How People Data Labs used Default to architect a reliable revenue engine

Strategic Challenge

Before Default, People Data Labs’ inbound funnel was stitched together from LeanData, BookIt, Marketo, Salesforce, and custom website forms—each owning a separate piece of routing or scheduling logic. The main “Talk to Sales” form hit Marketo, then flowed through a dense web of LeanData + BookIt rules layered on top of Salesforce.

When a Salesforce architect was on staff, he held the mental model for this entire system. He drove a migration from Chili Piper to LeanData + BookIt, building “elaborate workflows” that looked powerful on paper but never quite worked in practice. As Korey Beaver, Marketing Operations at PDL, put it, “It was a nightmare, and I never really felt like I understood the setup.”

Because no one fully understood how all the systems interacted, every change felt risky. A simple tweak to fix one misroute often broke something else. Engineering had already “had a hell of a time” getting BookIt to work with PDL’s custom forms; any new request meant more tickets and more back-and-forth. Korey found himself spending weekly cycles with LeanData support without ever reaching a configuration that felt stable or explainable.

All of this had a real business impact. Leads sat in limbo while workflows tried to reconcile conflicting logic. BDRs lost confidence in the system. Marketing and RevOps lost confidence in the data. And the Marketing Operations team was pulled deeper into firefighting brittle workflows instead of focusing on higher-leverage programs that moved pipeline.

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Default Layer

When People Data Labs moved forward with Default, the goal was simple: remove the LeanData + BookIt logic behind the main inbound flow and rebuild it in a way the team could understand and own. Instead of another black-box routing engine, Default became the control layer under their GTM: one canvas where routing, enrichment, and assignment rules lived together, with a shared data model and clear visual representation of every decision.

Default’s queue-based round robin replaced the brittle constructs in Marketo and LeanData. Instead of guessing how weights were applied, the BDR team could see the rules and outcomes reflected in Default. The same workflows enriched records, matched accounts, and assigned owners, so they no longer had one set of definitions in Marketo, another in Salesforce, and a third buried in LeanData. As Korey put it, “We all trust it. The BDRs trust it. I now have a better relationship with that team.”

The connected revenue engine unlocked new data capabilities that were previously impossible. PDL introduced a “Visible Touchpoint” custom object populated directly by Default, allowing them to pass critical ownership data into Marketo for personalized emails without needing a Salesforce account object in the chain. Operationally, PDL gained a new level of observability thanks to Default’s workflow error logs, which point directly to the problematic node and record with clear in-app explanations. “The workflow error log channel is incredible. You immediately know the error, get the alert, and can click right into the problem,” Korey shared.

While the transition has been transformative, Default is not yet the “everything tool” for PDL. The team still relies on Marketo for core marketing automation and batch emailing, and they are currently running other tools, such as Rattle, that they plan to eventually consolidate. However, Default now serves as the primary control layer for inbound execution, allowing the stack to behave predictably and coexist with the remaining tools.

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GTM Advantage

With Default acting as the control layer, PDL’s inbound engine shifted from fragile to dependable. The BDR team now operates from a single source of truth for inbound assignments, and the daily debates about who should get which meeting have disappeared. “It’s like night and day now… there’s no conversations ongoing daily about credits and meeting balances.”

At the same time, Korey reclaimed a significant amount of time and energy previously spent on LeanData tickets, BookIt quirks, and Marketo round-robin hacks. Instead of firefighting, he is back to supporting broader GTM experiments—knowing that the core routing and list-import flows are dramatically better than the old spreadsheet + Marketo setup.

Operational Wins

• Established trusted inbound routing for four inbound BDRs. The Talk to Sales form now runs entirely through Default’s queues and credits, so meetings land on the right calendar without manual intervention or back-channel checks.
• Simplified workflows instead of fragile chains. A flow that once depended on Marketo + Salesforce + LeanData + BookIt now runs in Default with just a few nodes, reducing the number of moving pieces that can break.

Revenue Wins

• Eliminated daily routing disputes. The BDR team now trusts how meetings are distributed, removing friction between Sales, Marketing, and RevOps and keeping the focus on engaging prospects instead of auditing the system.
• More reliable coverage of inbound and partner leads. Default now powers both the Talk to Sales flow and partner / data-platform list imports, replacing manual spreadsheet enrichment and a previously unreliable Marketo-only round robin with an automated, end-to-end process.
• Created a connected foundation for future workflows. By consolidating core logic into Default while keeping Salesforce and Marketo in place, PDL now has a foundation where new use cases inherit consistent definitions instead of reinventing them in each tool.

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Looking ahead

People Data Labs now treats Default as the backbone for how inbound intent turns into booked meetings. The team is gradually adding more workflows—additional round robins, enrichment flows, and previously manual internal processes that once required Marketo + Salesforce + LeanData—to the same Default layer.

Longer term, PDL sees an opportunity to consolidate even more GTM logic into a single connected foundation: one place to define objects and ownership, one canvas to orchestrate routing and recovery, and one system of record for how revenue actually flows. As Korey summed it up: “I truly think it is the default tool… for anybody in an ops role.”

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