Actions6
Overview
The "Research a Lead" operation in the Utopian Labs node leverages AI-powered research agents to gather detailed information about a lead based on their company website and additional optional details. This node is useful for sales, marketing, or business development professionals who want to automate the process of researching potential leads to better understand their background, company, and context before engagement.
Typical use cases include:
- Automatically enriching lead data with researched insights.
- Preparing personalized outreach by gathering relevant company and contact information.
- Integrating AI-driven research into lead qualification workflows.
For example, given a lead's company website and optionally their name, email, LinkedIn profile, or job title, the node can run an AI agent that performs multiple research steps and returns a structured report. The node supports using different research agents and can output custom schemas for extracting specific data points from the research.
Properties
| Name | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Lead Company Website | The website URL of the lead's company. This is required and must be a valid URL. |
| Callback Url | The URL (usually from a Wait node) where the research agent will send its callback response once the research is complete. |
| Return Mock Response | Whether to return a mock response instead of running the actual research. Useful for testing workflows without invoking real agents. |
| Agent | The AI research agent to use for the operation. Options: "Research Agent" or "Research Agent Light". |
| Output Schema | Optional JSON schema specifying the desired structure of the research output. Allows extracting specific data fields from the research report. |
| Additional Fields | A collection of optional fields to provide more context about the lead: |
| - Lead Company Name | Name of the lead's company. |
| - Lead Company Description | Description of the lead's company. |
| - Lead Full Name | Full name of the lead. Required if any other lead-specific info (email, LinkedIn, job title, X/Twitter handle) is provided. |
| - Lead Business Email Address | Business email address of the lead (must not be personal email domains like gmail.com). |
| - Lead LinkedIn Profile URL | LinkedIn profile URL of the lead. |
| - Lead Job Title | Job title of the lead. |
| - Lead X/Twitter Handle | X (formerly Twitter) handle of the lead, with or without '@'. |
| - Max Research Steps | Maximum number of research steps the agent should perform (default 5; average is 2-3). |
| - Context | Additional textual context to guide the research operation. |
| - Use Memory | Whether to use previous research runs as memory to inform the current research. |
Output
The node outputs a JSON object representing the research results returned by the selected AI agent. The exact structure depends on the agent used and whether an output schema was specified. If an output schema is provided, the output will conform to that schema, allowing extraction of specific data points from the research report.
The output JSON typically includes:
- Detailed research findings about the lead and their company.
- Structured data fields as per the output schema (if any).
- Metadata related to the research run.
No binary data output is indicated by the source code.
Dependencies
- Requires an API key credential for authenticating with the Utopian Labs AI service.
- The node makes HTTP POST requests to the Utopian Labs API endpoint
/v1/n8n/runs. - The workflow must include a Wait node configured to receive the webhook callback from the research agent. The callback URL from this Wait node is passed as a parameter.
- Proper configuration of the Wait node is critical: it must be set to listen for POST requests.
Troubleshooting
- Invalid Email Address: The node validates the lead's business email format and domain. Errors occur if the email is malformed or uses blocked domains. Ensure emails are business addresses and correctly formatted.
- Invalid Website URL: The lead company website must be a valid URL. Errors will be thrown if the URL does not match expected patterns.
- Missing Lead Full Name: If any lead-specific information such as email, LinkedIn, job title, or Twitter handle is provided, the full name of the lead becomes mandatory.
- Callback URL Issues: The callback URL must be correctly set to the Wait node's webhook URL. Misconfiguration may cause the research agent's callback to fail or never arrive.
- API Authentication Failures: Ensure the API key credential is valid and has proper permissions.
- Max Research Steps: Setting this too high may increase processing time unnecessarily; too low might limit research depth.
If the node throws errors, check the error messages for these common validation issues and correct the input parameters accordingly.
Links and References
- Utopian Labs Official Website (for general info about the AI service)
- n8n Documentation on Wait Node
- General best practices for Validating Email Addresses
- General best practices for URL Validation