🚀 Autonomous Cold Email System

OpenClaw × Instantly.ai
Full Autonomous Outreach

Find leads with Apify. Research every website with OpenClaw. Write hyper-personalised emails with Claude. Send, follow-up, and close via Instantly.ai — all on autopilot.

50+
Leads/Day
3
Email Touches
0
Manual Hours
~$40
Monthly Cost
💡

What you're getting: The exact system I use and build for clients — every API connection, prompt, and config included. This replaces a $4,000/month SDR.

The Full Pipeline at a Glance

Seven stages. Zero humans in the loop. OpenClaw orchestrates every single one of them via API — from finding a stranger's name to booking a meeting in their calendar.

01
Lead Discovery — Apify Apify

OpenClaw triggers an Apify actor to scrape LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, or any target website. Returns name, company, title, website URL, LinkedIn URL, and email. Emails are instantly verified via NeverBounce or ZeroBounce API — only valid leads move forward.

02
Website Research — OpenClaw Browser OpenClaw

For every verified lead, OpenClaw opens their website in a headless browser. It scrapes: services offered, tone of voice, target customers, recent blog posts, case studies, pricing signals, and any pain points mentioned. This takes ~8 seconds per lead.

03
Hyper-Personalised Email Writing — Claude Claude AI

Claude receives the scraped website context + your service offer and writes 3 emails: a cold pitch that references their specific business, a follow-up that adds value based on their niche, and a soft close. Every email is unique — no merge tags, no templates.

04
Campaign Creation — Instantly.ai API Instantly

OpenClaw calls the Instantly API to create a new campaign, adds the lead with all 3 email steps pre-loaded, sets sending schedule, warmup settings, and daily limits. No browser. No manual upload. Instantly receives the full campaign payload in one API call.

05
Automated 3-Touch Sequence Fires Instantly

Instantly sends Email 1 on Day 1, Email 2 on Day 3, Email 3 on Day 7 — each uniquely written by Claude for this specific lead. Sending is throttled per inbox warmup level, auto-rotating from multiple sending accounts if configured.

06
Reply Detection & Routing — OpenClaw OpenClaw

OpenClaw polls the Instantly API for replies. Positive replies trigger a Telegram/WhatsApp notification to you + an automated warm reply with your booking link. Negative or "unsubscribe" replies auto-pause that lead. Out-of-office replies reschedule for 5 days later.

07
Hot Lead Escalation & CRM Logging Automation

3+ opens with no reply? OpenClaw moves the lead to a "hot list" and fires a different re-engagement sequence. Every interaction — opens, clicks, replies — gets logged to your CRM (Notion, Airtable, or HubSpot) with full context automatically.

Apify Lead Scraping Setup

Apify is the engine that fills your pipeline. OpenClaw calls Apify's API to trigger scraping actors — targeted searches that return verified, enriched lead data in JSON format.

🔗
LinkedIn Company Scraper

Scrapes LinkedIn by industry/location/size

🌐
Website Content Scraper

Full-page content extraction for personalisation

✉️
Email Hunter Actor

Finds verified emails from domain names

🗺️
Google Maps Business Scraper

Local business lead gen with contact info

// OpenClaw skill: trigger-apify-scrape
const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/
   ${ACTOR_ID}/runs`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Authorization':
      `Bearer ${APIFY_TOKEN}`
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    searchUrl: targetSearchUrl,
    maxResults: 50,
    verifyEmails: true
  })
});
JSON — Lead Output from Apify
{
  "name": "Sarah Mitchell",
  "title": "Founder & CEO",
  "company": "Clearpath Consulting",
  "email": "sarah@clearpathconsulting.com",
  "emailVerified": true,
  "website": "https://clearpathconsulting.com",
  "linkedIn": "linkedin.com/in/sarahmitchell",
  "industry": "B2B SaaS Consulting",
  "companySize": "2-10"
}

How OpenClaw Researches Every Lead

This is the part that makes recipients say "how did they know that?" OpenClaw browses each lead's website like a human researcher — in 8 seconds, not 30 minutes.

