A Glossary of Essential Keap CRM Terminology for Data Management

In today’s fast-paced HR and recruiting landscape, leveraging a robust CRM like Keap is no longer a luxury but a necessity for effective data management, streamlined operations, and superior candidate experiences. Navigating the depths of any powerful platform requires a clear understanding of its core terminology. This glossary aims to demystify essential Keap CRM terms, providing HR and recruiting professionals with the authoritative knowledge needed to optimize their data strategies, automate critical workflows, and ensure the integrity and accessibility of their most valuable asset: information.

Keap CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Keap CRM refers to the comprehensive software platform designed to manage and automate customer relationships throughout their lifecycle. For HR and recruiting professionals, Keap transcends traditional sales focus, becoming a central hub for managing candidate journeys, employee data, and client interactions. It enables teams to track communications, automate follow-ups, and segment audiences, ensuring a personalized and efficient experience from initial outreach to successful onboarding. Understanding Keap CRM’s capabilities is crucial for automating talent acquisition, managing internal HR processes, and maintaining a singular source of truth for all people-related data.

Contact Record

A Contact Record in Keap CRM is the central repository of all information related to an individual, whether they are a candidate, employee, client, or partner. This record typically includes basic contact details, communication history, linked tasks, notes, and custom field data. For HR and recruiting, a meticulously maintained contact record ensures that every interaction, qualification, and relevant detail (like interview feedback or offer status) is logged and easily accessible. Accurate contact records are fundamental for compliance, personalized outreach, and effective talent pipeline management, preventing data silos and ensuring continuity in the candidate or employee journey.

Custom Fields

Custom Fields are user-defined data fields that extend Keap CRM’s default contact or company records, allowing organizations to capture specific information relevant to their unique operations. In an HR and recruiting context, custom fields are invaluable for storing specialized data such as candidate skill sets, desired salary ranges, internal employee IDs, start dates, specific certifications, or job application statuses. These fields enable highly granular segmentation, personalized automation, and comprehensive reporting tailored to HR metrics, transforming Keap into a highly adaptable system for managing diverse talent data beyond standard contact information.

Campaigns

In Keap, Campaigns are strategic, automated sequences of communications and actions designed to guide contacts through a defined journey. For HR and recruiting, campaigns are pivotal for automating various lifecycle stages, such as candidate nurturing, new hire onboarding, or internal communications. A candidate campaign might involve a series of emails, text messages, and internal tasks triggered by an application submission. An onboarding campaign could automatically deliver training materials, policy documents, and scheduled check-ins. Campaigns ensure consistent engagement, reduce manual administrative burden, and provide a scalable framework for managing high volumes of interactions effectively.

Automation

Automation within Keap CRM refers to the process of setting up rules and triggers that execute actions automatically, eliminating the need for manual intervention. This can include anything from automatically sending an email when a form is submitted to updating a contact record based on a website visit, or creating tasks for recruiters at specific stages. For HR and recruiting, automation is a game-changer, saving countless hours on repetitive tasks. It ensures timely follow-ups, consistent communication, and efficient progression of candidates through the hiring pipeline, allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives rather than administrative minutiae.

Sequences

Sequences are a core component of Keap campaigns, representing a series of timed steps or actions that a contact progresses through. Unlike broader campaigns, sequences often focus on a specific set of interactions or a particular stage within a larger journey. For instance, an “Interview Follow-Up Sequence” might send a thank-you email, schedule a reminder for the hiring manager, and update the candidate’s status, all automatically over a few days. Sequences provide the granular control necessary to craft precise, multi-step automations that are critical for personalized candidate engagement and structured internal processes within HR and recruiting.

Forms

Keap Forms are web-based tools used to capture information from contacts, acting as a primary entry point for data into the CRM. For HR and recruiting, forms are indispensable for a multitude of functions, including job applications, candidate interest forms, employee feedback surveys, event registrations for career fairs, or internal HR request submissions. They can be embedded on websites or landing pages and are fully customizable with standard and custom fields. Submitting a form can automatically trigger campaigns, apply tags, or update contact records, streamlining the data collection process and initiating automated workflows instantly.

