Sometimes the setup of the account can be challenging; that's why we prepared a step-by-step guide to make it easier for our users. We also added a video step-by-step guide here.

Here are the steps to connect your existing email accounts to Instantly:

Connecting your Google Workspace account to Instantly using OAuth authentication allows seamless access and integration between the two platforms. Follow these step-by-step instructions to set up OAuth access in your Google Workspace account and connect it with Instantly.

Here are the steps on how to connect Google accounts via the oAuth method:

Step 1: Log in to Instantly and Google Workspace

Open Instantly in one browser tab and your Google Workspace (Gmail) in another.

Step 2: Access Admin Console

In your Google Workspace Admin console, navigate to "Security" > "Access and data control" > "API Control" > Manage third-party app access.

Step 3: Click "Configure new app" to add Instantly as an OAuth App.

Step 4: Paste the Client ID into your Google Workspace and click "Search".

Here's how to get the Client ID: Go to Instantly > Add New > Choose Google/G Suite > Choose "Option 2: OAuth" > Copy the Client ID

Then select Instantly. Choose "Trusted".

Step 5: Complete OAuth Setup

After configuring, "Instantly OAuth v1" will appear in your list of trusted apps.

Return to Instantly and complete the login process:

Here are the steps to connect your Google accounts using the App Password method. Learn more details here.

When it comes to free Gmail accounts - Google is very strict with respect to limits and rules. This is because they don't want to promote cold emailing through free Gmail accounts.

As a matter of fact, their algorithm is very smart in detecting what use the accounts are being put to. Their rules and limitations are more relaxed towards Gsuite accounts. So when it comes to recommendations, we suggest using Gsuite or maybe even Microsoft accounts.

The problem is that it is an industry-wide thing, so even if you try some other cold emailing platform or you were to manually send out cold emails, it is still an issue one would face.

There was a question once asked in reference to free Gmail accounts used for cold emailing in our Facebook group. And the majority of our members seconded this notion that it is not advisable to use free Gmail accounts for cold emailing.

You need both IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) enabled to connect an O365/Microsoft account to Instantly. It's not permitted to connect only to SMTP for sending emails, as our warmup is a peer-to-peer network consisting of real accounts that must both send and receive emails.

In order to track certain things like email opens (for example - and link clicks in the future), we insert special code into the body of your emails. That special code is generally in the form of a URL - for example. xyz.inreg1.com/[code]

Now while we keep changing that URL every once in a while, that same domain is used by every Instantly customer - unless you set up a custom tracking domain.

When you set up a custom tracking domain, the special code that we insert will use your specified domain instead of ours. And so it will be unique, which helps ensure that your sending reputation and deliverability are completely isolated from the rest of the accounts.

Think of it as bringing your own toothbrush on a road trip rather than using one

that's shared by multiple people. Only you get to use it, which prevents any dental problems that you could get from using a shared one.

When you add a custom tracking domain, it essentially works as a proxy/mask for

the tracking end-point and it isolates your sender reputation from the rest of the

user base... and so in a nutshell, always use a custom tracking domain.

Here are the steps to add a custom tracking domain to Instantly.

There are a couple of different ways to organize your custom tracking domains:

The warmup functionality mimics human conversations between email accounts.

Think of it as you emailing back and forth with your friends - on autopilot.
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But in this case, your ‘friends’ are other Instantly.ai users who have also enabled the warmup feature. You can be sure that all of them will open your email, and a high percentage will write you back with a ‘thoughtful’ and positive sentiment.
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The emails written by the Instantly AI algorithm signal to Google, Outlook, and other ESPs that your email account and sending domain are relevant and legitimate.

This increases the likelihood that the messages that are sent to the cold leads in your outreach campaigns will also actually land in their inbox and subsequently be opened and replied to.
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The bottom line is that the warmup will improve the deliverability of your cold email accounts by mimicking human conversations in the Instantly.ai user pool.

On top of the deliverability benefits, your outreach email accounts will also stay alive for longer, and the likelihood of you ‘burning’ through an account is significantly lower.

To enable the warmup, you can follow the steps below:

You can verify the warmup status of your accounts by checking the flame icon.

To filter accounts by warmup statuses, please follow the steps below:

You can easily check or change the warmup settings for your accounts by following the steps below:

Here are the basic warmup settings:

To create a new campaign, you can watch the full video walkthrough or follow the steps below:

You can add leads to your campaign by following the steps below:

Paste your body copy and subject line into the first email that your leads will be receiving.

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, send test emails ,or check deliverability score.

To insert a variable into the subject line, click on the bolt icon next to the top-right Preview button.

To insert a variable into the email body, click on the 'Variable' button in the editor bar.

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 inserting variables. Simply select the custom variable you want to use from there.

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:

To add an unsubscribe link, click "+" on the bottom editing section, then click “Insert Unsubscribe Link”.

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:

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:

In the Schedule tab of the campaign, you can adjust the days of the week and the timing to send your campaign emails.

In the Options tab of the Campaign, you can configure how each campaign behaves — from email sending rules to optimization, CRM ownership, and more. Learn more details here.
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Do a final check of your campaign setup and then hit the “Launch” button.