How to Set Up Your First Automation Without Writing a Single Line of Code

Companies That Reply to New Leads Within 5 Minutes Convert at 7× the Rate of Those That Wait

That statistic comes from research published by Harvard Business Review. The average business response time? More than 42 hours.

You probably already know the fix: respond faster. What’s less obvious is how — when you’re running a business and a new lead doesn’t always arrive at a convenient moment.

This is exactly the kind of problem automation solves. Not with complicated software or a developer. With a tool anyone can learn in an afternoon, free to start, and genuinely useful from day one.

This guide walks you through building your first automation from scratch — a system that catches every new enquiry, replies to the person instantly, and saves their details automatically. No code. No technical background required. Just one afternoon and a willingness to try.

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What You’re Building (and Why This One First)

The automation we’re building does three things when someone fills your contact form:

1. ✅ Saves their details automatically into a spreadsheet (so nothing gets lost)
2. ✅ Sends you a notification the moment someone enquires (so you always know immediately)
3. ✅ Sends them an automatic reply so they know their message arrived and when to expect a response

Why this one? Because it solves a real, daily problem. And because understanding how this automation works gives you the foundation to build anything else later.

Tools you’ll use — all free to start:

• Tally.so — your contact form (free)
• Make.com — the automation tool that connects everything (free up to 1,000 operations/month)
• Gmail — for sending emails (you already have it)
• Google Sheets — for saving contact details (you already have it)

Time to build: About 45–60 minutes, including setup.

TL;DR — What You’re Building
A contact form that automatically saves enquiries, notifies you instantly, and replies to the person who filled it — all without you lifting a finger each time. One build, runs forever.

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Before You Start: Two Things to Set Up

Step 1: Create a Tally form

Tally is a free form builder. It’s simpler than Google Forms and works beautifully with automation tools.

1. Go to tally.so and create a free account
2. Click “New form”
3. Add these fields:
   • Full Name (short text)
   • Email Address (email type — important: use the email field type, not short text)
   • Phone Number (short text)
   • What can we help you with? (long text)
4. Click Publish — Tally gives you a link you can share or embed on your website
5. Leave the Tally tab open — you’ll need it in a moment

Step 2: Create your Google Sheet

1. Go to Google Sheets and create a new spreadsheet
2. Name it something like “Enquiries - [Your Business Name]”
3. In row 1, create these column headers (one per column):
   • Date Received
   • Full Name
   • Email
   • Phone
   • Message
4. Leave this tab open too

TL;DR — Setup
Two things before you touch Make.com: a Tally form with the right field types, and a Google Sheet with the right column headers. Get these right and the rest goes smoothly.

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Building the Automation in Make.com

This is where everything connects. Make.com is a visual tool — you build automations by dragging blocks onto a canvas and connecting them. No code. Think of it like a flowchart that actually runs.

Step 3: Create a Make.com account

1. Go to make.com and sign up for a free account
2. Once in, click “Create a new scenario” (a scenario is what Make calls an automation)
3. You’ll see a blank canvas with a large + button in the middle

Step 4: Set the trigger — “Watch for new Tally responses”

The trigger is what starts the automation. Every time someone fills your form, the trigger fires.

1. Click the + button on the canvas
2. In the search bar, type “Tally” and select it
3. Choose “Watch Responses” as the trigger type
4. Click “Add” — Make.com will ask you to connect your Tally account
5. Click “Add” again, then log in to Tally when the popup appears
6. Once connected, select your form from the dropdown
7. Click OK

You’ve now told Make.com: “Every time someone fills this form, do something.” Now we tell it what to do.

Step 5: Add the first action — Save to Google Sheets

1. Click the + icon that appears to the right of your Tally block
2. Search for “Google Sheets” and select it
3. Choose “Add a Row” as the action
4. Connect your Google account when prompted (click “Add”, then “Sign in with Google”)
5. Select your spreadsheet from the dropdown, then select Sheet1 (or whatever your sheet is named)
6. You’ll now see a row for each column you created. Map them like this:

Column in your Sheet	What to put here
Date Received	Click the field, then choose “1. Date” from the Tally data
Full Name	Choose “Full Name” from the Tally data
Email	Choose “Email Address” from the Tally data
Phone	Choose “Phone Number” from the Tally data
Message	Choose “What can we help you with?” from the Tally data

7. Click OK

TL;DR — Steps 4 & 5
You’ve connected the trigger (form submission) and the first action (save to spreadsheet). Every enquiry is now automatically logged. Steps 6 and 7 add the email notifications.

