Contacts and verification

Every pitch goes to a person. Before a draft can launch, its page needs someone to write to, an address that has not failed verification and a sender you picked. This article covers how sourcesignal finds those people, what the labels beside an address mean, how you decide who gets the pitch, and the allowances that pace research.

How a contact is found

When you promote a page, or a rule does, the autopilot looks for who to pitch at the publisher before it drafts. A note above the Sequences list reads "Finding who to pitch at <domain>." Other promoted pages get their research when their turn comes.

Each research run tries several ways to find someone, and stops as soon as one finds an address. It saves every person it finds with at least a name or an address, with a note on why this person. Someone found without an address is kept, so you can add the address later. A publisher researched recently is reused instead of searched again: a contact carried over from another page or project wears a "Reused" tag on the detail panel, and its address is re-checked when it is copied.

How to research contacts for a page

1. On a page's detail panel, open the "Outreach" tab, press "Research contacts", then "Research & save contacts". It can take up to a minute. The dialog lists what it saved, each find rated "High", "Medium" or "Low" for how sure the AI is that this is the right person; "Inferred" marks a guessed address.
2. In the Opportunities table, check rows, press "Find contacts", then "Queue research". Research runs in the background for a few minutes, and found contacts save into each page's Contacts. Select at most 1,000 pages at a time.
3. Under Outreach, check draft rows and press "Research" on the selection bar (up to 300 pages at a time), or pick "Research contacts for this page" from a draft's more menu. The toast reads "Research queued for N pages. New contacts show here when found."
4. In a draft's "Recipients" popover, press "Research more".

The popover keeps you posted: "Research is running. New contacts show here when it finishes.", then "Researched once, 3 h ago: no address found." or "Researched 2 times, last yesterday: 1 address found."

Contact source

Hover an address on a draft's "To" line and it says where it came from. The Tracker shows the same words beside each person.

The verification signal

Three small bars beside every address show how deliverable it looks, with a one-word label where there is room.

The signal tells you how likely your email is to arrive, not whether anyone will reply. Only "Failed" blocks a launch: the draft's verdict reads "The contact's email failed verification. Fix the address first." Everything else is information, not a gate. Verification matters most on an address marked "guessed", the likeliest to bounce.

Research verifies the addresses it saves. An address you type yourself starts unchecked; on the detail panel it shows "Verify email". The chip there reads "invalid" where the draft window reads "Failed".

Recipients: who gets the pitch

The "To" line of a draft names the person, their role and the address with its signal. "No email address yet" in warning ink means there is nobody to send to. A blocked row under Ready to launch says the fix, for example "No contact yet. Pick a person."

• "N at this page" lists the other people at the same page under "Also at this page", each with their draft's state.
• "Recipients" opens "Recipients on this opportunity". The button reads "Find a person" when the draft has no address or nobody else is saved at the page. The current recipient is checked, with "Remove" (it discards their draft) or a "Current" tag. Check "Also draft for this contact" on others and press "Draft for selected" to give each their own draft. "Use" makes someone else the recipient.
• A row you cannot pick says why: "Drafted" (they already have their own draft for this page), "Sending" or "Paused" (already being emailed), or "In conversation" (the same person at another address: continue that conversation instead). One person holds one open sequence per page, and a second pitch to the same person at another address is refused.
• People found without an address wait under "N found without an address · Show", each with "Add address". "+ Add an address you know" adds someone research never found: the address, a name if you know it, then "Save". A typed address is marked "Added by hand" and starts unchecked.

When one person is the recipient on several pages of the project, the window says so and "Choose the page" lets you keep one page for them and park the rest. After a sequence ends with no reply, "Try someone else" offers "Draft for <Name>" for each other person at the page, or "Research more people".

Contacts on the detail panel

The "Outreach" tab of a page's detail panel lists every saved contact with role, address, verification chip and the note research wrote. From there you can "Add contact" by hand (Name, Email, Role, Notes; a contact needs at least a name or an email), "Verify email", "Record attempt" to note that you reached out another way (the row then shows "last contacted <date>"), "Do not contact" (every outreach send in your organization refuses the address until you revoke it; see Do not contact), or delete a contact.

In the Opportunities table, the "Contacts" column counts the people saved for a page; a dash means none yet. On a promoted page, "Finding a contact · queued" means it is lined up for research, and "Finding a contact…" means research is running. See The detail panel.

Limits

Two allowances pace research: email verifications for your account each month, and pages researched for each project each day. Both are listed for every plan on the pricing page; email verifications also have a usage meter under Settings, then Billing.

A trial runs on Growth's limits. Enterprise limits are custom. See Plans and limits.

One email verification is one saved contact getting its first verification verdict. The check counts, not the result: Verified, Accept-all, Risky, Failed or an unclear answer, every verdict counts. An invalid answer is as useful as a valid one, because it stops an email that would bounce. The count returns to zero on the first of each calendar month (UTC), and re-checking a contact that already has a verdict does not count again. Researched pages count per day from 00:00 UTC.

When an allowance is used, research waits rather than fails. The note above the Sequences list reads "Today's research allowance is used." or "This month's email verifications are used.", and its hint says when research picks up again: "at 00:00 UTC" for the day, or the first of next month (for example "on 1 November") with the way to more before then, such as "choose a bigger plan in Billing". Pressing "Find contacts" or "Research contacts" once today's pages are spent is refused, on Growth with "Your plan includes up to 80 researched pages a day for each project, and today's are used or already queued." A by-hand "Verify email" past the month's allowance is refused too.

Good to know

• A promoted page with nobody to pitch moves to "Contact needed", counted as "need a contact" on the Opportunities masthead. In the deck its card reads "Research found no verified inbox. The opportunity is promoted and waiting. It needs a person."
• A draft that names someone other than the recipient is flagged: "Fix the name, or rewrite this email for them."
• Every contact event lands in the page's "Activity" tab: "Contact added", "Email verified", "Outreach attempt". For the full launch checklist, see Reviewing and launching.