Send a Sequence of Emails | User Guide

Messages: Sequences

For the best chance at getting a response from your new contacts, it helps to reach out more than once. The easiest way is to use RocketReach Sequences to queue up and automatically send multiple email touches.

Key Takeaways

• Sequences are a useful tool for scaling up outreach by automating a series of 2 or more emails.
• Sequences act like a templated, repeatable workflow. Adding a new contact will kickoff the Sequence for that contact.
• You control the number of email touches and how many days to wait between email touches.
• "Set it and forget it" – managing emails is automatic:  sends per schedule, or cancels if the recipient responds to one of the email steps or if the email bounces.
• RocketReach sends follow up emails on weekdays only, during the recipient's daytime (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM).
• Daily email limits apply.

📑 In this article - click to jump to section:

• Video Demo
• Overview
• Instructions
• Technical Details
• FAQ & Tips

Video Demo

⏱️ Time:  2 minutes

Overview

Sending one email to your new contact might get you a reply. But in 2026 testing shows you should send 3 emails to maximize your overall results (sending 4 or more increases spam risk with without significantly increasing reply rates).

✅ Sequences make it easy to send the right emails at the right time, with the least effort possible.

Essentially, a Sequence is a series of email messages, powered with automations that handle sending the emails and monitoring for replies. Broadly:

1. Setup the Sequence once. You control how many emails are sent, the message content, and how long to wait between each email.
2. As you find contacts, add them to a Sequence to immediately send the first email.
3. If a recipient replies, or if an email bounces, RocketReach will track that result and automatically end the Sequence for that Contact.
4. Otherwise, the system waits and sends subsequent emails as scheduled in the Sequence.

💡 Pro Tip:  Targeted messages get more engagement. Create different Sequences with specific messaging points for each of your different audience personas.

More best practices and tips for success:  Follow Up Messages | User Guide

Instructions

Using RocketReach Sequences is not hard. However, for expert-level results, the detailed instructions below will guide you step by step through everything you need to do or know.

Before You Begin

For the most responses and efficient use of your time, we recommend you complete these three steps below before you jump into using Sequences.

1. Verify that your Gmail or Outlook mailbox is connected - Verify Mailbox Here or Learn More
   💡 BONUS TIPS:  How to Start Emailing (Collab with 30MPC)
2. Make a plan for segmenting relevant prospects or candidates - Search People Here or Learn More
   💡 BONUS TIPS:  How to Get More Replies (Collab with 30MPC)
3. Save email templates for better tracking & reusability - Save Templates Here or Learn More
    

Creating a New Sequence

The important part of making Sequence is planning your strategy for what you'll say and how to entice replies from busy people who don't know you. Actually building the Sequence in RocketReach takes just a couple minutes.

1. Navigate to Sequences from the left hand menu:
   
    
2. From the Sequences page, click "Create New Sequence" in the top right corner:
   
    
3. Set a Name for your internal reference, and set a Subject Line that will be shown to recipients. (All of the emails are sent threaded together in the same email chain, with the same subject line throughout.) Then click "Add Step" on the left:
   
    
4. Select a template to quickly populate the message or write a new one. (Note: If you select a template then make changes to the text, the changes will not save to the template.)
   
    
5. Click "Add Step" to create the next email message. This time, you also need to tell us how many weekdays to wait before sending this email. (Note: Days between sends is calculated on weekdays only.)
   
    

6. Click "Save as Draft" in order to save your progress. Continue adding steps as needed, then when you're done click "Save and Activate" to make the Sequence available for use:
   
    

   Need to make changes? That's ok! You can open the Sequence anytime to make edits. Learn More:  Managing an Active Sequence

You're now ready to start emailing your RocketReach contacts! Continue below for next steps.
 

Adding Contacts to a Sequence

Once a Sequence is "Active" you may add contacts to it to begin sending emails.

• From Search Results:
  Use the checkboxes (left side of the row) to select the desired contacts, then go to the 'Actions' menu (top of the results panel) and select 'Add to Sequence.'

• With Autopilot:
  After you have fully refined the search results using the filters, click the 'Start New Autopilot' button (bottom left corner) in order to simultaneously select contacts, lookup contact info, and add to sequence. Configure the Autopilot settings as desired, and in the last step pick the Sequence you would like to use.
  
  
  
  *Note: In the optional Message step, you can either send a one-off email message or add to Sequence for multi-step emailing.
• From the My Contacts Page:
  By default, all contacts are selected. To refine the selection, use the filters (click 'Show Filters' on the right side) or use the checkboxes. Then go to the 'Actions' menu (upper left) and select 'Add to Sequence.'

✅ When you add a contact to a sequence, the following happens immediately:

1. The first email is prepared to send. If you add to sequence during your recipient's daytime hours, the first email will send within a few minutes.
   • Except Weekends & Evenings:  The next available business day will be set as the send date because Sequences sends emails only on weekdays and only during the recipients approximate daytime hours. (For example, if it's late Friday evening and you add contacts to a sequence, the first email will be scheduled for Monday morning.)
     
     
   • Except Bulk:  If you bulk add many contacts at the same time, it may take a few minutes for all the first emails to send. (In order to protect your mailbox, we automatically space out at least 45 seconds between emails.)
2. All other emails in the sequence are queued. You can go to the Queued Emails page and confirm that the emails are scheduled for the future dates. You may also delete scheduled emails if desired.
3. A Tag is applied. A system-generated tag with the same name as the Sequence name will be applied to all contacts that are added to the Sequence. This tag allows you to easily filter to see or exclude these contacts; it cannot be removed.

