Heeey lemlisters!

Most people associate deliverability with email delivery, which is an important metric to consider when sending emails, but its very different from deliverability.

But before sending your first campaign, here are a few technical settings you should configure to build a successful outreach foundation:

• [ ] Connect your email provider → gives lemlist permission to send emails from your address
• [ ] GDPR check → guarantees that prospects’ data will be collected in accordance with GDPR
• [ ] DKIM → guarantees that your emails are not changed after they’re sent
• [ ] SPF → guarantees that your emails are sent from your domain
• [ ] DMARC → helps protect your domain from attacks, phishing emails, etc.
• [ ] MX record → lets email providers know what servers accept your domain’s emails
• [ ] Custom tracking domain → allows you to track open & click rates in your emails safely

You should be able to check each setting within 5 minutes following the guides. If you need help, you can book a call with Alexandra from our customer success team.

[ ] Define your buyer persona

A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience. You can use buyer personas to personalize your cold emails to fit their needs and preferences, which helps you build relationships and book more meetings.

👉 It takes a few seconds to access this 3-step target audience guide and get your free buyer persona template for more replies!

[ ] Segment your buyer persona into tiers

Identify which buyer personas will be the most profitable, so you know where to put the most personalization efforts to stay efficient.

For example, you can identify them into three tiers based on the value amount you're bringing to them, which will later translate to the revenue amount they're bringing to you:

[ ] Pay attention to buyer signals

The next step is to find the best time to reach out to your buyer persona. Here, you want to identify the triggers that will tell you: “Okay, this lead fits my targets, but it also seems like it’s the right timing for them to use my product or service.”

👉 To determine the best moment to reach out to your prospects, get 15 sales targeting tactics and boost your reply chances!

[ ] Collect, enrich, & sync your leads in seconds

Once you have built an email list of qualified leads, the next step is to import them into lemlist so you can start reaching out to them.
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Whether you want to import your leads from a CSV file, existing campaigns, CRM, Zapier, LinkedIn, using API, or manually - you can do it from a single lemlist dashboard!

→ Collect LinkedIn leads with the lemlist chrome extension

The quickest way to import leads directly from LinkedIn is to use the lemlist chrome extension.

The extension allows you can scrape all the leads from a LinkedIn or Sales navigator search. It will collect information like first name, company name, or LinkedIn URL, and send them to one of your lemlist campaigns.

You can also send leads individually from their profiles to lemlist with additional information such as job positions, certifications, industry, company information, etc.

On top of that, you can create an icebreaker for a lead from the chrome extension and send it as a variable to lemlist. And if you want to make your message stand out with a custom image, you can use an extension to take a screenshot of leads’ profiles and include them in your campaign.

→ Enrich your leads’ info with integrated scanners


Whether you imported your emails using the lemlist chrome extension or other methods, you can enrich them straight from the lemlist app thanks to scanners:

• [ ] activate the Dropcontact scanner to get leads’ professional email addresses, business phone numbers, company legal information, etc.
• [ ] activate Datagma scanner to enrich your B2B leads with their personal, company, financial, or website data
• [ ] activate LinkedIn scanner to allow lemlist chrome extension to scan prospects’ LinkedIn profiles and enrich them with available data

Finally, don’t forget to verify your leads with tools such as Bouncer or Debounce to avoid sending emails to fake addresses or emails with issues. This will help you keep your bounce rate below 5%, which boosts your email deliverability and helps you avoid the spam folder.

→ Sync leads’ data between your CRM & lemlist

To avoid spending hours manually migrating leads data between lemlist and your CRM, you can integrate your Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive CRM into lemlist:

This will give you a clear and 100% synced leads overview, so you’ll always know where they are in the sales process and how to approach them.

Depending on your setup, you’ll be able to:

• Create new leads in your CRM, no matter the import method
• Add leads to CRM depending on their activity in the lemlist campaign (such as Replied, Clicked, Marked as Interested, etc.)
• Update leads in CRM with verified info and the latest lemlist activities
• Import prospects from CRM to your lemlist campaign using different filters

Now that your leads are imported, verified, and synced, you can focus on creating campaigns that get replies!

