How to add qualified leads to Instantly

To add leads to an Instantly campaign, open the campaign's Leads tab and upload a CSV file, then match each column to an Instantly field. Email is the only required field. You can also map first name, last name, company name, website, phone, and a personalization line, and any extra column can become a custom variable that your email steps reference, such as {{painPoint}} or {{recentNews}}. During the upload, you choose whether Instantly skips leads that already exist in your other campaigns or lists, and whether it verifies each email before it's added. Instantly also takes leads from its own SuperSearch database and from its API, which can add leads in bulk to a campaign or a lead list with the same duplicate and verification options.

All of these routes move leads well, but none of them decides which leads belong there. If your spreadsheet has 300 rows, Instantly takes 300 leads. That includes the person who left the company in the spring, the account that signed as a customer last month, and the address that will bounce and hurt your sender reputation. It also takes empty personalization fields, which means the opening line your sequence depends on comes out blank or generic.

So the real work happens before the upload. A good result is a campaign full of people who fit your ideal customer profile and still hold the role, with verified work emails, no one you shouldn't be contacting, and a personalization line for each person that gives them a reason to read past the first sentence.

Kite does that work for you. It qualifies the list, checks every address, writes the personalization your sequence calls for, and loads the leads into Instantly after you approve the list.

Start by telling Kite in Slack which leads you want in Instantly and which campaign they're for. You can hand it a list you already have:

"Here's our list from the trade show. Qualify it and add the good ones to the Q4 Ops Leaders campaign in Instantly."

Or you can ask Kite to build the list too:

"Find 60 heads of revenue operations at US SaaS companies with 50 to 300 employees and add the best fits to our new Instantly campaign."

Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. From that research, it already knows your ideal customer profile, your current customers, and your competitors, so it can qualify a list without a long brief. If your request leaves the profile open, Kite proposes the titles, seniority, company size, and locations to target, and you confirm or adjust them.

You'll need to connect your Instantly account so Kite can read your campaigns and add leads. Instantly connects with an API key, which you create in your Instantly workspace settings and paste into Kite. To build a new list, you don't need any other account, because Kite finds people through its own built-in Apollo connection. To work from a list you already have, share the CSV file in the Slack thread or point Kite to the spreadsheet or CRM where it lives.

Kite starts by reading the Instantly campaign you named, because the campaign decides what each lead needs to carry. It looks up the campaign's settings and its email steps, and it notes every variable those steps use, from standard ones like {{firstName}} and {{companyName}} to custom variables your team invented. It also checks whether the campaign is active or paused and which sending accounts and schedule it uses.

If you haven't built the campaign yet, Kite can create one for you, write the email steps in your brand's voice, and set up follow-ups. In that case, it decides which variables the emails will use and then fills them in for every lead.

Kite works from the list you gave it, or it builds a new one, depending on what you asked for. A CSV file shared in Slack, a spreadsheet, or a set of records in your CRM all work as a starting point. Kite reads each row and keeps the columns that matter, such as name, title, company, and email.

When you ask Kite to find leads, it searches for companies by headcount, location, funding, and the technology they use, then searches for people at those companies by job title, seniority, and location. It can also pull recent company news and open job postings, which often supply the reason to get in touch, such as a new sales leader or a recent funding round.

Kite decides who belongs in the campaign by checking each lead against your profile before it adds anyone. It first confirms that the person still holds the role at that company, using their public profile or the company's own pages, and it drops anyone who has moved on. Next, it removes your existing customers and your competitors. It also checks your Instantly block list and leaves out any address or domain you've blocked.

Every lead who passes gets a fit score from one to five, with a one-line reason, such as "VP of revenue operations at a 140-person payments company that just posted two sales operations roles." When the list is long, Kite splits it into primary and secondary groups, so you can send to the strongest fits first or put each group in its own campaign.

If fewer people qualify than you expected, Kite tells you how many made it and why the rest fell short. A smaller list of good leads protects your sending accounts and gets better reply rates than a padded one.

Kite checks every email before a lead goes into Instantly, because bounces damage the reputation of the sending accounts the whole campaign depends on. It keeps each address's verification status exactly as the provider returns it, whether that's verified, catch-all, risky, or unverified. A missing email stays marked as not found rather than guessed.

Kite can also use Instantly's own verification when it adds the leads, and it can read the verification summary for a lead list afterward. Kite uses work emails only, so personal addresses stay out of the campaign.

Kite searches your Instantly workspace by email address before it adds anyone, so a lead doesn't get two campaigns' worth of emails at once. If a person is already in another active campaign, Kite tells you which one and leaves them out unless you say otherwise. When it adds the leads, it also turns on Instantly's own setting to skip anyone already in the campaign or the workspace, which catches anything the search missed.

Kite fills in every field your campaign's emails use, so each message reads as if it was written for that person. Each lead gets the following:

• Email address
• First and last name
• Company name and company domain
• Website
• A personalization line written for that person
• Custom variables that match your email steps, such as the fit reason, a recent event at their company, or the team they lead

The personalization line comes from Kite's research on the person and their company, and it says something true and specific, such as the funding round they announced or the role they're hiring for. Kite writes it to fit the sentence in your email where the variable appears, so the email still reads naturally when the line drops in.

Kite posts the finished list in the Slack thread for your review before anything reaches Instantly. Adding leads to an active campaign means Instantly starts emailing them on the campaign's schedule, so Kite treats this step as sending outreach and asks first. The review shows each lead's fit score and reason, their email status, and the personalization line they'll receive.

Reply in the thread to approve the list, or ask Kite to change or drop anyone. Kite then adds the approved leads to the campaign in bulk. If you'd rather stage them, it adds them to an Instantly lead list or a paused campaign instead, and you can start the campaign yourself or ask Kite to activate it when you're ready. Kite can also assign the leads to a teammate in Instantly so replies go to the right person.

When the leads are in, Kite posts a summary in the same Slack thread. It says how many leads it added, how many it skipped as duplicates or block-list matches, how many failed qualification and why, and how many have a verified email. The full list comes with it as a table.

Once the campaign is sending, Kite can read its analytics, including opens, replies, and clicks for each email step, and tell you which leads and which personalization angles are getting responses. If you want new leads added regularly, ask Kite to repeat the job every week, and it will post each batch for your approval in the same thread.

When Kite finishes, your Instantly campaign holds a set of qualified leads ready to email, and your Slack thread holds the record of who was added and why.