Leads

Open Leads, Import and drop a CSV. Exports from Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Apollo, Clay are recognised and their columns mapped for you; any other spreadsheet works too, you map its columns yourself. Up to 200,000 rows and 50 MB per file.

• Columns that aren't a built-in field (first name, company, title, website and so on) become custom fields. Each one is a variable you can use in emails, like {{industry}}.
• Leads you already have, matched by email: skip them, or fill in their empty fields. Nothing is ever duplicated, and duplicates inside the file keep the first row.
• Add the import to a list, new or existing. Campaigns take leads from lists.
• Addresses on your suppression list are skipped, and the result counts them, along with duplicates and invalid rows.
• With a verifier connected, you can verify every new address right after the import, on your verifier's credits.

Single leads: Add lead on the Leads page.

Every address gets free checks that need no mail server and cost nothing:

The free checks can't tell whether a mailbox exists. For that, connect your own MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce or NeverBounce key in Integrations and use Verify on selected leads. Each lead then shows Valid, Risky, Catch-all or Invalid, with the reason. Ballast never resells verification: you pay your verifier directly, at their price.

Ballast also reads each domain's MX records to know the lead's email provider (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others). Campaigns use it to match providers.

Invalid, bounced and unsubscribed leads are left out when you add leads to a campaign. Risky and catch-all ones too, if the campaign has Skip risky leads on.

A lead can be in many lists. Make them on import, from selected leads (Add to list), or in Leads, Lists. A campaign adds a list's leads in one go.

Labels tag a lead: by hand, by rules on incoming replies, or by AI if you turn it on. Each label is positive, negative, neutral or a warning, and positive and negative labels feed reply sentiment in analytics. A positive label sets the lead to Interested. Ballast starts every workspace with these:

Triggers

Open a label in Leads, Labels to change what happens when it's applied. Any label can:

• suppress the lead, so no campaign emails them again;
• remove the lead from the campaign the reply came from;
• pause that campaign, for replies that need a human before anything else goes out;
• move the lead to a list;
• apply another label after a number of days;
• remove itself after a number of days.

Give a label an AI prompt ("replies that ask about price or want a call") and AI labels can pick it; test the prompt on a sample reply on the same page. Owners and admins change labels; everyone can apply them. See AI labels.

Leads, Suppressions holds addresses and whole domains no campaign will ever email. Write a domain as @acme.com to cover everyone there. Unsubscribes, hard bounces and labels like Do not contact add to it on their own, and you can add addresses by hand or suppress selected leads.

Removing a suppression lets campaigns email that address again, and leads that were suppressed only because of it become active.

Plans include a number of active contacts: leads not emailed yet or still mid-sequence. Leads that replied, bounced, unsubscribed or finished every sequence stop counting and keep their history, so you never delete leads to make room. Imports and adding leads to campaigns stop at the limit. See Billing and plans.