Your First Campaign
Your drone is launched and Gmail is connected. Now what? This guide walks through your first outbound campaign — from defining who to target to reading your first replies. It picks up where the Quick Start leaves off.
Before You Begin
Make sure you have completed the Quick Start steps:
- Drone launched (provisioning complete)
- Gmail connected in Settings → Integrations
- Daily email limit set (50 is a safe starting point)
If any of these are missing, complete them first. This guide assumes your drone is live and ready.
Step 1: Define Your Target
The single most important input you give your drone is who to reach. A sharp target means relevant emails; a vague target means ignored emails.
Start with four fields:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fintech, SaaS, E-commerce |
| Company size | 50–200 employees, Series A–B |
| Titles | CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Product |
| Trigger signal | Recent funding, new hire, product launch |
Your drone uses these fields to find leads, score them, and decide what to say. The more specific you are, the better the personalization — and the higher your reply rate.
For a deeper framework covering all four layers (firmographic, technographic, role, and behavioral signals), see Defining Your ICP.
Step 2: Set Your Tone
Your drone writes every email, but the tone is yours. You can set it once and it applies to all outreach, or adjust it per campaign.
| Tone | Best for | Example feel |
|---|---|---|
| Professional, direct | Enterprise, financial services | Structured, no contractions |
| Casual, conversational | SaaS, startups, tech | Contractions, shorter sentences |
| Warm, consultative | Agencies, professional services | Empathetic opener, advice-forward |
| Bold, provocative | Competitive markets, disruptive products | Challenge assumptions, strong hook |
To set tone, include it in your chat command or update the Email Tone field in Settings.
Step 3: Give the Command
Your drone takes natural language commands. You don’t fill out a form — you describe the campaign you want.
What to Expect
Here’s a realistic week-one timeline for a 15-lead campaign:
| Day | Activity | What you’ll see |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Drone researches, enriches, and sends first emails | 12–15 emails sent; first delivery confirmations in dashboard |
| Day 2–3 | Drone monitors for replies and bounces | 0–2 early replies; any bounced addresses removed automatically |
| Day 4–5 | Follow-up emails go out to non-replies | Second wave of emails with a fresh angle; open rates climb |
| End of week | Weekly summary in dashboard | Open rate, reply rate, sequence status per contact |
A 15-lead campaign run correctly typically generates 1–3 replies in week one. Replies at this stage are usually interest signals or requests for information — not closed deals.
For specific numbers by integration setup, see Campaign Benchmarks.
Compliance
Your drone automatically enforces CAN-SPAM compliance on every email: sender identification, an unsubscribe mechanism, no misleading subject lines, and immediate opt-out on any negative reply. You do not need to configure this — it is applied to every email, every time. If a contact replies with “unsubscribe”, “stop”, or “not interested”, their sequence stops within minutes.
Growing From Here
Once your first campaign is running, add integrations to unlock more capability:
| Stage | Integrations | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Gmail | Web-browsed leads, personalized emails, automatic follow-ups |
| Enhanced | + Apollo | Verified emails, ICP-filtered lead discovery, higher accuracy |
| Full Stack | + Instantly + HubSpot | Multi-mailbox sending, deal tracking, CRM pipeline |
| Multi-Channel | LinkedIn warmup before emails land — 2–3x reply lift |
See SDR Workflows for detailed integration combinations and pipeline diagrams.
Next Steps
- Defining Your ICP — Build a sharper target list
- Designing Email Sequences — Understand the frameworks your drone uses
- Campaign Benchmarks — Know what good looks like at each stage