A Glossary of Keap-Specific Terminology for HR Professionals

For HR and recruiting professionals navigating the complexities of talent acquisition and employee management, leveraging robust CRM and automation platforms like Keap can be a game-changer. However, mastering such a powerful system requires a clear understanding of its core terminology. This glossary demystifies key Keap-specific terms, explaining their functions and highlighting their practical applications for optimizing HR workflows, enhancing candidate experiences, and streamlining operational efficiency. Whether you’re automating candidate outreach, managing onboarding, or building a robust talent pipeline, a solid grasp of these definitions is essential for maximizing your Keap investment.

Keap CRM

Keap CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a comprehensive platform designed to help businesses manage their contacts, automate sales and marketing processes, and streamline operational tasks. For HR professionals, Keap acts as a centralized database for candidate information, employee records, and hiring process data. It moves beyond simple contact management, enabling the automation of follow-up sequences for applicants, managing onboarding checklists, and even tracking employee development paths. By consolidating communication history, documents, and interactions, Keap CRM provides a 360-degree view of every individual, crucial for personalized engagement throughout the recruitment and retention lifecycle.

Contact Record

A Contact Record in Keap is a comprehensive profile for an individual, storing all pertinent information from their name and contact details to custom fields, communication history, and assigned tags. For HR and recruiting, a contact record is the fundamental unit for tracking candidates, new hires, or existing employees. It consolidates resumes, interview notes, offer letters, communication logs (emails, SMS), and progress through various recruitment or onboarding stages. Maintaining accurate and detailed contact records is vital for ensuring compliance, personalizing outreach, and building a reliable talent pool that can be efficiently segmented and acted upon.

Tagging

Tagging in Keap is a powerful method for segmenting contacts based on shared characteristics, interests, or actions. Tags are essentially labels attached to contact records, allowing for dynamic organization and targeted communication. In an HR context, tags can identify candidate skills (e.g., “Java Developer,” “Project Manager”), application status (“Interviewed,” “Offer Extended”), source (“LinkedIn,” “Referral”), or even employee tenure and department. These tags become crucial triggers for automation, enabling HR teams to send highly relevant follow-up communications, assign specific onboarding sequences, or filter their database for talent pipeline analysis with precision and efficiency.

Campaigns

Keap Campaigns are automated sequences of marketing and sales actions designed to nurture contacts through a predefined journey. For HR and recruiting, campaigns are invaluable for automating candidate engagement from initial application to post-hire follow-up. Examples include a “New Applicant Welcome” campaign that sends an immediate acknowledgment and sets expectations, a “Post-Interview Nurture” campaign providing useful company insights, or an “Onboarding Checklist” campaign delivering staggered resources to new hires. Campaigns are built with triggers, sequences, and decision points, ensuring timely and personalized communication at scale without requiring constant manual intervention from the HR team.

Sequence

A Sequence is a fundamental component within a Keap Campaign, representing a series of automated actions that execute in a specific order. These actions can include sending emails, applying/removing tags, creating tasks, updating custom fields, or initiating other processes. In recruiting, a sequence might involve sending a series of follow-up emails to a candidate after an initial application, each spaced a few days apart and offering different information about the role or company culture. For employee onboarding, a sequence could automate sending welcome materials, scheduling training reminders, and triggering IT setup requests. Sequences are the operational backbone of Keap automation, ensuring consistent and timely execution of HR processes.

Decision Diamond

The Decision Diamond is a critical element within Keap’s Campaign Builder that introduces conditional logic into automation workflows. It allows campaigns to branch off based on specific criteria or contact behavior, enabling highly personalized journeys. For HR professionals, a Decision Diamond might evaluate whether a candidate has opened an email, completed a form, or possesses a specific tag. Based on this decision, the campaign can then direct the candidate down different paths – perhaps sending a reminder email if an application isn’t completed, or moving them to a different follow-up sequence if they’ve expressed interest in a different role. This ensures communication remains relevant and adaptable to individual candidate actions.

Web Form

A Web Form in Keap is a customizable online form used to capture information from visitors or applicants. When submitted, the data automatically populates a contact record in Keap and can trigger various automations. For recruiting, web forms are essential for job applications, screening questionnaires, event registrations (e.g., career fairs), or collecting candidate interest for future roles. Properly designed web forms ensure consistent data collection, reduce manual data entry, and act as entry points into automated nurturing or screening campaigns. They streamline the initial interaction, making it easier for candidates to engage and for HR teams to collect necessary information efficiently.