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Step 6: Add the second action — Notify yourself by email

1. Click the + icon to the right of your Google Sheets block
2. Search for “Gmail” and select it
3. Choose “Send an Email”
4. Connect your Gmail account
5. Fill in the fields like this:

To: Your email address (e.g. yourname@gmail.com)

Subject: New enquiry from {{Full Name}} — [Your Business Name]

Content:

New enquiry received.

Name: {{Full Name}}
Email: {{Email Address}}
Phone: {{Phone Number}}
Message: {{What can we help you with?}}

Received at: {{Date}}

(The items in double curly brackets — like {{Full Name}} — are pulled automatically from the form. Click inside the field and select them from the dropdown that appears.)

6. Click OK

Step 7: Add the third action — Auto-reply to the person who enquired

1. Click the + icon to the right of your second Gmail block
2. Select Gmail again → “Send an Email”
3. Fill in the fields like this:

To: {{Email Address}} (select from the Tally data — this sends to the person who just enquired)

Subject: We’ve received your enquiry — [Your Business Name]

Content:

Hi {{Full Name}},

Thank you for reaching out.

We've received your message and someone from our team will be in touch within 24 hours.

If your enquiry is urgent, you can reach us directly at [your phone number].

[Your Business Name]
[Your website]

4. Click OK

TL;DR — Steps 6 & 7
Two email actions: one goes to you (instant notification), one goes to the person enquiring (auto-reply). Both pull the person’s name and details automatically from the form data. No manual copy-pasting.

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Step 8: Test the Automation

Before you switch it on permanently, test it with a real submission.

1. In Make.com, click “Run once” at the bottom of the screen — this tells Make to watch for the next form response only
2. Open your Tally form in a new browser tab
3. Fill it in with test details (use a real email address you can check)
4. Submit the form
5. Go back to Make.com — you should see the scenario run in real time. Each block will turn green as it completes successfully

Check three things:

• ✅ A new row appeared in your Google Sheet with the form details
• ✅ You received a notification email
• ✅ The test email address received an auto-reply

If all three are green: you’re done.

If something shows a red error: click on that block — Make.com will tell you exactly what went wrong and usually how to fix it. Common issue: Google Sheets can’t find the spreadsheet (check you selected the right file and sheet name).

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Step 9: Activate the Automation

Once testing works:

1. Toggle the switch at the bottom left of your Make.com canvas from OFF to ON
2. Your scenario is now live

From this point, every time someone fills your Tally form:

• Their details go into your spreadsheet automatically
• You get an email notification immediately
• They receive an automatic reply within seconds

You built this once. It runs every time, without you doing anything.

TL;DR — Testing and Activating
Run a test submission before going live. Check all three outcomes (spreadsheet, your notification, their auto-reply). When it works, toggle the scenario on. It will run automatically from that point forward, indefinitely.

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What to Do After This Works

Once you’ve got this running, you’ll notice something: you have more confidence that no enquiry is being missed. That feeling is worth more than it sounds.

From here, the natural next step is usually one of these:

• Add the enquiry to a CRM (like HubSpot’s free plan) so you can track where each lead is in your sales process
• Send a sequence of follow-up emails over the next few days if the person doesn’t respond
• Connect a booking tool (like Calendly) so the auto-reply includes a link to book a call directly

Each of these is a separate Make.com scenario — same logic, different modules. The one you built today is the foundation for all of them.

If you want to see how this connects to a full sales process, read our guide on using AI in sales. And if you’d like help setting up something more tailored to your specific business, we do this for clients.

→ Talk to us about setting this up for your business — it usually takes us less than a day.

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A Quick Summary of What You Built

Step	What it does
Tally form	Captures name, email, phone, message
Make.com trigger	Fires when a new form response arrives
Google Sheets action	Logs the enquiry automatically
Gmail action #1	Sends you an instant notification
Gmail action #2	Sends the enquirer an automatic reply

Five blocks. One afternoon. Every enquiry handled automatically from this point forward.

That’s automation — not the complicated version that requires a developer, but the version that actually helps a real business run better today.