How to fill a cold email campaign with verified leads
A cold email campaign is only as good as its worst address. This recipe takes you from an empty campaign to sending safely: a UK company list matched to your best customers, emails the companies publish on domains we checked accept mail, an authenticated domain, automatic warm-up, and replies in your own inbox and on the Desk. Each step is there to keep your bounce rate low.
The recipe, step by step
- 1
Build a list worth emailing
Set up an agent that mirrors your best customers: tell the assistant the kinds of business, which it matches to 5-digit SIC codes, one area and the reasons to look for. Before the agent is set up, the assistant says whether plenty or few companies match there, before you spend anything. A focused list of a few hundred well-matched companies beats thousands of vaguely relevant ones, on both replies and bounces.
- 2
Use published, checked emails only
Every lead comes with an email the company publishes itself, on a domain we checked accepts mail, never guessed from a name pattern, and the director's name when it is on the public record. That is what keeps bounce rates low enough to protect your domain. A company with no email we can check is never delivered and never costs a lead, and if a first email bounces, its lead is credited back automatically.
- 3
Check your domain before the first send
Run your sending domain through the free checker at /tools/domain-checker and fix anything missing. SPF, DKIM and DMARC records tell receiving servers your mail is genuinely yours. Sending cold email without them is how good campaigns end up in spam, however clean the list is.
- 4
Let warm-up set the pace
Connect your own Gmail, Google Workspace or Outlook mailbox with one sign-in, which the free trial can do too. Warm-up starts at 5 emails a day, then 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30, and you cannot switch it off. Each company gets a first email written for it and two follow-ups, on day 4 and day 9 by default. Nothing sends until you approve it, or until you switch on Autopilot. Emails go only on the sending days and hours you set.
- 5
Work the replies, watch the numbers
Replies arrive in your own inbox and on the Desk, under Replies. Opening one drafts an answer, and you press send. Replies are the number that matters, and Leadistry does not track opens. The Desk shows how many emails bounced this week and how many leads were credited back, so a rising count tells you to look at the list. A reply stops that company's follow-ups, and a webhook can send every reply on to your CRM so none goes stale.
Frequently asked questions
Why do checked emails matter so much for bounce rate?
Mailbox providers treat a high bounce rate as the mark of a spammer, and a few bad sends can hurt delivery for your whole domain. Guessed name-pattern addresses bounce constantly. Leadistry only delivers emails the company itself publishes, on a domain we checked accepts mail. Nobody can prove a mailbox exists without sending to it, so if a first email does bounce, that lead is credited back automatically.
Is cold email to UK companies legal?
Yes, done properly. Limited companies are corporate subscribers under PECR, so B2B marketing email does not need prior consent. You must say who you are and honour opt-outs. Leadistry processes register data under UK GDPR legitimate interest and honours removal requests at /remove-company within 24 hours.
How long does warm-up take before I can send at full volume?
Warm-up starts at 5 emails a day, then moves to 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30, and it only moves up after a day it actually sent. There is no manual schedule to manage, and you cannot skip it. A brand-new or long-quiet mailbox that suddenly sends hundreds of messages is the clearest sign of spam a provider can see.
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