How to Send Find Leads Results to Instantly for Cold Email Outreach

LeadRanks finds companies with broken SEO — warm leads who need exactly what you sell. Once you've discovered them, the next step is reaching out. This guide covers the complete workflow: exporting your scored leads from LeadRanks and launching automated cold email sequences in Instantly.ai.

Before You Start — What You'll Need

To follow this guide, you'll need:

• A LeadRanks Pro or Agency plan — CSV export and Find Leads are included on both tiers. Pro gives you 50 leads per search; Agency gives you 150. Compare plans here.
• An Instantly.ai account — Instantly handles the cold email deliverability side (warm-up, inbox rotation, spam compliance). You'll need an account there to import your CSV and launch campaigns.
• 2–5 email accounts — Gmail, Outlook, or custom domain inboxes. Instantly sends from these accounts on rotation, so no single account exceeds sending limits (~50–100/day for a warmed-up inbox).
• A backup domain (recommended) — Register a variant of your domain (try-yourdomain.com, yourdomain.io) and set up email accounts there. If a cold outreach account ever gets flagged, your primary business email stays clean.

Step 1 — Export Your LeadRanks CSV

After your Find Leads search finishes, you'll see a results table with every lead scored, prioritized, and enriched with contact details. LeadRanks pulls business names, emails, phone numbers, and the exact SEO issues found on each site — everything you need to personalize your outreach.

Select the leads you want to contact (use the header checkbox for all, or pick individual ones) and click "Export CSV" in the toolbar. The CSV includes fields you'll use in Instantly: Contact Email, Business Name, Domain, SEO Score, and the specific issues found on each site.

For more on campaigns, lead status tracking, and export options, see the Managing Your Find Leads Results guide.

Step 2 — Connect Your Email Accounts in Instantly

Before importing leads, set up your sending accounts in Instantly:

1. Go to "Email Accounts" in the Instantly sidebar and click "Add Email Account"
2. Connect via OAuth (Gmail/Outlook) or SMTP credentials (custom domain). OAuth is the simpler option — Instantly redirects to Google or Microsoft for one-click authorization
3. Configure sending limits — Instantly defaults to 30 emails/day per account during warm-up, gradually ramping to 50–100. Leave the defaults; the warm-up algorithm handles the pacing
4. Repeat for 2–5 accounts — More accounts in rotation means higher total daily volume and better deliverability
5. Wait for warm-up — Instantly takes 2–3 weeks to fully warm up new accounts. During this period it sends progressively more emails and monitors bounce and complaint rates. Don't launch a campaign on day one — let warm-up finish first

Instantly shows each account's warm-up status and health score in the dashboard. A score above 95% means the account is ready for campaigns.

Step 3 — Import Your CSV and Map Fields

1. Go to "Leads" → "Add Leads" → "Import CSV" in Instantly
2. Upload your LeadRanks CSV file
3. Map the columns — Instantly shows a preview of your CSV and asks you to match fields:
   • Map Contact Email → Email (required)
   • Map Business Name → First Name or Company Name (for greetings and personalization)
   • Map Domain → Custom Field — name it "Domain", then reference it in your copy as {{custom.Domain}}
   • Map SEO Score → Custom Field — name it "SEOScore" to mention in subject lines or body text
   • Map Issues → Custom Field — name it "Issues". This is where LeadRanks gives you an edge: each lead's specific SEO problems become the core of your email personalization
4. Review and import — Instantly flags duplicates and invalid emails. Remove them, then import the clean list

Step 4 — Write Your Outreach Sequence

This is where LeadRanks data sets you apart. Because the CSV includes real SEO issues for each lead, your emails reference actual problems — not generic "I can help with your SEO" pitches that everyone sends.

Create a new campaign in Instantly and build a 3-email sequence:

Email 1 — The Introduction (Day 0)

Short and specific. Mention the issue you found and make it clear you actually looked at their site:

Subject: Quick note about {{custom.Domain}}

Hey {{firstName}},

I was reviewing sites in [industry] and noticed {{custom.Domain}} has [mention 1–2 specific issues from {{custom.Issues}}].

This is likely costing you traffic — based on similar sites I've worked with, it's probably [X] visitors/month you're losing.

Want me to send over a quick audit showing exactly what's happening and how to fix it? No charge, no commitment.

Best,
[Your name]

Email 2 — The Follow-Up (Day 3)

Add value. Share one actionable tip related to their specific issue:

Subject: Re: {{custom.Domain}}

Hey {{firstName}},

Following up — even if you're not looking for help right now, here's one quick fix for the [specific issue] I noticed on {{custom.Domain}}:

[1–2 sentence actionable tip]

That alone usually picks up [X]% more traffic within a few weeks.

Happy to send the full audit if you want the complete picture. Just reply "yes" and I'll get it over.

Best,
[Your name]

Email 3 — The Final Nudge (Day 7)

Respectful, no pressure:

Subject: Closing the loop — {{custom.Domain}}

Hey {{firstName}},

I'll leave you alone after this — just wanted to make sure you saw my earlier note about {{custom.Domain}}.

If SEO isn't a priority right now, totally understand. If it is, reply "yes" and I'll send the audit. No strings attached.

Either way, wishing you a great week.

Best,
[Your name]

Step 5 — Configure Sending Settings

Before launching, tune the campaign settings in Instantly:

• Schedule — Weekdays only, 8–11 AM in the recipient's time zone. Instantly can auto-detect time zones from the lead's location data (which LeadRanks includes in the CSV)
• Account rotation — Enable "Round Robin" to distribute sends evenly across your connected email accounts. This prevents any single account from hitting limits
• Daily send limit — Start conservative (50–100/day) during the first week of a new campaign to monitor bounce and complaint rates. Increase once you confirm healthy metrics
• Open and click tracking — Enable both. Opens tell you if subject lines work; clicks tell you if the body converts
• Auto-pause on bounce — Set to 5% bounce rate threshold. If more than 5% of emails bounce, Instantly pauses the campaign so you can clean the list

Step 6 — Launch and Monitor

Hit launch. Instantly handles the sending, but you should check in daily during the first week:

• Open rate — 40–60% is healthy for cold outreach. Below 30% means your subject lines need work or your emails are landing in spam
• Reply rate — 5–15% is strong. Below 3% means your copy needs better personalization (use those LeadRanks custom fields more)
• Bounce rate — Below 3% is acceptable. Above 5% means your lead list has stale emails — consider running them through a verification tool first
• Spam complaints — Should be under 0.1%. Anything higher and your sending accounts will get throttled

When a lead replies, Instantly automatically removes them from the sequence and routes the reply to your connected inbox. The conversation continues naturally from your real email — no "sent via platform" footers, no clunky webmail interfaces.

When to Skip Instantly and Use Your Own SMTP Instead

Instantly is built for cold outreach — reaching people who've never heard of you. If your use case is different, LeadRanks lets you send reports using your own email infrastructure:

• Existing clients or warm referrals — Don't cold-email people who already know you. LeadRanks handles delivery via Resend for platform emails, but for sending from your domain with your branding, add your SMTP credentials in Settings → White Label → SMTP. The report lands in their inbox from your domain, with your logo — not from LeadRanks.
• Delivering audits as part of a sales conversation — When a prospect says "show me what you found," send them a full, white-labeled PDF report via your own SMTP. The report itself does the selling — detailed scores, competitive comparisons, and an action plan they can act on immediately.
• Low volume (fewer than 10 leads/week) — For very small lists, manual outreach from your real email is more personal and avoids the extra tooling.

For more on campaigns, lead status tracking, and all export options, see the Managing Your Find Leads Results guide.