# How outreach works

> A promoted page becomes one pitch to one person, drafted for you and sent from your own mailbox only after you launch it, or Spot or your agent does where you set "Emails and posts to publishers" to Apply at once. This is every stage from draft to launch, and where posts take a different path.

sourcesignal documentation, Outreach. Updated 2026-10-22. The page for people: https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/how-outreach-works. Every article: https://www.sourcesignal.ai/llms.txt

Outreach is where a page you promoted from Opportunities becomes a pitch. Autopilot finds who to write to at the publisher and drafts an email sequence to that one person. You read the draft, sign it off and launch it, and it sends from your own connected mailbox on a schedule you control. Replies land in the Inbox, and what you win shows under Outcomes in Reports.

You open it when a draft is waiting for you, or to see where a launched pitch stands. Nothing sends, posts or agrees to a price without your approval.

## From a promoted page to a launched sequence

1. **Promote a page.** In Opportunities, promote a page yourself ("Promote to outreach" on the bulk bar) or let an [auto-promotion rule](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/auto-promotion-and-reply-rules.md) do it. Autopilot finds who to pitch and drafts the sequence.
2. **Read the draft under "Needs review"**, with "Why this page" open beside it: the page's 0 to 100 priority, the editorial hook (marked when your first email opens with it), the tracked questions whose AI answers cite the page, and whether your brand is already named or linked there.
3. **Fix anything.** "Edit" an email, rewrite one or all of them, switch or add recipients, pick the sender, or set the timing from the "Sends" chip.
4. **Press "Mark *Name* reviewed".** The draft moves to "Ready to launch". Nothing sends yet.
5. **Launch.** Under "Ready to launch", press "Launch *Name*…". The dialog shows the recipient, the mailbox, how many emails and "First email:" with its time and time zone. Press "Launch sequence", or "Launch & send now" to send the first email at once, outside the send window and the daily cap.
6. **Follow it** under "In flight" or on the Tracker. A reply stops the follow-ups, and you answer it in [the Inbox](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/the-inbox.md).

> **Heads up:** Launch is the point of no return for scheduling. The first email is booked for the time shown; later emails follow their waits and your send rules. You can still pause, stop or edit the emails that have not sent, but a stopped sequence cannot be resumed.

## What you see

The page is titled "Outreach". Beside the title, the "How outreach flows" explainer says "Every pitch moves from Opportunities through Outreach to Reports." and lists every stage with its meaning. A "Set up" menu holds "Auto-promote & reply rules", "Templates", "Outreach prompt" and "Mailboxes".

The queue head shows the stages you work as tabs with counts: "Needs review", "Ready to launch", "Needs you" (amber while it holds anything) and "In flight". The "More" menu holds the stages you look up: "Sending", "In conversation", "Replied", "Done", "No reply", "Parked" and "All".

Rows are grouped by publisher, then by page: the title, "to *person*" and the domain. A live row carries its step marks and what sends next. Select a row and the sequence window opens beside the list: the recipient, the sending mailbox, one tab per email, the email itself, the stage's action bar and the "Why this page" pane. [Sequences](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/sequences.md) covers the window in full.

## The stages and what they mean

| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| Needs review | Drafts waiting for you to read them. Marking one reviewed sends nothing. |
| Ready to launch | Drafts you signed off. Launch shows the send plan first. |
| Needs you | Waiting on you: a bounce, a failed send, a paused sequence or a reply nobody has decided on. |
| In flight | Every sequence you launched that is not done yet: sending, waiting on you, in conversation or replied. Most recently active first. |
| Sending | Live on its schedule, so the next email really goes. An out-of-office pause that resumes on its own waits here too. |
| In conversation | They replied or you wrote by hand, so no follow-up goes on its own. |
| Replied | Stopped by their reply. Bounces do not count. |
| Done | Every step sent, or stopped by hand. |
| No reply | Every step sent and nobody answered. Each one offers a new angle, someone else at the publisher, or LinkedIn: "Find <Name> on LinkedIn" opens a people search for them at the publisher, and "Mark as contacted on LinkedIn" notes that you reached out there. |
| Parked | Drafts you set aside. They stay out of Needs review and the deck until you bring them back. |
| All | Every draft in play and every launched sequence. |

A launched sequence that is not done yet shows under "In flight" as well as under its own stage, and a parked draft shows only under "Parked". Editing a signed-off draft, rewriting it or changing its sender clears the sign-off and returns it to "Needs review".

## One person, one pitch at a time

A sequence is one pitch to one person: an initial email and up to three follow-ups, from one mailbox. Follow-ups stop the moment the person replies.

Within a project, Autopilot writes no second draft to someone who already has an open pitch on another page or was pitched recently; the new page is linked to that pitch instead. The window says so, for example "*Name* is already getting your pitch for another *domain* page.", and the row carries the mark "on N pages".