Core services & pricing signals

What they sell and at what level

Target customer language

Their words for their own audience

Pain points they address

Problems they solve for clients

Case studies & social proof

Results they're proud of

Brand tone & voice

Formal/casual, bold/conservative

Technology stack hints

Tools they mention or integrate with

OpenClaw Skill — website-research.md
# skill: website-research
# Triggered after lead is verified

Given this lead: {{lead}}

1. Open {{lead.website}} in browser
2. Navigate to: homepage, /about, /services, /case-studies
3. Extract and return JSON:
   - services: array of main offerings
   - targetCustomer: who they serve
   - painPoints: problems they address
   - tone: formal | casual | technical
   - keyPhrase: one memorable phrase from their site
   - recentFocus: latest blog topic or announcement

4. Pass output to: write-personalised-email skill

The 3-Email Sequence Claude Writes

Every email is written from scratch for every lead. Claude uses the website research to make your offer feel like it was built specifically for their business. Here's the structure — with a real example.

Day 1 Email 1 — The Personalised Cold Pitch
Day 3 Email 2 — The Value Follow-Up
Day 7 Email 3 — The Soft Close

Claude's personalisation prompt: Each email generation call includes the full website research JSON + your service description. Claude is instructed to blend your offer into their specific context — never use generic phrases like "I came across your company" or "I wanted to reach out."

OpenClaw → Instantly API Setup

OpenClaw controls Instantly entirely through its API. No browser, no manual campaign setup. Every action — creating campaigns, adding leads, managing replies — happens programmatically.

POST/campaigns/create — Create new campaign
POST/leads/add — Add lead to campaign
GET/leads/get-replies — Poll for replies
PATCH/leads/update — Update lead status
POST/leads/pause — Pause on unsubscribe
GET/analytics/campaigns — Fetch campaign stats
1.

Instantly.ai account (Growth plan or above for API access)

2.

At least 1 sending inbox warmed up for 14+ days

3.

API key from Instantly → Settings → Integrations

4.

SPF, DKIM, DMARC set up on your sending domain

5.

Daily sending limit: start at 20/day, scale after 2 weeks

JavaScript — OpenClaw: Create Campaign + Add Lead
// Step 1: Create campaign in Instantly
const campaign = await fetch(
  'https://api.instantly.ai/api/v1/campaign/create', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    api_key: INSTANTLY_API_KEY,
    name: `Outreach - ${lead.company} - ${today}`,
    daily_limit: 30,
    stop_on_reply: true,
    sequences: [{
      "steps": [
        { delay: 0, type: "email",
          subject: email1.subject,
          body: email1.body },
        { delay: 2, type: "email",
          subject: email2.subject,
          body: email2.body },
        { delay: 4, type: "email",
          subject: email3.subject,
          body: email3.body }
      ]
    }]
  })
});

const { id: campaignId } = await campaign.json();

// Step 2: Add verified lead to campaign
await fetch(
  'https://api.instantly.ai/api/v1/lead/add', {
  method: 'POST',
  body: JSON.stringify({
    api_key: INSTANTLY_API_KEY,
    campaign_id: campaignId,
    leads: [{
      email: lead.email,
      first_name: lead.firstName,
      company_name: lead.company
    }]
  })
});

Step-by-Step: Get Running in 2 Hours

1
Install OpenClaw & verify it's running
npm install -g openclaw
openclaw init
openclaw status  # should show: ✓ Gateway running
2
Add your API keys to OpenClaw config
# .openclaw/config.env
INSTANTLY_API_KEY=your_instantly_key
APIFY_TOKEN=your_apify_token
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_claude_key
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_bot_token
NEVERBOUNCE_KEY=your_verify_key
3
Install the 4 core skills
openclaw skill add apify-lead-scraper
openclaw skill add website-researcher
openclaw skill add email-writer
openclaw skill add instantly-campaign-manager
4
Write your service context file

Create my-offer.md in your OpenClaw root — Claude reads this when writing every email.

