A Glossary of Key Terms: Keap Automation & Workflow Components for HR & Recruiting

In the fast-paced world of HR and recruiting, leveraging robust automation tools like Keap can dramatically enhance efficiency, accuracy, and candidate experience. This glossary provides HR and recruiting professionals with clear, authoritative definitions of key terms related to Keap automation and workflow components, explaining their practical application in talent acquisition and management. Understanding these concepts is crucial for optimizing your processes and achieving superior hiring outcomes.

Keap CRM

Keap CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a comprehensive platform designed to help businesses organize, manage, and automate their sales and marketing efforts. In an HR context, Keap CRM serves as a centralized database for candidate profiles, employee records, contact history, and communication preferences. It allows HR professionals to segment talent pools, track applicant progress through various stages of the hiring funnel, and maintain a historical record of all interactions. By consolidating information, Keap CRM ensures a “single source of truth” for candidate data, reducing manual data entry errors and providing a complete view of each individual, which is essential for personalized outreach and compliant record-keeping.

Automation

Automation, in the context of Keap and HR, refers to the use of technology to perform tasks or processes with minimal human intervention. For recruiting, this could involve automatically sending follow-up emails to candidates after an interview, scheduling assessment reminders, updating candidate statuses based on specific actions (like form submissions), or generating compliance documents. The goal of automation is to eliminate repetitive, time-consuming administrative tasks, freeing up HR and recruiting teams to focus on strategic activities such as candidate engagement, relationship building, and high-level decision-making. Effective automation reduces human error, speeds up the hiring cycle, and ensures consistency in processes.

Workflow

A workflow is a series of interconnected steps, tasks, or processes that are executed in a specific sequence to achieve a defined outcome. In HR and recruiting, workflows define the structured path a candidate takes from initial application to onboarding. Examples include the applicant screening workflow, the interview scheduling workflow, or the new hire onboarding workflow. Keap allows for the creation and automation of these workflows, ensuring that each step—such as sending a confirmation email, notifying a hiring manager, or triggering a background check—occurs at the right time and in the correct order. Well-designed workflows enhance process efficiency, reduce bottlenecks, and provide a consistent experience for all candidates.

Campaigns (Keap)

In Keap, a Campaign is an automated series of communications and actions designed to guide contacts through a specific journey. For HR and recruiting, campaigns are invaluable for nurturing talent pools, engaging active candidates, or streamlining onboarding. An example would be a “Candidate Nurture Campaign” that sends a series of value-driven emails to passive candidates over several weeks, sharing company culture insights or industry articles. Another could be an “Onboarding Welcome Campaign” that delivers essential documents, team introductions, and first-day instructions to new hires. Campaigns can include emails, texts, tasks for team members, and conditional logic, ensuring personalized and timely interactions at scale.

Tags (Keap)

Tags in Keap are descriptive labels used to categorize and segment contacts based on shared attributes, behaviors, or interests. For HR and recruiting, tags are incredibly powerful for organizing vast candidate databases. Examples include “Interviewed – Senior Developer,” “HR – Onboarding Complete,” “Talent Pool – Marketing,” or “Rejected – Culture Fit.” Tags enable HR professionals to quickly filter and target specific groups for communication, identify candidates for future roles, or track progress through recruitment stages. They are fundamental for creating dynamic candidate segments, allowing for highly relevant and personalized messaging, and simplifying data retrieval for reporting purposes.

Sequences (Keap)

While similar to campaigns, Sequences in Keap are generally more focused, linear series of automated actions tied to a specific outcome, often used for follow-ups or administrative tasks. In recruiting, a Sequence might be used for automated interview reminders, a series of post-interview feedback requests, or a compliance document submission follow-up. Unlike comprehensive campaigns that might branch, sequences typically run in a straight line, executing actions until completion or a specific goal is met. They are excellent for ensuring no candidate or new hire falls through the cracks, providing consistent communication without manual intervention, and maintaining a professional touch throughout high-volume processes.

Webhooks

A webhook is an automated message sent from one application to another when a specific event occurs, essentially a “user-defined HTTP callback.” In the context of Keap and HR, webhooks allow different systems to communicate and share data in real-time. For instance, when a candidate completes an application form in an external ATS, a webhook could trigger an action in Keap to create a new contact record and initiate a “New Applicant Campaign.” Conversely, an action in Keap (like tagging a candidate as “Hired”) could trigger a webhook to update their status in a separate HRIS or payroll system. Webhooks are critical for integrating disparate HR tech tools, automating data synchronization, and building complex, interconnected workflows.

