How to add qualified leads to Lemlist

To add leads to a Lemlist campaign, open the campaign, go to its leads, and import a CSV file, then match each column to a Lemlist variable. The email column is the only one Lemlist requires. Standard variables include first name, last name, company name, job title, phone, LinkedIn URL, and icebreaker, and any other column becomes a custom variable that your steps can reference, such as {{recentNews}} or {{teamSize}}. You can also add people from Lemlist's lead database, which its pricing page puts at more than 650 million contacts, bring them in from a connected CRM such as HubSpot or Salesforce, or send them through Lemlist's API. When a lead goes in, Lemlist can skip anyone already in another campaign, find a missing email, and verify the address, with the finding and verifying paid for in Lemlist credits.

All of these routes move leads well, but none of them decides which leads belong in the campaign. If your file has 250 rows, Lemlist takes 250 leads. That includes the person who changed jobs in the spring, the company that signed as a customer last month, and the address that will bounce and hurt your sender reputation. It also takes empty columns. A blank icebreaker turns your opening line into a generic one, and a missing LinkedIn URL means the LinkedIn steps in a multichannel sequence have nobody to visit or invite.

So the real work happens before the import. A good result is a campaign full of people who fit your ideal customer profile and still hold the role, with checked work emails and LinkedIn profiles, nobody who has unsubscribed or is already being contacted, and a written icebreaker for each person that gives them a reason to keep reading.

Kite does that work for you. It reads what the campaign needs, qualifies the list, writes the personalization, and adds the leads to Lemlist after you approve the list.

Start by telling Kite, in the Kite web app or in Slack, which leads you want in Lemlist and which campaign they're for. You can hand it a list you already have:

"Here's the list from last week's webinar. Qualify it and add the good fits to the Q4 Ops Leaders campaign in Lemlist."

Or you can ask Kite to build the list too:

"Find 50 heads of customer success at US software companies with 100 to 500 employees and add the best fits to our new Lemlist 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 Lemlist account so Kite can read your campaigns and add leads. Lemlist connects with an API key, which you copy from your Lemlist 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 with Kite or point it to the spreadsheet or CRM where the list lives.

Kite starts by reading the Lemlist campaign you named, because the campaign's sequence decides what each lead has to carry. It looks up the campaign and its status, then reads every sequence in it, including each step's type, its message, and any conditions that branch the sequence. From those steps, it notes every variable in use, from standard ones like {{firstName}}, {{companyName}}, and {{icebreaker}} to the custom variables your team created.

The step types matter as much as the variables. When the sequence includes LinkedIn steps, such as a profile visit, an invitation, or a message, every lead needs a LinkedIn profile URL for those steps to run. Kite also reads which team members send from which campaigns, so it knows whose name the leads will see.

If you haven't built the campaign yet, Kite can create one in Lemlist, write the email and LinkedIn steps in your brand's voice, and set up the sending schedule. In that case, it decides which variables the steps will use and 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, a spreadsheet, or a set of records in your CRM all work as a starting point, and Kite keeps the columns that matter, such as name, title, company, email, and LinkedIn URL.

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 customer success leader or a recent funding round. If you'd rather source from Lemlist itself, Kite can search Lemlist's people database through your connected account and check how many credits your team has left first.

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.

Every lead who passes gets a fit score from one to five, with a one-line reason, such as "Head of customer success at a 220-person billing software company that just posted three onboarding roles." When the list is long, Kite splits it into primary and secondary groups, so you can send the strongest fits first or give each group 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 reputation and earns more replies than a padded one.

Kite checks Lemlist for every lead before it adds them, so nobody gets contacted after opting out or receives two sequences at once. It looks up each email address in your Lemlist unsubscribe list, which holds both individual addresses and whole domains, and leaves out every match. Then it looks the address up as an existing Lemlist lead. If the person is already in another campaign, Kite tells you which one and leaves them out unless you say otherwise.

When it adds the leads, Kite also turns on Lemlist's own setting to skip anyone already in another campaign, which catches anything added between the check and the import.

Kite checks every email before a lead goes into Lemlist, because bounces damage the reputation of the inboxes the whole campaign sends from. It keeps each address's verification status exactly as the provider returns it, whether that's verified, catch-all, risky, or unverified, and a missing email stays marked as not found rather than guessed. Kite can also ask Lemlist to verify each address as the lead is added. It uses work emails only, so personal addresses stay out of the campaign.

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

• Email address
• First and last name
• Job title
• Company name and company domain
• LinkedIn profile URL
• An icebreaker written for that person
• The person's timezone, so Lemlist can send during their working hours
• The teammate who owns the lead
• Custom variables that match your steps, such as the fit reason, a recent event at their company, or the team they lead

The icebreaker 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 step where {{icebreaker}} appears, so the message still reads naturally when the line drops in. When your sequence uses a custom variable after the lead already exists, Kite adds that variable to the lead in Lemlist.

Kite shows you the finished list in the conversation before anything reaches Lemlist. Adding leads to a running campaign means Lemlist starts working through its steps for 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, whether they have a LinkedIn URL, and the icebreaker they'll receive.

Reply to approve the list, or ask Kite to change or drop anyone. Kite then adds each approved lead to the campaign with every field filled in. If you'd rather stage the leads first, Kite adds them to a campaign that hasn't started yet, and you launch it in Lemlist when you're ready.

When the leads are in, Kite posts a summary in the same conversation. It says how many leads it added, how many it skipped as unsubscribes or duplicates, 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 running, Kite reads its statistics and recent activity, including opens, clicks, replies, and LinkedIn step results, and tells you which leads and which icebreaker angles are getting responses. When a lead replies with interest, Kite can mark them as interested in Lemlist and create a follow-up task for the lead's owner. When someone declines, it can mark them as not interested or pause them so the sequence stops. If you want new leads added regularly, ask Kite to repeat the job every week, and it will bring each batch to you for approval in the same conversation.

When Kite finishes, your Lemlist campaign holds a set of qualified leads ready for every step of the sequence, and your conversation with Kite holds the record of who was added and why.