial outreach then go ahead)
2)This workflow sends a maximum of 4 follow Ups
How it works
- NocoDB fetches all leads and filters those needing follow-up today based on the "Next Follow up/Contact" date
- A switch node routes leads to the appropriate follow-up stage (1-4) based on which follow-ups have already been sent
- AI personalizes each email template by inserting the recipient's name while keeping the rest of the content intact
- Emails are sent via SMTP (or Gmail node), then the database updates to mark the follow-up as sent and schedule the next one
- The workflow runs daily at 10 AM to automatically process follow-ups without manual intervention
Good to know
- Each AI personalization costs ~$0.001 with Groq (free tier available). See Groq pricing for details.
- Follow-up schedule: Day 3, 7, 12, 16 after initial contact (fully customizable)
- Leads marked "Not Interested" are automatically excluded from future follow-ups
- The workflow only processes leads with an "Initial Contact Date" set - this triggers the entire sequence (The initial Contact is done manually and updated manually)
How to use
- The schedule trigger runs daily but can be replaced with manual trigger or webhook for immediate testing
- Customize the 4 email templates in the AI nodes to match your brand voice and offering
- Adjust follow-up intervals by modifying the "Update a row" nodes (currently +4 or +5 days between follow-ups)
- Import your lead list to NocoDB with minimum required fields: first_name, last_name, email, Initial Contact Date
Requirements
- NocoDB account - Free lead database (You can use any database-Google Sheets, Airtable etc. However ensure the essential details below are in the database)
- Groq API key (or OpenAI/Ollama) - For AI personalization (Swap this for any LLM you like/have)
- SWITCH the 'Send Email' nodes for the Gmail Node and set it up using OAuth