📝 Special handling notes:

• Contacts can go through a given Sequence one time only. If a Contact is already in or was previously added to the selected Sequence, they will not be added again to the same Sequence. This helps prevent accidentally sending the same person the exact same messaging.
• Contacts are allowed to be in more than one Sequence simultaneously. We do not check whether Contacts have other queued emails. When relevant, please utilize the Contact Tags > Exclude search filter (and exclude Sequence Tags) to intentionally omit contacts who may be active in a different Sequence.
• If you have reached the 500/day Daily Email Limit, you will not be able to add Contacts to a Sequence. Please wait and try again later.

Managing an Active Sequence

If you need to make changes to an active Sequence or to Contacts in a Sequence, the info below outlines exactly what is possible and how to do it.

✏️ To edit a sequence step:

Find the appropriate Sequence, then click the 'Actions' button and select 'View & Edit.' When the next page loads, click on the desired step.

• You may change the ‘days between’ wait time before any step. Changes will apply to future contacts only.
• You may add a new step to expand the Sequence with an additional email touch. Going forward, any new contacts added to the Sequence will receive this email. Any contacts already in the Sequence will not receive this email.
• You may edit the message body for any step. Changes to message content will apply to any unsent (pending) emails as well as any contacts added going forward.
• You may edit the Subject of the Sequence. This change will apply immediately to all contacts currently active in the Sequence.

🗑️ To delete a sequence step:

If the Sequence is still in ’Draft’ state and has not been made ‘Active’ then you can delete a step to fully remove it.

• Deleting a step is permanent! Contents of a deleted step cannot be recovered.
• The first step cannot be deleted. Instead, please change the content of Email 1 (and subsequent steps) as needed.

If the Sequence has been made ‘Active’ – even if no Contacts have been added – then you cannot delete the step. But you can deactivate the step.

• Once you're on the desired step, look in the bottom right corner (below the message body content) for the option to "Deactivate Step."
• Deactivating a step applies only to new contacts; going forward, when you add contacts to the Sequence they will skip this step.
• Deactivating a step does not delete any related pending emails for contacts that were previously added to the Sequence. If necessary, go to the Queued Emails page and delete any emails that you don't want sent.
• A deactivated step will remain accessible within the Sequence edit area, and you may reactivate the step at any time.

🛑 To stop a sequence:

You may stop an active Sequence in order to cancel all unsent emails.
 

Technical Details

Feel free to skip over these detailed specs for now. The info is here and searchable in case you need it later.

👮‍♀️ Maximum Limits

• Maximum number of email steps: 50
• Maximum delay between email steps: 365 days
• Maximum number of emails sent per 24-hour period: 500
• Maximum number of Sequences: none

🚦 Statuses and What They Mean

All Contacts that have been added to a Sequence have an associated status, which you can check by opening the Sequence and clicking to the 'Contacts' tab:

• Active: Contact still has queued emails in this sequence.
• Completed: Contact has 0 remaining queued emails in this sequence.
• Replied: Contact has replied to any email in the sequence.
• Bounced: Contact has returned a Bounce from an email in this sequence.
• Stopped: You manually stopped this Contact and/or Sequence.

🕰️ When are Emails Sent

RocketReach automatically handles scheduling, sending, and canceling emails in a Sequence.

• First Email: When you add a contact to a Sequence, the first email is queued up to send as soon as possible. However, if you bulk add many contacts to a Sequence, it may take a few minutes (or hours) to finish sending all the emails.
• Weekdays Only: The days between email steps counts weekdays only (Monday to Friday). Follow ups will never send on weekends. The spacing will be at least the number of days you select because emails may queue and send later if you have reached the daily email limit (Learn More).
• Time of Day: The recipient's location is used to estimate their time zone, then the scheduled email is sent during weekdays during normal business hours (8:00 AM - 5:00 PM).
• Daily Email Limit:  Following the best practices established by major email service providers (ESP), this limit exists to help you stay in good standing with your ESP. If you reach the daily email limit, emails will temporarily stop sending. Emails will resume sending based on recipient weekday business hours and availability with your daily email limit. 

FAQ & Tips

❓ Do I need a plan or credits to use Sequences?

Sequences is available for all paid plans and all users with free trials, too. Adding contacts to a Sequence does not use credits. However, in order to add contacts to a Sequence, you must first use credits to access the contacts.

❓ I made a Sequence but I don't see it available to use.

Please verify that you have changed the Sequence from the "Draft" default to "Active" status. A Sequence must be made "Active" in order to see it in menus and add contacts.

❓ Which parts are handled automatically?

Once you add a contact to the Sequence, it will automatically schedule (queue) all of the emails. RocketReach will handle identifying the person's estimated time zone and automatically send the scheduled emails at the appropriate time. We will also monitor for any reply or bounce events and automatically stop sending any future emails.

❓ Can I set an email to send at a specific time?

No, RocketReach controls the specific timing so that there's less setup for you. In general, the first email will be sent within a few minutes of when you add the contact(s) to an active Sequence. Subsequent emails will be sent on weekdays during the recipient's daytime hours (8:00 AM - 5:00 PM in recipient's time zone)

❓ Can I cancel emails or skip emails for specific contacts?

Yes, you can manually delete any scheduled email in order to cancel or skip specific email touches. Go to Messages > Queued and find the desired email(s). From the 'Actions' button on the right, select 'Delete' and confirm.

❓ What happens if I hit the daily email limit?

Any queued emails will be held for the next day. Delayed emails will have priority over other scheduled emails. You cannot add more contacts to sequence than the available daily limit.

🔗 Additional FAQ available here: Messages FAQ

Additional Resources

How can I get more email replies? | Messages

Easily Send Personalized Emails with AI | Messages

Messages | User Guide