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Import leads

Shipped Leads are the people a workspace emails. Import them from any CSV export, group them into lists, and keep a suppression list of people and domains that must never be emailed.

Import a CSV

Section titled “Import a CSV”

In the web app open Leads, choose the file, optionally name a list to add everyone to, and select Import. Or use the API (scope leads.manage):

Terminal window
curl -X POST "https://outflare.example.com/v1/workspaces/$WS/leads/import?list=Q4%20founders" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OUTFLARE_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/csv" \
  --data-binary @leads.csv
{ "created": 4812, "updated": 160, "duplicates": 23, "suppressed": 41, "errors": [{ "line": 77, "email": "n/a", "error": "invalid email \"n/a\"" }], "list_id": "…" }

Only an email column is required. Files can be up to 50 MB and 100,000 rows, and a file that size imports in a few seconds.

Columns

Section titled “Columns”

Standard fields are recognised under the names data providers, CRMs and spreadsheets use, so exports from Apollo, Clay or HubSpot import unchanged:

Field Also accepted as
email Email Address, Work Email, Business Email, Person Email
first_name, last_name First Name, Last Name, Surname; or one Name / Full Name column, split at the last space
company Company Name, Organization, Account Name
title Job Title, Position, Headline
phone Phone Number, Mobile, Direct Phone
linkedin_url LinkedIn, Person Linkedin Url, Profile URL
website Company Website, Domain

Every other column is kept as a custom field under its header in snake_case, for example # Employees becomes employees and ICP Tier becomes icp_tier. Custom fields will be available as template variables in sequences. Up to 50 custom columns are kept.

Deduplication and updates

Section titled “Deduplication and updates”

Leads are unique by email within a workspace, ignoring case.

  • A row for a lead that already exists updates it: non-empty values replace stored ones, empty values keep what is stored, and custom fields are merged. Re-importing an enriched export fills in the gaps rather than creating duplicates.
  • Rows that repeat an email within one file are merged first and counted as duplicates.
  • Rows with an invalid email are skipped and reported by line number. The rest of the file still imports.

Add or update one lead

Section titled “Add or update one lead”

POST /v1/workspaces/{ws}/leads with JSON upserts one lead by email, with the same rules. Optional list_id adds it to a list.

{ "email": "ana@acme.io", "first_name": "Ana", "company": "Acme", "custom": { "icp_tier": "A" } }

Lists

Section titled “Lists”

Lists group leads for a sequence, for example one per campaign or segment. A lead can be in many lists. Create one by importing with ?list=Name, from Leads, or with POST /lead-lists. Add existing leads with POST /lead-lists/{id}/leads and {"lead_ids": [...]}. Deleting a list keeps its leads. To build a list from a search at Apollo or People Data Labs instead of a file, see Lead lists.

Section titled “Search”

GET /v1/workspaces/{ws}/leads lists leads ordered by email, 100 per page (up to 500 with limit). Filter with q (email, name or company), list_id and suppressed=true|false. The response includes total and next_after; pass it back as after for the next page.

The suppression list

Section titled “The suppression list”

The suppression list holds addresses and whole domains that must never be emailed: people who unsubscribed or complained, hard bounces, customers, competitors, anyone who asked not to be contacted. A suppressed domain blocks every address at it.

  • Add entries under Suppression (paste or upload one per line) or with POST /suppressions and {"values": ["bob@acme.com", "competitor.com"], "reason": "do_not_contact"}. Domains are also accepted as @acme.com or a URL. Reasons are manual, do_not_contact, unsubscribed, bounced and complained. Up to 100,000 values per request.
  • Remove an entry only with the suppressions.manage scope, which owners and admins have and operators do not, because removing one can mean emailing someone who opted out. Removals are in the audit log.
  • Suppressed leads still import and are flagged, so your data stays complete, but they are never emailed. Every send goes through the policy check, and you can run the same recipient check yourself before enrolling anyone with POST /recipients/check.

Erasure requests

Section titled “Erasure requests”

To honour a request to be forgotten, delete the lead with ?suppress=true (or choose OK when deleting in the web app). The lead is deleted and its address is added to the suppression list with reason do_not_contact, so a later import cannot put the person back into a sequence.