Landing Pages

Landing Pages in Keap CRM are standalone web pages designed with a specific goal in mind, typically to capture contact information through a form or to promote a particular offer. For HR and recruiting, landing pages are highly effective for specific hiring initiatives, such as promoting a job opening for a critical role, inviting candidates to a virtual career event, or offering a resource like an “Employee Benefits Guide” download. They are optimized for conversion, featuring clear calls to action and minimal distractions. Integrating landing pages with Keap ensures that all submitted data is immediately captured and triggers relevant automated follow-up campaigns, enhancing the candidate acquisition funnel.

Lead Score

Lead Score is a numerical value assigned to a contact in Keap CRM, indicating their level of engagement and likelihood to convert or fit a specific profile. In HR and recruiting, this translates to “Candidate Score” or “Fit Score.” Points are accumulated based on various behaviors, such as opening emails, visiting career pages, applying for specific roles, or possessing certain skills (if tracked). A higher score signals a more engaged or suitable candidate, prompting recruiters to prioritize outreach or trigger specific automation sequences. Lead scoring helps HR teams efficiently manage large applicant pools by focusing resources on the most promising individuals.

Opportunity

While often associated with sales pipelines, an Opportunity in Keap CRM can be adapted by HR and recruiting to represent a candidate’s progression through the hiring process. Instead of a “deal,” an opportunity tracks a “hiring process” for a specific role. Each stage of the opportunity (e.g., Application Submitted, Interview Scheduled, Offer Extended, Hired) can be linked to automations, tasks, and communications. This allows recruiters to visually manage their talent pipeline, predict hiring volumes, identify bottlenecks, and ensure no candidate falls through the cracks, providing a structured approach to managing recruitment workflows.

Referral Partner

A Referral Partner in Keap CRM is a contact or organization set up to track and manage leads or candidates they refer. For HR and recruiting, this functionality is crucial for building and maintaining robust employee referral programs or managing external recruiting agencies. Keap allows for the tracking of referred candidates, their progress through the hiring pipeline, and even commission or bonus calculations associated with successful hires. This structured approach ensures that valuable referral sources are acknowledged, incentivized, and their contributions accurately attributed, strengthening a vital talent acquisition channel.

Webhooks

Webhooks are automated messages sent from an application when a specific event occurs, essentially providing real-time data notifications. In Keap CRM, webhooks are a powerful integration tool that can trigger actions in external systems when something happens within Keap (e.g., a contact is tagged, a form is submitted, or a campaign goal is achieved). For HR and recruiting, webhooks enable seamless connectivity between Keap and other HRIS, ATS, or custom recruitment tools (often via platforms like Make.com). This allows for instant data synchronization, automating complex cross-platform workflows, and maintaining a truly integrated operational ecosystem.

API (Application Programming Interface)

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and exchange data with each other. Keap’s API provides developers and technical users with programmatic access to its functionalities, enabling custom integrations, data synchronization, and the development of bespoke tools that interact directly with Keap data. For HR and recruiting, the API is vital for complex data migrations, building custom dashboards, connecting Keap to highly specialized HR systems that lack native integrations, or performing advanced bulk data operations, offering unparalleled flexibility and control over your CRM data.

Data Migration

Data Migration is the process of transferring data from one system or format to another. In the context of Keap CRM, this typically involves moving existing candidate or employee data from spreadsheets, legacy HR systems, or other CRMs into Keap, or vice-versa during system transitions. For HR and recruiting, successful data migration is paramount to ensuring business continuity and preserving historical information. It requires careful planning, data cleansing, and validation to prevent data loss or corruption, ensuring that all valuable people-related data is accurately and completely transferred to its new home in Keap, ready for use and automation.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Critical Keap Data Recovery for HR & Recruiting Business Continuity

By Jack DeePublished On: December 12, 2025