u/ZackDeris

Everyone's focused on the database and sequences but IMO the stuff that actually keeps outbound running consistently sits underneath all of that and most people either skip it or set it up wrong.

Workflows

Trigger-based plays that run without you touching anything. Prospect opens your email three times without replying so they move to a high-intent call sequence automatically. Someone visits your pricing page so rep gets a Slack alert. Contact changes jobs so Apollo flags it and updates the record.

The mistake I see constantly: people automate before their sequences are proven. Workflows amplify what's working. If the sequence is still being tested, automating it just scales the problem. Get it converting first, then build the workflow around it.

One worth setting up on day one: auto-exclude existing customers and open opportunities from cold outreach.

Tasks

Apollo surfaces a prioritised daily task queue: calls to make, LinkedIn messages to send, emails to review, follow-ups due. Ordered by AI prospect score so the highest-value actions are always first.

Start every day in Tasks, not the search tab. Everything Apollo thinks you should act on is already there waiting. Letting the backlog pile up kills sequence deliverability and reply rates...the prioritisation only works if you follow through on it.

Email Deliverability

The one that causes the most damage when it's wrong and gets the least attention until something gets messed up.

Apollo handles the whole setup inside the platform: dedicated sending domains, mailbox connection, automatic warmup, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, inbox placement monitoring in real time.

Start warmup 2-3 weeks before your first send. Spam filters don't forgive cold domains and recovery takes weeks. I've watched good campaigns die before they started because someone skipped this step and launched from a cold domain on day one.

Check your Deliverability Score before launching anything. It's in the platform and it'll tell you if something is off before it becomes a real problem.

Dialer

Calls made and received directly inside Apollo. Power Dialer queues one by one. Parallel Dialer dials up to 5 simultaneously. Every call recorded, transcribed, summarised by AI, and logged automatically.

Before any high-value call, use AI Call Prep...Apollo surfaces account news, recent activity, and talking points before you dial. Reps who do this consistently close more than reps going in cold.

Save Parallel Dialing for cold tier-2 lists. Your highest-intent pipeline deserves actual conversation time.

Questions?? drop them in the comments.

Hey Reddit. I recently recorded a full Apollo X Claude walkthrough on YouTube and wanted to share the TLDR here. Here's the short version with the actual prompts.

Setup takes 2 minutes if you haven't done it. Claude.ai > left menu > Customize (third icon) > Connectors > plus > search Apollo > authorize. After connecting, check that Organization, Search, Enrichment, and Job Postings are all enabled -- I've done this for a bunch of clients and those three are sometimes off by default.

First prompt I ran:

Find me 25 Creator Managers at AI companies in the USA with up to 300 employees.

Results came back in seconds without me touching Apollo once. First pull wasn't clean though…multiple leads from the same company, some missing verified emails and phone numbers. Typed this right after:

Give me one result per company. Verified emails only, phone numbers must be available. Search again for the top 25.

Fixed immediately. Then enriched all 25 at once, ran simultaneously, took about a minute. Uses 25 credits and the basic plan comes with 30k so not worth overthinking.

From there:

Save all of these leads to my people leads list on Apollo titled Creator Managers pulled from Claude.

23 of 25 saved, two caught as duplicates and skipped. Then:

Push every lead in the Creator Managers pulled from Claude list to my active sequence titled Creator Campaign 2026.

22 of 23 enrolled. One skipped because it was already active in a different campaign but it was caught automatically without me having to check.

Full loop in one conversation which is crazy…rospecting, enrichment, CRM, sequencing, and I never opened once Apollo.

One thing that didn't go as planned though…I tried getting Claude to build a recurring weekly workflow, find net new leads every Monday and enroll them automatically. Claude can't schedule recurring workflows inside Apollo natively and suggested n8n instead, which wasn't what I wanted.