[ ] Combine multichannel steps

Adding multiple steps to your campaign and reaching out to your prospects on different channels increases your chances of getting a reply. Some leads might be more active or prefer to reply on LinkedIn than email and another way around.

To create your campaign sequence in lemlist, you’ll have automated or manual options to reach out to your prospects on the channels they prefer.

Here are the steps you can run 100% on auto-pilot:

• Follow-up emails → to reach out to prospects who haven't replied and add value or address potential concerns

👉 To push your prospects to book a meeting with you, get free access to follow-up email tips and templates

• LinkedIn steps such as:

• LinkedIn profile visits → to increase the chances of prospects accepting your connection request
• LinkedIn invites → to expose your personal brand and get in touch more easily
• LinkedIn messages → to remind them of your message and stay on the top of their mind

👉 If you’re unsure how to break the ice on LinkedIn, check out this article and get free messaging tips to boost your reply rates

• API steps → to trigger external workflows such as voice messages on LinkedIn, etc.

You can also add manual steps, such as:

• Cold call → to build rapport directly with your prospects thanks to Aircall integration

👉 Get tips from this cold-calling guide to create personal connections with your prospects and overcome objections via cold calls

• Custom tasks → to remind yourself to perform specific actions to get your leads’ attention (e.g., comment on their post, etc.)

We recommend you follow up with 5 - 12 steps that add value to your prospects using 3 rules:

• Add multiple days between each follow-up to leave enough time for your leads to answer
• Use both more/less engaging steps so you don’t appear too pushy and create better relationships
• Give value with each follow-up to increase your trust & credibility and give them a reason to reply

P.S. In our multichannel masterclass, you can find exclusive strategies and templates to replicate in your next campaign and book meetings with 10-30% of your prospects!

[ ] Write the right message

→ Follow a value-packed structure

Avoid fluff sentences like “I hope you are doing okay” or similar “polite” approaches. They could sound general and make your email copy longer than it should be.

As each part of your cold email plays an important role, ensure to:

• Intrigue prospects to open your email with a catchy subject line
• Set the right to be for the rest of your email with a friendly greeting
• Get prospects hooked to read the rest of your email with a personalized intro line
• Show what’s in it for them and give them a reason to reply in the pitch
• Push prospects to take action with conversation-starter CTA
• End your email in a positive tone with appropriate sign-off

P.S. Discover exactly what to write in each part of your email for more replies, with dozens of examples in this free eBook!

→ Add personalization


Personalizing your emails will make you stand out significantly and increase your reply rates. That’s why you want to show your prospect that they aren’t just a row on a CSV and that you can relate to their pain points.

Here are different ways you can personalize your emails at scale thanks to lemlist custom variables:

• use text variables

No matter how many emails you send, you can automatically personalize any part of your message to grab leads' attention and build trust (e.g., intro line, pitch, CTA).

• use image variables

Stand out with personalized images by automatically adding your leads' names, logos, website screenshots, etc.

• use video variables

Give value to your prospects on a more personal level and grab their attention with custom video thumbnails

• use website variables

Build personalized landing pages just for your leads where you can embed your calendar and include assets or CTA

There are 3 types of information you can look into to create personalized elements:

• Prospect-focused: their social media activity, events they attended, etc.
• Company-focused: a new feature, job descriptions, etc.
• Industry-focused: trends, best practices, regulations, etc.

Make sure to personalize each lead and limit yourself to 5 to 15 minutes per lead (or have the same personalization for multiple leads to save time). Remember that focusing on quality versus quantity will bring you more results.

→ Don’t forget the purpose of your email

Sales is about building a relationship. You don’t want to ask for a meeting from the first message. Instead, focus on validating the interest. For that, try to get a reply and start a conversation.

You also want to focus on their pains. Try to help them with a pain you identified. Ideally, you want to focus on a pain they are unaware they have, which will help them reach the metric they are responsible for in their company. This means 99% of your messages should be about your leads.

P.S. To help you get started, check out this free eBook with 20+ cold sales, marketing, and growth email templates you can replicate in your next campaign for more meetings!

[ ] A/B test

The A/B test feature allows you to test different approaches for a set number of leads. This way, you can see what works the best and double down on the most successful one.

