A sequence is a set of emails SimpleSend sends for you from your own warmed mailboxes: a first touch, then follow-ups on a schedule, stopping the moment someone replies. This guide builds one from a blank page to launch, tab by tab, and explains the checks that run before anything goes out.
Before you start
You need email sending on your plan and at least one mailbox showing Ready. Two things are required before a sequence can send: your business mailing address, saved on the Mailboxes page, and a signature on every mailbox that sends. If any of that is missing, start with Set Up Sending Mailboxes and Domains. You can build the whole sequence while mailboxes warm; only the launch waits.
The launch, step by step
- Create the sequenceIn Sequences, click New sequence, name it and choose Start from scratch, From a drafted campaign or From a lead list.
- Import leadsOn the Leads tab, import a CSV, a lead list, a HubSpot list or a drafted campaign. A CSV needs an email column.
- Write the stepsOn the Sequence tab, write up to 10 steps with merge tags and fallbacks, and set the days between them. Follow-ups thread under the previous email.
- Check the settingsOn the Settings tab, confirm when a lead leaves the sequence, tracking, the sending window, active days and daily caps.
- Pick the mailboxesOn the Email accounts tab, tick the Ready mailboxes that should send this sequence.
- Preview and send a testPreview each step as a real lead, then click Send me a test on the Launch tab and read it in your own inbox.
- Run pre-flight and launchRead the pre-flight summary of ready and held leads, fix anything that shouldn't be held, and click Launch.
- Follow progressThe Launch tab becomes Progress, with counts per step and Pause, Resume and Stop. Replies land in the Inbox.
Pick a starting point
In Sequences, click New sequence, type a Sequence name and choose where it starts. Everything can change later.
Click Create sequence and the builder opens. It has five tabs, in the order you'll use them: Leads, Sequence, Settings, Email accounts and Launch.
Leads
The builder opens on Leads. Four buttons bring people in.
| Button | What it imports |
|---|---|
| Import CSV | Any CSV with an email column, up to 10 MB. Name, company, title, website, LinkedIn URL, phone and industry are recognised. Columns such as step_1_subject and step_1_body (or headers like "Email 2" and "Follow up 1") become each lead's own wording for that step. Every other column becomes a merge tag for this sequence; the 12 best-filled are ticked by default. |
| Lead list | A saved list, from Find Leads or a HubSpot import. |
| HubSpot list | A list straight from your connected HubSpot account, read-only. |
| Drafted campaign | The contacts of a campaign SimpleSend drafted, each with their drafted wording. |
A sequence holds up to 5,000 leads. The import summary says what it skipped: invalid addresses, rows without an email, duplicates and anything over the limit. After launch, the same table tracks every lead: a status (Not started, Queued, In sequence, Replied, Finished, Bounced, Opted out or Stopped), a dot per step and the last activity. Filter by status, search by name, company or email, or select leads to remove them. Anyone already in the sequence is stopped and kept for the record.
Sequence: write the steps
Each step has a subject, a body and, from step 2 on, Days after step N (1 to 60). Add step adds one three days after the last, up to 10 in all. Steps save on their own after a short pause, when you switch tabs, or when you click Save steps.
Follow-ups thread as replies. From step 2 on, Send in the same thread as the previous email is ticked whenever the subject is blank, so the follow-up lands under the original with a "Re:" subject. Untick it and write a subject to start a new thread.
The body editor handles bold, italics, lists, links and images (PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP up to 2 MB), and its Insert variable… menu adds merge tags. Don't type a signature or a footer. Your mailbox signature goes at the end, or wherever you write [Your name], and under it every email carries the opt-out line, an unsubscribe link and your business mailing address.
A shape that works
| Step | Wait | Subject | Job |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Launch | Its own, short | Why them, why now, one easy ask |
| 2 | 3 days | Same thread | A two-line bump with one new detail |
| 3 | 4 days | Same thread | A different angle or a proof point |
| 4 | 7 days | Same thread | A polite close |
Merge tags and fallbacks
Write {{first_name}} to drop in a lead's value. Add a fallback after a pipe: {{first_name|there}} reads "Hi there," for a lead with no first name. The Insert variable… menu groups the tags:
- Lead: First name, Last name, Full name, Company, Title, Email, Company website and Industry.
- You: Your first name and Your name, filled from the mailbox that sends.
- This sequence's columns: your CSV's extra columns, with how many leads have a value. Picking one that some leads lack inserts it with an empty fallback, ready for you to fill.
| Tag | A lead without a value reads |
|---|---|
{{first_name|there}} | Hi there, |
{{company|your team}} | …how your team handles onboarding |
{{title|your role}} | …for someone in your role |
When leads carry their own wording for a step, from a drafted campaign or from step_N_subject and step_N_body columns, the step shows This step's wording comes from each lead's own column with a count of the leads that have it. Their wording is sent instead of the step's text. Leads without it get the text you write in the step, or are held when it's empty.
Settings
The defaults are the safe ones. Changes save a second after you make them, and they apply to a running sequence too.