# my-offer.md — Claude reads this for every email

## What I Do
I build autonomous AI outreach systems using OpenClaw +
Instantly.ai. My clients stop doing cold email manually
and start booking 15-20 extra calls per month on autopilot.

## Who I Help
Founders, agencies, and sales teams who have a proven offer
but limited bandwidth for outbound. Usually doing less than
$30K/month and want to scale without hiring.

## Key Outcomes
- 50+ verified leads per day, automatically
- 3-email personalised sequences, zero templates
- 20+ booked calls per month added to pipeline
- Full setup in under 2 hours

## Tone
Direct, confident, no hype. Peer-to-peer — not a sales pitch.
5
Run your first campaign from Telegram
# Message your OpenClaw bot on Telegram:

"Aria, find 50 B2B SaaS founders in the UK
with 2-10 employees, scrape their websites,
write personalised emails and launch the
Instantly campaign"

# OpenClaw executes the full pipeline automatically.
# You'll get a Telegram notification when it's done.
6
Set up reply monitoring (runs every 30 min)
# Add to OpenClaw scheduler
openclaw schedule add \
  --skill check-replies \
  --cron "*/30 * * * *" \
  --notify telegram

# On positive reply, OpenClaw sends:
"🔥 Hot reply from Sarah @ Clearpath.
They said: 'Interested, when are you free?'
→ Auto-reply sent with your Calendly link."

What Else You Can Automate

🌡️
Hot Lead Escalation

3+ email opens with no reply = OpenClaw moves them to a "warm" bucket and fires a LinkedIn connection request + different sequence automatically.

📅
Auto Calendly Drop

Positive reply detected → Claude writes a personalised response + your booking link. Sent within 60 seconds of their reply, while you're asleep.

🔄
Out-of-Office Rescheduler

OOO detected → sequence automatically pauses and resumes 5 business days after the return date mentioned in the auto-reply.

📊
Daily Performance Report

Every morning at 8am, OpenClaw sends a Telegram summary: emails sent, open rate, reply rate, calls booked — pulled live from the Instantly API.

🎯
A/B Subject Line Testing

Claude generates 2 subject line variants. Instantly splits the campaign 50/50. OpenClaw monitors open rates and pauses the losing variant after 48 hours.

🏢
CRM Auto-Logging

Every lead, every email sent, every open, every reply — logged automatically to Notion, Airtable, or HubSpot via API. Full audit trail with zero manual input.

Common Issues & Fixes

Issue
Instantly API returning 401 Unauthorized

Fix: Use the API key from Instantly → Settings → Integrations → API Key. Pass as query param: ?api_key=YOUR_KEY — not as a Bearer token.

Issue
Emails going to spam

Fix: Warm up your inbox for 14+ days before sending cold emails. Keep daily volume under 30 for the first 2 weeks. Verify SPF/DKIM/DMARC at mxtoolbox.com.

Issue
Apify returning no leads

Fix: Check your Apify quota (free = 5 USD credits). Broaden your search URL filters. For LinkedIn scraping, ensure your search URL returns results when opened manually first.

Issue
Claude emails sounding generic

Fix: Improve your my-offer.md context file. Add: specific client results with numbers, your tone preferences, and example sentences you like. The richer the context, the more personalised the output.

🦞

You Just Got the Full Blueprint

Want Me to Build This for You?

I set up this entire system — OpenClaw, Apify, Instantly, email sequences, reply automation — for founders and agencies. Custom ICP, custom sequences, live in under 2 hours. You show up to the calls.

💬 WhatsApp Me to Get Started 📞 Book a Free 40-Min Intro Call

📱 WhatsApp: +91 82105 90067  |  Book a free 40-min intro call