Took the exact same prompt and pasted it into Apollo's AI Assistant instead and built the whole workflow in about 30 seconds, scheduled for every Monday, enrichment and enrollment included. That part lives in Apollo not Claude.

Full video with the screen recording on my YouTube if you want to see it run in real time - here’s the link. Drop your questions below!

Apollo has 230M contacts and over 65 filters, but most people are still pulling lists they'd never send to! After 400+ Apollo implementations the issue is almost never the data, it's moreso how you’re searching it.

People Search

Technologies Used is the most underused filter in Apollo. If your prospects are already running a specific tool, you know their stack, you know the gaps, and your outreach has a natural hook before you've written a word.

A search worth running: VP of Sales, Series B SaaS, using HubSpot, hired in the last 90 days. That last filter is the one people miss. Someone new in a role is evaluating everything their predecessor set up and hasn't committed to anything yet.

Most searches fail before they start because people skip Persona setup. Go to Settings and build your saved ICP filter first -- titles, seniority, industries, company sizes, keywords. Without it every search is a fresh guess. With it you're layering signals on top of a defined target.

Company Search

The company list is the starting point, not the deliverable. Drill into each account, find the contacts, map who buys, who champions, and who blocks. Building a company list and blasting the first person you find is how you waste a good account.

Lookalike Accounts is worth using more too. Pick your three best current customers, run Lookalike, and Apollo surfaces companies with matching firmographics. That list outperforms a manually researched one most of the time because it's modelled on companies that already bought from you.

Lead Lists and Saved Searches

Save a search as a live list and it auto-updates. New hires match your title filter, new funding rounds hit your stage criteria, intent signals change -- the list captures all of it without you going back in manually.

Separate lists for tier-1 and tier-2, treated completely differently. Tier-1 gets research and personalisation. Tier-2 goes into a sequence. Running every contact through the same motion regardless of fit is one of the most expensive habits in outbound.

A setup worth building: ICP search saved as a live list, auto-enrich new matches weekly, auto-add to sequence. New ICP contacts hitting your outreach every Monday with nothing manual after the initial setup.

Sequences

Two things that separate teams getting results from teams wondering why nothing's working:

Weekly sequence reviews. Check which step, which subject line, and which persona is converting. Analytics > Sequences, sort by reply rate. Your best sequence becomes the template. Teams that do this consistently beat teams that don't, without exception.

Domain warmup before anything goes live. Dedicated sending domain, SPF/DKIM/DMARC configured, warmup running 2-3 weeks minimum before the first send. Apollo handles all of it inside the Deliverability Suite. A cold domain hitting spam on day one can take weeks to recover and kills the campaign before it starts.

If you’re having a hard time getting your searches set up I’d be happy to give tips.

Apollo released their ChatGPT app this month and I've been using it to replace my entire outbound workflow. Already had a lot of success for our clients so wanted to share it with y'all on this sub. Important note before you start reading: We run an agency that implements inbound/outbound workflows for clients using Apollo. Some of our clients leverage Claude, some leverage ChatGPT. Therefore, we had to build instruction manuals for both. If you're not a ChatGPT user, [click here] to read the reddit thread I published on the Claude <> Apollo MCP.

Setup if you haven't done it: ChatGPT Settings > Connectors > search Apollo > connect and authorize. Under 2 minutes.

One thing worth knowing before you start: in a new ChatGPT conversation, begin prompts with "Use Apollo to..." until you confirm the connector is active. After that it routes automatically.

Prospecting and Discovery (all free, no credits)

Find ICP leads by title, industry, location, company size:

Use Apollo to find me [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at [INDUSTRY] companies in [LOCATION] with [EMPLOYEE RANGE] employees.

Find leads at companies using a specific tech stack:

Use Apollo to find me [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at companies currently using [TECH TOOL] in [LOCATION] with [EMPLOYEE RANGE] employees.

Find leads at recently funded companies:

Use Apollo to find me [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at [INDUSTRY] companies in [LOCATION] that have raised funding in the last [NUMBER] months.

