Quickstart

This guide walks you through the full path from an empty workspace to a live sequence. Each step links to a page with more detail. Expect the longest step to be warm-up: Outlook inboxes are ready in days, Google Workspace and private SMTP inboxes take weeks.

1. Create a workspace

Start by creating a workspace. If you're an agency, create one workspace per client so each client's domains, inboxes, leads and replies stay isolated. Invite teammates and give clients view-only access if they need it. See Workspaces and roles.

2. Connect a sending domain

Connect the domain you'll send from. Use a secondary domain rather than your main company domain, so cold outreach can't affect the reputation of your day-to-day email.

As soon as the domain is connected, Zylar checks:

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC
• a custom tracking domain
• MX

If anything is missing or wrong, Zylar tells you what to fix and gives you the record to paste into your DNS provider. Add the records, then let Zylar re-check. See Connect a domain.

Free SPF / DKIM / DMARC checkerCheck any domain in seconds. No signup.Check now

3. Add inboxes

Add the inboxes that will send for that domain. You can connect:

• Gmail (Google Workspace and personal accounts) with Google OAuth
• Outlook (Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com) with OAuth
• Any SMTP/IMAP inbox

To add hundreds at once, bulk connect by CSV or OAuth. Inboxes are unlimited on every plan. If you'd rather not source inboxes yourself, inboxes through Maildeck are available as an add-on.

For how many inboxes you need for your target volume, see How many inboxes do you need for cold email?.

4. Let warm-up run

Warm-up starts automatically when you connect an inbox and ramps until the inbox is ready for cold sends. How long depends on the inbox type: about 10–14 days for Outlook tenants (3–7 days minimum), 15–25 days for Google Workspace and 4–6 weeks for private SMTP. Zylar sends warm-up emails through a private pool of real inboxes, which open, reply and mark them "not spam". Warm-up is free and never counts toward your monthly sends.

You don't need to configure anything here. Each inbox's status shows warming while it ramps. See Warm-up.

5. Set daily limits

Set a daily limit per inbox. Zylar raises limits gradually and spreads sending across inboxes with random gaps and time-zone windows. See Sending and rotation.

6. Build a sequence

Create a sequence with up to 10 steps. For each step:

• Write the copy yourself or have AI write it.
• Add delays between steps, in days or hours.
• Personalize with any CSV column as a variable, with fallbacks.
• Optionally add up to 3 variants (A/B/C) to test subjects and bodies. Zylar promotes the winner automatically once it leads on replies.

Every sequence stops for a lead the moment they reply, bounce or unsubscribe. See Sequences.

7. Add leads

Add leads to the sequence, either by upload or through the API (up to 1,000 per request). Duplicates and blocklisted addresses are skipped and reported. Verify addresses with your included EmailShield verification credits and enrich them with LeadSonar before you send. See Leads.

8. Launch and monitor

Launch the sequence. From there:

• Replies land in the Unibox, labelled by intent.
• Zylar runs placement tests per domain for Gmail and Outlook and updates each inbox's health score daily.
• If a domain's placement drops below your threshold, Zylar auto-pauses it, moves its volume to healthy domains and puts it back on warm-up. See Monitoring and auto-pause.

9. Connect your tools (optional)

Push interested leads to HubSpot, post replies and alerts to Slack, or wire events into Zapier, Make or your own systems with webhooks. See Integrations.

Before you launch: checklist

For a fuller pre-launch list, see the cold email infrastructure checklist.