When you A/B test, lemlist will reach out to 50% of your leads with approach A and 50% with approach B. You can either A/B test a whole campaign or individual steps in your campaign. At any point, you can choose a winning approach for the rest of your leads in the campaign.

If you want your A/B test to be relevant, you should:

• Test it on at least 100 leads, so 50 leads for each approach
• Ensure to reach out to the same type of targets at the same time of the year, day, and hour, and with the same sample size
• Test 1 element at a time to know exactly which made your approach successful

You can test out the subject line, short/long messages, the value proposition, the type of call to action, the order of steps, the multichannel approach, the level of personalization (between custom text and custom images, for example), the goal of the campaign, etc.

👉 To help you choose the best A/B testing approach and double down your success, explore tips and examples from this A/B testing guide.

[ ] Choose the right schedule

Did you know that sending inconsistent amounts of emails can land you in spam? If you send too many emails simultaneously, you risk triggering email providers and landing in the spam folder.

In lemlist, you can choose your most suitable sending schedule, so you reach up to the recommended number of max 200 leads per day gradually:

To avoid looking like a spammer, send emails every 10 - 15 min. This setting will give you a number of leads you will reach out to daily based on your email frequency.

Once you have finished setting up your sending schedule, you can save it as a template and reuse it for other campaigns. You can also create a new one if you want your campaign to be active on different schedules and time zones.

[ ] Review & send your campaign

Once you finish creating your campaign, lemlist won’t send it to all your leads simultaneously, as you risk landing in the spam folder. Instead, it uses a smart algorithm to make it look like your campaigns are sent manually.

By pressing “review this lead” or “review all leads,” you’re pretty much telling the lemlist “you can send my campaign to this lead according to the algorithm and the schedule I have established”.

Keep in mind that before reviewing each lead, you can modify the messages for each lead and make sure the personalization you added in the campaign (with variables) works properly.

You can auto-review all future leads entering your campaign. This will queue them automatically on the algorithm, so you don’t have to do it manually.

You might want to activate this option if you don’t need to review leads manually and send leads to your lemlist campaign from the lemlist chrome extension, the API, your CRM, or manually via a CSV.

Email deliverability is the ability to deliver emails right into your target's primary inbox. As your emails can land in the spam folder without you knowing, having a warm-up and deliverability booster helps you spot and prevent any deliverability troubles.

For each paid lemlist seat, you'll get access to lemwarm to ensure high deliverability in the long run!

After months of tests with 20k+ users, lemwarm offers you the right deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics, which makes it the most complete warm-up and deliverability tool on the market.

You'll be able to:

• Save time and money with an automated warm-up process

• Gain a good sender reputation with a tailored strategy

• Improve your sender reputation with human-like conversations

• Maintain high deliverability with detailed reporting & tips

The key is to keep lemwarm ON before - during - after sending campaigns, so you keep your emails out of the spam folder in the long run!

👉 To always land in your target audience’s inbox, check out this ultimate email deliverability guide and boost your email deliverability!

Tracking your campaign metrics is important, as that’s how you’ll see if your campaigns are successful and know what to double down to boost your results. To get a clear overview of your campaign results, you can use lemlist’s report section.

From there, you can see how many leads received your emails, how many opened, clicked, replied, and how many are interested. You can also have similar data for your LinkedIn steps: how many invites (or connection requests) you sent, how many LinkedIn profiles you visited, and how many messages you sent. If you have call or API steps in your campaign, you’ll also see them appear in the results.

You can also switch to the negative metrics of your campaigns to access the number of emails that bounced, the number of leads that are not interested, and how many of them unsubscribed.

Based on your metrics, you’ll also get insights into what you should change to improve your results. Here are the most important metrics you want to aim for:

• Interested rates → 5% to 15% (top performers reach between 15 to 30%, or even more.)
• Sending volume → 100 to 200 new prospects per week
• Open rates → > 50% (less than 50% means there’s a high chance that you have deliverability issues)

P.S. You can also send your campaigns to our community to get expert feedback. Simply join 14k+ salespeople, marketers, and founders in the lemlist family and receive outreach advice daily!