Creating a new campaign
To create a new campaign, you can watch the full video walkthrough by this link.
Here are the steps to create a campaign:
Go to the Campaigns dashboard.
Click on “+ Add New” button on the top right.
Type in the name of your campaign.
We suggest adding target audience parameters such as title, industry/niche, geo in the campaign name (e.g. Marketing Director_Advertising Agency_US) so you can more efficiently find and optimize your campaigns down the line.
Click on the blue CONTINUE button and it will bring you to the next step.
Adding Leads To A Campaign
Click on either one of the blue Import buttons to upload your leads. You can add leads to your campaign by following the steps below:
Go to the Leads section of the campaign or CRM
Click the Add Leads button
Choose the preferred method to upload your leads
CSV file upload
As a best practice, make sure that the leads you’re uploading are all verified. You can also check how to verify your leads here.
Please refer to this guide for detailed steps.
Lead Finder Import
Simply select the filters you need, and once happy with the result, select the number of leads and click "Add to campaign".
Only the verified leads will be imported in this case. Check more details here.
Bulk Insert Manually
To bulk insert or copy-paste a list of email addresses, simply paste it into the box and click on the blue button “Import emails >” below it.
Google Sheets Import
To import a lead list via Google Sheets, make the Google sheet publicly accessible and then paste the URL.
Please refer to this guide for detailed steps.
To avoid formatting issues:
Select all your rows and columns with Ctrl/Cmd + A, and then
Click Format → Number → Plain text
Finally, import your spreadsheet.
As a best practice, make sure that the leads you’re uploading are all verified. Check how to verify your leads here.
Creating Sequences
First Email and Follow-Up Steps
Paste your body copy and subject line into the first email that your leads will be receiving.
To add a step to your cold email sequence, simply click on “Add step”. You can also adjust the time delay between the steps. In Step 1, you can define how many days Instantly should wait before sending Step 2.
You can add as many follow-up steps as you’d like, although we recommend a maximum of 3-4 steps for most cold outreach campaigns.
Previewing And Testing Email Steps
To preview any email in your sequence and send a test email, click on the 'Preview' button.
A pop-up will appear where you can preview the email. In the top left, you can add the email address to which you want the test email to be sent. Use commas to separate the email address.
Inserting Variables and Other Editor Functionalities
Variable in the subject line
To insert a variable into the subject line click on the bolt icon next to the top-right blue Save button
Variable in the body copy
To insert a variable in the body copy click on the bolt icon in the bottom editing section.
How To Add And Use Custom Variables
You can also import Custom Variables which will later show up in your email copy editor as the header name of that column.
For example, if you have a column with Title, it will upload that as a Custom Variable, which you can later use in the copy as {{Title}} to dynamically insert the title of that contact.
When you upload custom variables, they will show up as options when adding variables to the email copy. Simply select the custom variable you want to use from there.
Adding Links/URLs
To insert a link into the body copy, highlight the text that you want to hyperlink or select the link icon in the bottom editing section:
Insert Unsubscribe Link
To add an unsubscribe link, click "+" on the bottom editing section, then click “Insert Unsubscribe Link”.
Cold Email Templates
Instantly-made Templates
If you’re not quite sure what to write, we also provide templates to get the creative juices flowing. To use Instantly-made templates, here are the steps:
In your Sequence Editor, click on the Templates button.
Select a category that fits your profile.
Click Use template
You can then make changes to the template and save the changes
Saving Your Own Custom Templates
Once you’ve created your own email copy or made adjustments to an existing template, you can save that new version as a new template for future use as well.
Here are the steps to create your templates:
Type the email and subject line.
Click Save --> Save as a template
Type the template name and click Add Template.
You will find it in your Templates view. You can copy, use, or delete it from here.
Campaign Schedule
In the Schedule tab of the campaign, you can adjust the days of the week and the time frame in which Instantly sends to your leads.
Campaign Options
In the Options tab of the Campaign, you can select which email account to use for sending and set the maximum number of emails to send per day.
You can also disable Open Tracking, Stop Sending emails on reply, and the Use smart send functionalities, although we recommend keeping these enabled. Check all settings here.
Do a final check of your campaign setup and then hit the “Launch” button.
FAQ
Q: How to use placeholder value?
A: When a mail merge variable isn’t available for a lead, we replace it with an empty string. However, you may want to have a default value for such cases.
Placeholder values are helpful when a mail merge variable isn’t available for a lead. Please note that variables in our system start with two brackets without a hashtag.
Here’s how you can use them:
Hi {{firstName | there,}}
In the above example, ‘there,’ will be used if the variable ‘firstName’ isn’t available for a lead. You may also insert more than one placeholder value and the algorithm will pick one randomly.
Hello {{firstName | there, | friend,}}
Q: How to use Spintax?
A: Creating variations of sentences or words is pretty straightforward and can help you generate even more diverse email bodies for your leads.
{{RANDOM | Hello | Hi | Greetings!}},
Q: How to use Liquid Syntax?
A: To use conditional logic with your email body, you may use Liquid syntax.
💡 This feature is currently in Beta - please contact us if you run into any issues
Q: How to use email open status?
A: There are two special variables that you can use to change your email body according to whether a lead has opened your previous email steps:
sequence_email_opened- Check if any of the previous steps (in the sequence) were openedlast_email_opened- Check if the immediately previous step (in the sequence) was opened
{% if sequence_email_opened %} I see that you opened my email. Yay! 😃 {% else %} 😕 Please open my emails. {% endif %}
You may, of course, combine the above format with other variables:
Hi {{firstName}}, {% if sequence_email_opened %} Here's a special discount code for you. {% else %} Don't miss out on this deal for {{companyName}} {% endif %}
This feature is currently in Beta - please contact us if you run into any issues.