How to keep existing customers out of cold outreach
Short answer
Check every list against your CRM before sending: remove contacts and company domains in customer and open-deal stages, everyone on your Do Not Contact list, and people already contacted elsewhere. Repeat the check at launch, because the CRM changes while a list waits.
In short
- Suppress by company domain, not only by email address, so colleagues of a customer are excluded too.
- Include open deals: a cold email to someone your account executive is negotiating with does damage.
- Re-check at launch, and stop running campaigns when someone becomes a customer.
- Replies such as 'we already work with you' should add the whole company to Do Not Contact.
Last checked:
What to exclude
- Customers: contacts and company domains in your customer lifecycle stage or with a closed-won deal.
- Open deals: contacts on any open deal, whatever the stage.
- Do Not Contact: everyone who opted out, on every channel.
- Already reached: people in another list or campaign, so nobody gets two sequences.
When to check
- When the list is built, before anything is revealed or paid for.
- Again at launch, because the CRM may have changed.
- Continuously while campaigns run, so a new customer is stopped mid-sequence.
How TechSales does it
With HubSpot connected, Exclude existing HubSpot contacts imports contacts and company domains from the lifecycle stages you choose and from open deals into Do Not Contact every night; newly found customers are also stopped in running campaigns. Do Not Contact is checked before an Apollo reveal is charged, applied again at launch and pushed to Instantly and Smartlead block lists. A reply saying you already work together adds the company and its domain. See HubSpot integration.
Frequently asked questions
- Is email-only suppression enough?
- No. A new contact at a customer company has a different email; suppressing the domain catches them.
- What about partners and competitors?
- Add their domains to Do Not Contact as you would a customer's.
- Does this work without HubSpot?
- Yes. You can import Do Not Contact entries by CSV or paste: emails, domains, companies or LinkedIn profiles.
See it on your own market
Access is invite only and starts with a demo call. We walk through TechSales on your own list and tools.