Find decision makers at named target accounts:

Use Apollo to find the key decision makers at: [COMPANY 1], [COMPANY 2], [COMPANY 3]. I am looking for [JOB TITLE] level contacts.

Find leads at companies actively hiring:

Use Apollo to find me [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at [INDUSTRY] companies in [LOCATION] that are currently hiring for [HIRING ROLE].

Enrichment (these use Apollo credits)

Enrich a single contact:

Use Apollo to enrich [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] at [COMPANY NAME] and give me their verified email, phone number, job title, and LinkedIn URL.

Bulk enrich a list (up to 10 at once):

Use Apollo to enrich the following contacts: [NAME 1] at [COMPANY], [NAME 2] at [COMPANY]. Return verified emails, phone numbers, and job titles.

Enrich a full company profile:

Use Apollo to give me a full company enrichment for [COMPANY NAME] including tech stack, funding history, headcount, and latest news.

Get job postings at a target account:

Use Apollo to show me the current job postings at [COMPANY NAME] and what they reveal about where this company is investing.

CRM Actions (all free)

Create a new contact record:

Use Apollo to create a new contact: Name: [NAME], Email: [EMAIL], Job Title: [TITLE], Company: [COMPANY], Location: [LOCATION].

Update an existing contact:

Use Apollo to update the contact record for [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] at [COMPANY]. Change their [FIELD] to [NEW VALUE].

Look up a contact in your CRM:

Use Apollo to search my contacts for [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] at [COMPANY] and show me their full contact record.

Sequence Management (all free)

Show all active sequences and stats:

Use Apollo to show me all my active sequences including names, number of contacts, open rates, and reply rates.

Find the right sequence for a specific ICP:

Use Apollo to show me which of my sequences is most suitable for [ICP DESCRIPTION]. Include steps and performance data.

Add a contact to a sequence:

Use Apollo to add [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] at [COMPANY] to my [SEQUENCE NAME] sequence using my [EMAIL ADDRESS] mailbox.

Remove a contact from a sequence:

Use Apollo to remove [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] at [COMPANY] from my [SEQUENCE NAME] sequence.

Check who is in a sequence:

Use Apollo to show me all contacts currently active in my [SEQUENCE NAME] sequence -- name, email, title, company, and current step.

Full Workflow Prompts

The full outbound loop in one prompt:

Run a full outbound workflow using Apollo: Step 1. Find [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at [INDUSTRY] companies in [LOCATION]. Step 2. Enrich the top [NUMBER]. Step 3. Create a contact record for each. Step 4. Add each to my [SEQUENCE NAME] sequence using my [EMAIL ADDRESS] mailbox.

Account research brief before a sales call:

Use Apollo to build me a full account research brief for [COMPANY NAME] -- overview, tech stack, funding, job postings, decision makers, and anything useful before a sales call.

New market entry:

Step 1. Use Apollo to find [NUMBER] [JOB TITLE] at [NEW INDUSTRY] companies in [LOCATION]. Step 2. Enrich the top [NUMBER]. Step 3. Give me a summary of patterns worth knowing before I start outreach.

Re-engagement of cold contacts:

Use Apollo to search my contacts for [JOB TITLE] in [INDUSTRY] with no activity in the last [NUMBER] days and not in any active sequence. Give me the best re-engagement opportunities.

A few things that make a difference:

Always paste a quick context brief at the start of each session before running any prompts:

Before we begin, here is context about my outbound: ICP: [describe your ideal customer] Product: [what you sell and the problem it solves] Active sequences: [name your main sequences] Territory: [geographic or vertical focus]

ChatGPT performs noticeably better when it understands who you are targeting before it starts executing.

Run the sequence audit prompt before adding anyone new to avoid duplicate outreach. Sequence names need to match exactly what's in Apollo -- one character off and it won't find it.

Questions on any of these, drop them below.