API Integration

API (Application Programming Interface) integration refers to the method by which two or more software applications communicate and exchange data directly. While webhooks are typically one-way notifications, API integrations allow for more complex, bidirectional data exchange and system manipulation. For HR, robust API integration means Keap can seamlessly “talk to” and share detailed candidate or employee data with other systems like applicant tracking systems (ATS), human resource information systems (HRIS), background check platforms, or e-signature tools. This level of integration eliminates manual data transfer, reduces errors, ensures data consistency across platforms, and enables powerful, end-to-end automated HR processes without reliance on manual exports/imports.

Lead Scoring (Keap context)

Traditionally used for sales leads, lead scoring in Keap can be powerfully adapted for candidate qualification in HR and recruiting. It involves assigning numerical values to candidates based on their characteristics (e.g., specific skills, years of experience, desired salary range) and their engagement actions (e.g., opening emails, visiting career pages, submitting assessments). A candidate with a high “score” might indicate a strong fit for a role or high interest, prompting an automated notification to a recruiter or moving them to a fast-track interview pipeline. This objective scoring helps HR teams prioritize candidates, focus resources on the most promising talent, and streamline the initial screening process, especially for high-volume recruitment.

Custom Fields (Keap)

Custom Fields in Keap are user-defined data fields that allow businesses to store specific information beyond the standard contact fields. For HR and recruiting professionals, custom fields are essential for capturing and organizing highly specific candidate and employee data relevant to their unique processes. This could include fields for “Desired Start Date,” “Certification Earned,” “Preferred Interview Availability,” “Skills Matrix Score,” or “Internal Employee ID.” Custom fields ensure that all pertinent information is stored within Keap, enabling robust segmentation, personalized communications, and detailed reporting that aligns with an organization’s specific HR data requirements and compliance needs.

Landing Pages (Keap)

A landing page is a standalone web page created for a specific marketing or conversion goal, often reached by clicking a link in an email or advertisement. In an HR and recruiting context, Keap’s landing page builder can be used to create dedicated pages for job applications, registration for recruiting events (e.g., virtual career fairs), talent pool sign-ups, or to collect expressions of interest for future roles. These pages can be designed to capture specific candidate information, showcase employer branding, and directly funnel interested individuals into Keap campaigns and workflows, streamlining the initial candidate acquisition process and enhancing the overall applicant experience.

Forms (Keap)

Forms in Keap are customizable web forms used to collect information from contacts. For HR and recruiting, Keap forms are versatile tools for various data collection needs. This includes simple “Apply Now” forms on career pages, feedback forms after interviews, onboarding data collection forms (e.g., emergency contacts, preferred t-shirt size for company swag), or internal HR request forms. Keap forms can automatically trigger actions, apply tags, and update custom fields upon submission, ensuring that collected data immediately feeds into automated workflows, reduces manual data entry, and keeps candidate and employee records up-to-date and actionable.

Reporting & Analytics (Keap)

Reporting & Analytics in Keap refers to the tools and features that allow users to track, measure, and analyze the performance of their automated campaigns and overall system usage. For HR and recruiting, this functionality is critical for understanding the effectiveness of recruitment strategies. HR teams can generate reports on campaign open rates, click-through rates for candidate communications, conversion rates from application to interview, or the overall efficiency of specific workflows. This data provides actionable insights into where processes can be optimized, which channels are most effective for talent acquisition, and how to continuously improve the candidate journey and hiring outcomes.

Decision Diamond (Keap)

The Decision Diamond is a powerful component within Keap’s campaign builder, representing a point where the automation flow can branch based on specific conditions or rules. For HR and recruiting, this allows for dynamic and personalized candidate journeys. For example, a Decision Diamond might check if a candidate has a specific “Skill A” tag. If yes, they are routed to a specialized interview process; if no, they might receive an email suggesting alternative roles or be directed to a general talent pool. This conditional logic ensures that automation adapts to individual candidate profiles and actions, creating more intelligent and efficient workflows that are tailored to diverse applicant needs and qualifications.

Integrations (General)

In the broader sense, integrations refer to the connections between Keap and other third-party software applications. For HR and recruiting, the ability of Keap to integrate with other specialized tools is paramount. This could include direct integrations with calendar scheduling tools like Calendly, e-signature platforms like PandaDoc for offer letters, project management tools, or more advanced integrations with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and HR Information Systems (HRIS) via tools like Make.com. Seamless integrations create a cohesive HR tech stack, allowing for automated data flow, reduced manual effort, and a truly unified view of the candidate and employee lifecycle across all essential platforms.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Keap Order Data Protection: An Essential Guide for HR & Recruiting Professionals