Find contact
Find contact searches for an existing contact record in your CRM based on field criteria you define. When a match is found, the contact is brought into scope so downstream steps can act on it — send an email, assign an owner, add to a list, or branch based on whether a match was found.
This works the same way as Find company but searches contact records instead.
How it works
- You define one or more search fields — each with a contact field, a comparison operator, and a value
- If you add multiple search fields, you choose whether all criteria must match (AND) or any criterion is enough (OR)
- When the automation runs, the step searches your CRM for contacts matching those criteria
- The step outputs whether a match was found and brings the contact into scope
- If multiple contacts match, the most recently created contact is used
Set up the action
- Open the automation builder and add a new step
- Under Businesses, select Find contact
- Configure the search fields:
Define search criteria
For each search field, provide:
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Contact field | Yes | The CRM contact field to search on (e.g., Email, Name, Phone). |
| Operator | Yes | The comparison operator (e.g., "is", "contains", "starts with"). |
| Value | Yes | The value to match against. Can be a static value or dynamic content from a previous step. |
- Click + Add additional fields to add more criteria
- Click the X button to remove a criterion
tip
Use Add dynamic content to insert values from a previous step. Dynamic values are resolved at runtime, so the search always uses the actual data.
Outputs
After the step runs, three values are available to downstream steps:
| Output | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact | The matched contact record, brought into scope for contact-scoped steps. |
| Found | true if at least one contact matched the criteria, false otherwise. |
| Multiple Found | true if more than one contact matched. The step uses the most recently created match. |
Use Found and Multiple Found in an If/else step to branch your automation based on the search result.
Tips
- Start specific, broaden if needed — searching on email gives the most reliable single match
- Branch on the result — add an If/else step after to handle found vs. not-found scenarios separately
- Handle multiple matches — check Multiple Found to flag duplicates if your criteria could match several contacts
Related resources
- Actions overview — Browse all available actions
- Find company — Search for a company by field criteria
- Find custom object — Search for a custom object by criteria
- Logic & flow control — If/else branches, delays, and jump steps
- Creating and configuring automations — Build and configure workflows