What is Sales Automation?
Technology that automates repetitive sales tasks like follow-up emails, data entry, lead routing, and activity logging.
Definition
Sales automation handles the mechanical work that eats into a rep's selling time. That includes automated email sequences (drip campaigns that fire based on time or prospect behavior), CRM data entry (logging calls, updating deal stages, capturing meeting notes), lead routing (assigning new leads to the right rep based on territory, round-robin, or scoring rules), and task creation (automatically generating follow-up reminders after meetings or when deals go cold).
Why It Matters
Sales reps spend roughly 30% of their time actually selling. The rest goes to data entry, administrative tasks, internal meetings, and prospecting logistics. Sales automation reclaims a chunk of that non-selling time by eliminating manual steps. A rep who doesn't have to remember to follow up, log activities, or update deal stages can focus on conversations that close deals.
Example
An SDR connects with a prospect on a call. When the call ends, Gong transcribes it and pushes a summary to Salesforce. Outreach automatically creates a follow-up task for 3 days later. If the prospect doesn't respond, an automated email sequence starts 5 days after the call with personalized content. The SDR didn't touch the CRM once.