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Stop when they reply | On | Recommended. Replies asking to stop are detected and suppressed team-wide. |
| Stop when they open an email, or click a link | Off | Needs tracking. Opens are noisy, because mail clients pre-fetch images. |
| Track opens, Track link clicks | On | Adds a pixel and rewrites links through your tracking domain. Opens from security scanners are filtered out. |
| Time zone | Each mailbox's own | Or one zone for the whole sequence. |
| Window opens, Window closes | 8am to 5pm | Hours of the day, in that time zone. |
| Active days | Monday to Friday | Any days you choose. |
| Start date | Empty | Nothing goes out before it. Leave it empty to start at launch. |
| New leads per day | 50 | First emails per day for this sequence. Follow-ups come on top. |
| Per-mailbox daily cap | 25 | Up to 40. New mailboxes ramp: 10 a day in their first week of sending, 18 in the second. Never more than 50. |
| Gap between sends | 4 to 9 minutes | A random gap between two sends from the same mailbox. |
| Opt-out line | "Not the right person or not interested? Just reply and let me know." | Goes under the signature of every email. Left empty, the default is used. |
| Send to catch-all domains too | Off | Higher bounce risk, and they still count toward your caps. |
Email accounts
Which mailboxes send this sequence? Tick the ones you want; each shows how many cold emails it can send today. Every mailbox sends its share of the leads and stays under its daily cap, and a lead's follow-ups always come from the same mailbox. The line underneath adds up the day's capacity.
Only mailboxes that are Ready, have a signature and send as you can carry your sequence. Any other mailbox shows Not available with the reason: still warming up, sending is paused, no signature, sends as someone else, or health is critical. The set of mailboxes is fixed once the sequence launches.
Preview, test and launch
Preview a step
On the Sequence tab, pick a lead under Preview as (or leave the first lead) and click Preview. You see exactly what that lead gets, signature and footer included, marked Sendable or Needs attention. The preview flags an empty subject or body, "[Your name]" left in the text, a merge tag with no value, more than two links, an over-long subject, and a mailbox with no signature yet.
Send yourself a test
On the Launch tab, Send me a test sends the first step from the first mailbox you picked to your own account address, with the signature and opt-out line. Read it in your inbox, and check the spam folder too.
Clear the checklist
Ready to launch? lists what's left, each with a Go link: steps saved, leads imported, at least one mailbox selected, and your business mailing address set.
Launch
Pre-flight runs on its own and sums up the launch: mailboxes and their daily capacity, the number of steps and whether follow-ups stop on reply, the window and active days, the pace, tracking, and when the first touches will finish. Click Launch to N leads. Held leads stay in the list, untouched.
What pre-flight holds
Every lead is checked before it's enrolled, and held leads are skipped, never guessed at. Pre-flight lists each reason with a count; Re-check runs it again after you fix something.
| Reason shown | What to do |
|---|---|
| No email address | Add the address or remove the lead. |
| Email address isn't valid | Fix the typo or remove the lead. |
| System address (noreply@, postmaster@…), not a person | Find a named person at the company. |
| Verification says the address is invalid | Remove the lead. |
| Catch-all domain (held unless you allow catch-alls) | Tick Send to catch-all domains too in Settings if you accept the higher bounce risk. |
| The domain accepts no mail (no MX record) | Remove the lead. |
| On your suppression list | Leave it: they unsubscribed, asked to stop, bounced or were added by hand. |
| Same address appears twice in this campaign | Nothing to do: the first copy is sent, the repeats are held. |
| Already in a live sequence elsewhere on your team | Wait until that sequence finishes with them. |
| Someone at this company replied to you in the last 90 days | Follow up by hand instead. |
| A step has no wording for this lead yet | Write the step's fallback text, or import their wording. |
| A drafted step can't be sent as written | Preview the step as that lead. A merge tag with no value and no fallback is the usual cause. |
Pre-flight also warns, without holding anyone, about addresses that were never verified and about a pace so slow that first touches would take weeks. Verifying the list first (for example by enriching it in Find Leads) lowers bounces.
After launch
The Launch tab becomes Progress. Its header says whether the sequence is sending and when the next email goes out.
- Pause stops anything more going out until you click Resume, which picks up in the next sending window.
- Stop sends nothing more and releases the leads still in the sequence. Conversations that already started keep their replies in your Inbox. A stopped sequence can't be resumed; Launch again later sends to leads who weren't enrolled.
- While it sends, you can change the wording and the settings, but not the number of steps or the mailboxes.
- Leads you import while it sends join after pre-flight.
- If bounces spike, SimpleSend pauses the sequence or the mailbox and shows why. If your mailing address goes missing, the sequence is marked On hold until you add it back.
- Replies in the header opens the Inbox filtered to this sequence. Archive stops sending and removes the sequence from your list.
Reading the numbers
Progress shows Enrolled, Emails sent (and how many today), In sequence, Opened, Clicked, Replied, Finished, Bounced or failed, and Opted out or stopped, with rates against enrolled leads. Under the tiles, each step shows how many were sent, opened, clicked, planned and failed.
- Judge by replies. Opens are inflated by mail privacy features even after scanner opens are filtered out. Treat them as a rough signal, not a score.
- Watch bounces in the first days. A climbing bounce count means a list problem. Pause, clean the list and re-check pre-flight.
- Split to compare. There's no built-in A/B test. Split the list into two sequences that differ in one thing and compare replies.
When replies start arriving, read Manage Replies in the Inbox. For more on what the metrics mean, see Email Analytics and Campaign Optimization.