Step 1: Create Your Campaign
Start a New Campaign
Go to the Engage dashboard
Click "+ Create New" (top right corner)
Select Cold Email Outreach Campaign
Name your campaign. We suggest adding target audience parameters such as title, industry/niche, and 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.
Step 2: Add Leads
You can add leads to your campaign by following the steps below:
Go to the Leads section of the campaign
Choose your preferred upload method:
CSV: Import leads from CSV files
SuperSearch: Find and add leads using Instantly's lead database
Enter emails manually: Type or paste email addresses directly
Google Sheet: Import leads from Google Sheets
HubSpot: Sync leads from HubSpot
Pipedrive: Sync leads from Pipedrive
Step 3: Create Your Email Sequence
Compose your subject line and email copy:
Add variant: Test different subject lines and email copies to find the best performers. Learn more details here.
Wait X days/hours/minutes: Define how many days to wait before sending the next step. Learn more details here.
Add step (+ button at the bottom): Add a follow-up step. 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.
Follow-ups: Leave the subject line empty to use the same subject line as the previous step
Step 4: Add Variables for Personalization
You can use the drop-down menu to attribute the right variable to each column in the file.
Predefined Variables: The predefined variables include Email (required), First name, Last name, Job title, Company name, Personalization, Phone, Website, Location, and LinkedIn.
Custom Variables: For personalized columns or any additional data not in the predefined list, map them as 'Personalization' or 'Custom variable'. You can then use {{columnName}} variable in the campaign. Custom variables should not be named similarly to the predefined variables.
Do Not Import: For columns that you don't need to import to the campaign, map them as 'Do Not Import'.
After upload, click the variable option in the bottom editor toolbar:
Dropdown shows all available variables
Click the variable you want to insert
Variable appears:
Shows as {{variableName}} in the editor
Will be replaced with actual lead data when sent
Example: If you have a column named Country in the file, map it to a Custom Variable. You can later use it in the copy as {{Country}} to dynamically insert the country of each contact.
To insert a variable into the subject line, click on the bolt icon on its right side:
Advanced Email Body
Placeholder Values: When a variable isn’t available for a lead, you can set a placeholder value.
Spintax: Creating variations of sentences or words to generate more diverse email bodies for your leads.
Liquid Syntax: Use conditional logic with your email body.
Step 5: Add Links
To insert a link into the email, highlight the text that you want to hyperlink or select the link icon in the bottom editor bar:
Step 6: Insert Unsubscribe Link
To provide leads an easy way to opt out:
Click the "Insert Unsubscribe Link" button in the editor toolbar
Update the link text as needed and click "Insert" to add the unsubscribe link
Step 7: Preview and Test
Before launching the campaign, always preview and test your emails.
Click the "Preview" Button. A pop-up will appear where you can preview the email, send test emails, or check the deliverability score.
Preview email:
Select a sending account in the 'Send From' section to preview variables for sending accounts.
Select a lead in the 'Load data for lead' section to preview variables for leads. You can search for leads by email or name.
Send test emails: In the "Send to" field, you can enter recipient email addresses
Use commas to separate the email addresses, and the test email will be sent to all the recipients listed.
Choose sending accounts in the Send from section in the left panel.
Check Deliverability Score: Check the deliverability score for the sequence.
Step 8: Set Accounts to Use
Go to "Settings" to select which inboxes will send messages for this campaign. Once you select all the accounts you want to use for the campaign, the system will start sending emails from all of these accounts automatically.
You can assign an unlimited number of email accounts to the campaign.
If you are using tags to assign accounts to the campaign, make sure there are sending accounts associated with the tag.
Step 9: Set Your Schedule & Limits
Set the date, timing, timezone, and daily sending limit for your campaign.
Example:
During office hours in the lead's timezone
Start sending: June 24th, 2026
Stop sending: Never
Daily limit: 30
Step 10: Configure Advanced Settings
In the Settings tab of the Campaign, you can configure deliverability settings, sending rules, CRM & tags, and more.
Do a final check of your campaign setup and then hit the “Launch” button.
Leads uploaded and variables mapped
Email sequence written and saved
Variables populate correctly
Preview and test emails
Sending accounts assigned
Schedule & limit configured