"Choose the page" lists "Pages for *Name*, highest priority first", each tagged "This draft", "Draft", "Parked", "Sending", "Paused" or "Not drafted". "Pitch this page" keeps one page for them and parks their other drafts; "Draft this page instead" writes a draft for a page that was held back and parks the rest. A launch is refused while the same address has a live sequence on another page, and a second pitch to the same person at a different address is refused too. See [Contacts and verification](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/contacts-and-verification.md).

## Sending from your own mailbox

Every email leaves from a mailbox you connected under Settings, then Mailboxes: Gmail or Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Outlook, or any other mailbox with IMAP and SMTP. The signature is added at send, never baked into the draft: each email shows "+ signature at send" with the footer on hover, or says that none is set. See [Mailboxes](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/account-and-billing/mailboxes.md).

The mailbox's limits are the outer guardrails for every sequence using it: sending days and hours, the "Per day" cap and the "Gap (sec)" between emails. Inside them, each sequence has its own "Sends" timing, and a project's "Sending window" can narrow the mailbox's days and hours but never widen them. The launch dialog states the first slot all of these allow, in the mailbox's time zone; the daily cap and emails queued ahead can push the actual send later. See [Sending schedule and limits](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/sending-schedule-and-limits.md).

If a mailbox's authorization expires, a note above the drafts reads "N drafts wait on *mailbox*, whose authorization expired." with "Reconnect…", which keeps the drafts exactly as they are. For a mailbox that is no longer connected, the note offers "Re-home…" instead, which moves its drafts onto a connected mailbox and back to "Needs review".

## Where posts differ from email

Some cited pages are not reached by email. A thread on Reddit, Quora or a forum is reached by replying in it, a directory by its own form, a review platform by claiming its profile. Promote one of these and no sequence is written. Instead a reply, an answer, a new post, a listing or a profile is drafted under "Posts", with the stages "To do", "Done" and "Skipped". Once the project has a post, an "Emails" and "Posts" switch appears beside the title.

Its explainer: "Replies, new posts and listings drafted for you to post from your own account. Nothing is posted for you." For a reply, you press "Copy and open", post from your own account, paste the link where it landed and press "Mark as posted"; a post that names the brand counts as a win from that day. A listing or a profile uses "Open the form" or "Open the profile" instead, then "Mark as submitted" or "Mark as claimed".

The email path refuses what belongs on the post path: a draft addressed to a platform's own staff cannot launch ("Addressed to Reddit's own staff. A thread is reached by posting in it, so this draft can't launch."). Social posts, videos, wikis and code hosts are held: nothing is drafted and nothing is emailed. See [Posts, replies and listings](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/posts-replies-and-listings.md).

## Good to know

- Check draft rows to work in bulk: the selection bar carries "Mark N reviewed" or "Launch N…", "Research", "Park" and a calendar button for "Timing for N drafts". See [Reviewing and launching](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/reviewing-and-launching.md).
- Under "Needs review", "Decide faster in Autopilot" opens the Decision Deck, where you approve, edit or skip the same drafts one card at a time; approvals land back under "Ready to launch". See [The deck](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/autopilot/the-deck.md).
- Beside Sequences, the Outreach area has "Tracker", every launched sequence as a card, and "Calendar", which opens In flight as a month. See [The tracker and calendar](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/the-tracker-and-calendar.md).
- The live list shows the 300 most recently active sequences; older ones are not listed there.
- Your own agent, connected over MCP, reads the same drafts and launched sequences and can prepare contact research for your approval. It never signs off, launches or sends a pitch. See [Agent scopes and limits](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/spot-and-agents/agent-scopes-and-limits.md).

## Related

- [Sequences](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/sequences.md): The sequence window is where you read a drafted pitch before you sign it off, and where you follow and edit it once it is sending. This article covers what the window shows and what each control does.
- [Reviewing and launching](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/reviewing-and-launching.md): Every drafted pitch waits for you twice: once under Needs review to read and sign off, once under Ready to launch to send. Nothing goes out until you launch it, or Spot or your agent does where you set "Emails and posts to publishers" to Apply at once.
- [Contacts and verification](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/contacts-and-verification.md): How sourcesignal finds the person to pitch at a cited page, what the source and verification labels beside an address mean, how you choose who gets the pitch, and the daily and monthly allowances that pace research.
- [Posts, replies and listings](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/outreach/posts-replies-and-listings.md): Replies, new posts, listings and profile claims drafted for the pages you promote. You post each one from your own account and mark it done with its link; nothing is posted for you.
- [Bulk actions and promoting to outreach](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/opportunities/bulk-actions-and-promoting-to-outreach.md): Check rows in the Opportunities table and the selection bar acts on all of them at once: promote them to outreach, find contacts, approve, park, reject, or rerun an AI step. Promoting creates drafts that wait for your approval; nothing sends.