How to run cold email outreach & leads
Outreach is BrandOps' cold-email leads pipeline: add or import prospects, send personalized emails with built-in templates, and track every lead from first contact through a real conversion.
This guide covers the leads list, statuses, sending, converting, and unsubscribes.
Your Leads
Every prospect you're cold-emailing lives on the Your Leads tab, with a status that shows exactly where they are in the pipeline.
- A lead needs a name plus either an email or an Instagram handle; you don't need both.
- Company, tags, and notes are all optional fields for keeping context on each lead.
- Status moves through Pending → Sent → Replied → Converted, or Unsubscribed at any point.
- The page header shows total leads, emails sent, replied count, and converted count at a glance.
Finding Leads
Beyond adding leads one at a time, the Find Leads tab searches for new prospects directly.
- Find Leads runs a search and lets you import results straight into Your Leads.
- Saved Searches keeps a schedule of searches you want to re-run automatically, optionally with an auto-enroll sequence attached for anything they find.
Sending & Templates
Compose a subject and body, pull in a saved template, and send to a selection of leads in one batch.
- Personalization placeholders like {{name}}, {{company}}, {{instagram_handle}}, {{phone}}, {{website}}, {{brand_name}}, and {{sender_name}} are all substituted per lead.
- Leads with no email on file are skipped from an email send (they're still reachable by Instagram DM), and unsubscribed leads are always skipped regardless of selection.
- A suppressed address (a prior hard bounce or spam complaint) is blocked from receiving mail entirely, separate from a simple unsubscribe.
- Every outreach email includes a visible unsubscribe footer link and the List-Unsubscribe header for one-click opt-out.
Bulk Import
Import a spreadsheet of leads all at once instead of adding them individually.
- Up to 500 leads per import, matching the batch size the import dialog chunks larger files into.
- De-dupes automatically by email when present, or by Instagram handle when it isn't.
Converting a Lead
Once a lead is worth pursuing as a real creator relationship, convert it into a Creator CRM record without re-entering anything.
- Requires an Instagram handle, either already on the lead (often scraped by Lead Finder) or entered at conversion time.
- Creates a new Influencer record with contact status Reached Out, since contact already happened through the outreach thread, tagged from-email-lead.
- Blocked if the lead was already converted, and blocked if your organization is at its influencer cap (Growth removes the cap).
- Kicks off an automatic Instagram profile enrichment for the new creator record in the background.
Unsubscribing
Every outreach email carries two ways out, both of which land a lead in the same place.
- The List-Unsubscribe header lets Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo unsubscribe a lead with one click and no page shown.
- The visible footer link in the email body works the same way for anyone reading in a client that doesn't support one-click unsubscribe.
- Either path sets the lead's status to Unsubscribed, and they're skipped from all future sends from that point on.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the possible lead statuses?
Pending, Sent, Replied, Converted, and Unsubscribed. A new lead starts Pending; sending an email moves it to Sent; the rest change based on what you or the recipient does next.
What happens when I convert a lead?
Converting creates a real Creator CRM record from the lead's name, email, phone, and Instagram handle, sets its contact status to Reached Out (since contact already happened via the email thread), and tags it from-email-lead. The lead itself moves to Converted status and can't be converted a second time.
Do I need an email address to add a lead?
No. A lead needs either an email or an Instagram handle, not necessarily both. A lead with only an Instagram handle can still be reached by DM even though it can't receive an emailed campaign.
How does bulk import handle duplicates?
It de-dupes by email when a lead has one, or by Instagram handle otherwise, and caps each import at 500 leads.
What happens to a lead who unsubscribes?
Their status flips to Unsubscribed, either through the one-click List-Unsubscribe header their inbox sends automatically (no page shown) or through the visible footer link in the email. Once unsubscribed, they're skipped from any future send even if you select them again.
What's a "suppressed" email address?
One with a recorded hard bounce or spam complaint anywhere in your organization, from either cold outreach or promo email. Sending to a suppressed address is blocked outright; it's a stricter, harder rule than a simple unsubscribe.
Is there a monthly limit on how many cold emails I can send?
Yes, on the Starter plan. Once you hit the monthly cap, a batch send trims to whatever still fits under the limit rather than being rejected outright, and reports the rest as skipped. Growth removes the cap.
Can I enroll leads I've already emailed into a follow-up sequence?
Yes. From Your Leads, select already-contacted leads (status Sent) and enroll them into an Outreach Sequence. Re-enrolling a lead that's already on a sequence resets its progress back to the first step.
Ready to reach your first lead?
Open Outreach to add or import leads and send your first email.
Go to OutreachRelated guides
Something unclear? Contact support or send feedback from your dashboard settings.