Landing Page

A Keap Landing Page is a standalone web page designed with a specific goal, such as capturing leads, promoting an event, or facilitating a job application. Unlike a general website page, a landing page typically has minimal navigation, focusing the visitor’s attention on a single call to action. In HR, landing pages can be used for specific job postings to provide detailed role descriptions and an embedded application form, for recruiting events to gather RSVPs, or to collect expressions of interest for a talent pool. They are crucial for targeted campaigns, allowing HR teams to create highly relevant user experiences that improve conversion rates for applicants or event attendees.

Broadcast

A Broadcast in Keap refers to a one-time, mass communication sent to a selected group of contacts. Unlike automated campaign sequences, broadcasts are manually initiated and are suitable for urgent announcements, newsletters, or ad-hoc communications. For HR, broadcasts can be used to send company-wide announcements, notify a specific segment of employees about a new policy update, or inform a group of candidates about a change in interview schedules. While campaigns handle ongoing nurturing, broadcasts provide the flexibility to communicate important, time-sensitive information quickly and efficiently to a large audience or a finely targeted segment.

Task/Appointment

In Keap, Tasks and Appointments are internal workflow management tools used to track and schedule specific actions or meetings. Tasks are reminders for internal actions, such as “Review Resume for [Candidate Name],” “Call [Candidate Name] for initial screen,” or “Send Offer Letter to [New Hire].” Appointments are used for scheduling meetings, like “Interview with [Candidate Name]” or “Onboarding Session with HR.” These features help HR professionals organize their daily activities, ensure critical steps in the recruitment or employee management process are not missed, and maintain accountability within the team. They can also be automated to be created at specific points within a campaign sequence.

Automation Builder

The Automation Builder is Keap’s visual interface for designing and implementing automated workflows, primarily for campaigns. It’s a drag-and-drop environment where users connect various elements like web forms, emails, sequences, decision diamonds, and goals to create complex yet intuitive automated processes. For HR professionals, this tool allows for the creation of intricate recruitment funnels, personalized onboarding journeys, and automated performance review reminders without needing coding expertise. The visual nature of the Automation Builder makes it easy to understand, modify, and optimize workflows, empowering HR teams to become more efficient and strategic in their operations.

Pipeline

Keap’s Pipeline feature provides a visual representation of contacts moving through distinct stages of a process, typically sales or recruitment. For HR, a pipeline is an invaluable tool for tracking candidates through the hiring process—from “Applicant” to “Screened,” “Interviewed,” “Offer Extended,” and “Hired.” Each stage can have associated tasks, automations, and reporting, allowing HR teams to monitor progress, identify bottlenecks, and forecast hiring needs. The visual drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to update candidate status, ensuring transparency and efficiency in managing multiple open roles and candidates simultaneously.

Lead Score

Lead Scoring in Keap is a system that assigns numerical values (points) to contacts based on their engagement, demographics, or actions, indicating their potential quality or readiness for a specific interaction. While commonly used for sales leads, HR can adapt lead scoring to prioritize candidates. Points might be awarded for specific skills mentioned in a resume, interactions with career fair content, or engagement with pre-application materials. A high “candidate score” could flag individuals as top-tier prospects, prompting immediate action from a recruiter. This helps HR teams focus their valuable time and resources on the most promising talent, streamlining the screening process.

Integration

Integration in Keap refers to the ability to connect and share data with other software applications. This connectivity is crucial for creating a seamless operational ecosystem. For HR, integrations might link Keap with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to sync candidate data, a background check service to initiate screenings, or HRIS (Human Resources Information System) for employee onboarding. Tools like Make.com (formerly Integromat) are often used to bridge gaps between Keap and other specialized HR software, automating data transfer and triggering workflows across multiple platforms. Effective integrations reduce manual data entry, minimize errors, and ensure a single source of truth for all HR-related information.

Custom Fields

Custom Fields in Keap allow users to store specific pieces of information on a contact record that are not covered by the standard fields (e.g., name, email). These fields can be tailored precisely to the unique needs of an organization. For HR professionals, custom fields are essential for capturing highly specific candidate or employee data such as “Desired Salary,” “Visa Status,” “Years of Experience in [Specific Skill],” “Employee Start Date,” or “Department ID.” By creating relevant custom fields, HR teams can ensure all necessary data points are captured, making contact records more comprehensive and enabling more precise segmentation and targeted automation based on unique criteria.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: The Indispensable Keap Expert: Revolutionizing Talent Acquisition with Automation and AI