Collision gate
27%
of checked companies stopped before outreach, 32 of them clients or former clients.
One of our clients got a full cold sequence.
Client relationships were spread across the CRM, mailboxes and contracts, and nothing could answer “may I write to this company?” I built the check: 9 sources in two layers, and when it is unsure, it blocks.
How it works
- Cheap check on everyonelist, CRM, mail by domainFrom: the suppression list, the CRM and mail history by domainTo: stopped early: client, declined, live thread
- I decide the batchafter qualification: go or no-go
- Deep check on every “go”full mail text, calendar, dealsFrom: mailboxes, calendar, deals, notes, tasks and the sending tool
- One verdict per companyonly “clean” may be contactedTo: clean: outreach may start
- Unsure means blockedan error counts as pendingTo: blocked, with the reason logged. Pending stops the run
What broke and what I changed
A client listed under a product name, without a domain, walked straight through.
Nothing could match it. Entries now carry a verified domain wherever one exists.
The gate counted unsent drafts as sent mail.
Only the Sent folder counts now.
A name-only match on a client was downgraded to “verify”, and clients slipped into a lead list.
Now a claim that a company is a client blocks even on a name match.
A generic word in a company name blocked companies by mistake.
The naive fix nearly removed the protection of another active client. The list now has a mutation test: change an entry on purpose, and the tests must fail.
Guardrails
Fail-closed.
An error, a refusal or a rate limit counts as “pending”, never as clean, and a pending run stops.
A zero counts only after a positive control.
The check must prove it can find something, so a broken connection cannot pass as “nothing found”.
Only a person can mark a company an active client.
Hand-corrected entries are never overwritten when the list is regenerated.
Missing a lead costs one email. Writing to a client costs the relationship.
When in doubt, it blocks.
Numbers
- 27%
- of checked companies stopped before outreach
- 32
- of them clients or former clients
- 9
- sources, in two layers: a cheap check on everyone, a deep check on every “go”
- Over a third
- of the companies in the weekly website-visitor report stopped before any email
The suppression list is marked incomplete on every run, because it never will be complete.