Onboarding flow: screen by screen

The user will see the following screens before seeing the platform dashboard.

What's Working?

1. Clear Value Proposition on Landing Page

• Messaging like "Convert Cold Emails To Consistent Revenue" and “Unlimited cold emailing at scale with AI Warmups” hits the pain point and benefit clearly.
• The visual flow (email ➝ reply ➝ meetings ➝ deal value) makes the outcome feel tangible.

2. Low Friction Signup

• Minimal fields on the signup form (name, email, company URL) make it fast to get started.
• “Magic link” login method adds a touch of modernity and security while avoiding password fatigue.

3. Clean UI and Progressive Disclosure

• The dashboard (campaign list view) is intuitive, with metrics like “Sent”, “Opened”, “Positive Replies” laid out clearly.
• Tabs like “Smart Delivery”, “SmartServers”, and “Master Inbox” are visible early, showing advanced capabilities without overwhelming upfront.

What's Not Working?

1. No Personalization for ICP Type

• The onboarding doesn’t adapt based on whether someone is a freelancer, SaaS founder, or agency. That’s a missed opportunity for context-relevant guidance.

2. Weak Activation Guidance

• There’s no onboarding walkthrough or tooltip guiding users to key actions like:
• • Connecting email accounts
  • Creating their first sequence
  • Setting up warmup
• New users may feel lost after landing on the dashboard.

3. “Where Did You Find Us” Feels Disconnected

• The dropdown is a good idea, but its placement and style make it feel like a formality vs. a discovery lever.
• It also doesn’t lead into tailored onboarding or messaging logic.

Suggested Improvements

Aha Moment

Right now, Smartlead users experience an Aha moment when they see positive results from a campaign that has been launched.

Example -

Users seeing positive results in reports or per campaign share their wins across channels, with friends, or the Smartlead Slack community.

Cognitive Biases

What is Smartlead.ai?

Smartlead.ai is an AI-powered cold email outreach platform that helps marketers, sales teams, lead generation agencies, and founders scale email campaigns without hitting spam folders.

It allows users to:

• Send unlimited cold emails using multiple mailboxes
• Automatically rotate inboxes and manage warmups
• Personalize messages at scale
• Track replies, positive responses, and performance metrics
• Seamlessly integrate with CRMs and tools like Zapier

In short, it’s your complete infrastructure to run deliverability-optimized, high-volume cold email campaigns — all in one place.

What is Smartlead’s Value Proposition?

For lead gen agencies, marketers, and founders who need to scale cold outreach and consistently land in the inbox, Smartlead is the cold email automation platform that ensures high deliverability, personalization at scale, and complete campaign control — powered by tools like SmartDelivery, SmartSenders, and SmartServers.

Unlike generic outreach tools, Smartlead helps you avoid spam folders, manage unlimited mailboxes, and turn cold emails into actual revenue — on autopilot.

Who is Signing up? - ICP

ICP Prioritization

Prioritization Ranking

1. 🥇 ICP 1: Kevin Morales (Lead Gen Agency Owner)
2. • ✅ High-frequency user
   • ✅ High appetite to pay
   • ✅ High distribution potential
   • 🚀 Best balance of adoption, revenue, and network growth.
3. 🥈 ICP 2: Priya Desai (SaaS Founder)
4. • ✅ High-paying potential
   • ❗ Slower adoption and lower frequency than agencies.
   • 🚀 Good LTV long-term but slower ramp-up.
5. 🥉 ICP 3: Lisa Tran (Freelance Digital Marketer)
6. • ✅ Fast adopter
   • ❗ Lower revenue per user and lower network effects.
   • 🚀 Good for volume play at a later stage, but not top priority now.

What are they trying to do? - Customer Journey

What is the job that users are hiring your product to do? - Goals

Primary - Functional

Secondary - Financial

What is the job that users are hiring your product to do? - Goals

Primary 🎯 - Functional

Secondary 🎯 - Financial

1. Task-Oriented:
   Users sign up to launch cold email campaigns, connect mailboxes, and track replies — they’re looking for specific outcomes like meetings booked or reply rates.
2. Outcome-Focused:
   The expected outcome is clear: get more replies, avoid spam folders, and convert leads into customers.
3. Relevance to Smartlead:
   Smartlead’s value lies in helping users hit those goals with:
4. • Connecting unlimited mailboxes
   • AI warmups and SmartDelivery
   • Inbox rotation and smart scheduling
   • A unified campaign dashboard
5. User-Centric:
   ICPs like agency owners and SaaS founders care about efficiency, scalability, and ROI from outreach — Smartlead delivers on those exact outcomes.

Hypothesis:

Breakdown:

• User connects their first mailbox within 4 hours
• • Does it impact the retention curve? - Yes
  • Does it increase referrals or WOM? - Not Really
  • Does it improve LTV? - Indirect
• User sets up the first cold email campaign within 7 hours
• • Does it impact the retention curve? - Yes
  • Does it increase referrals or WOM? - Slightly
  • Does it improve LTV? - Yes
• First positive reply received within a day
• • Does it impact the retention curve? - Yes
  • Does it increase referrals or WOM? - Yes
  • Does it improve LTV? - Yes
• User setting 7 or more campaigns within 7 days
• • Does it impact the retention curve? - Yes
  • Does it increase referrals or WOM? - Yes
  • Does it improve LTV? - Yes

Activation Metric for Smartlead

D1, D7, and D30 retention

Crucial to measure if users are returning after initial setup (e.g. mailbox connect, campaign send). For Smartlead, D7 retention is especially valuable, since campaign setup might not happen on Day 1.

Subscription Rate vs Retention

Tells you if activated users are retaining AND monetizing. Smartlead should track free-to-paid conversion after 14-day trial and how long they stay after.

User Cohorts

Critical. Segment users by ICP type, acquisition source, and activity. For example, “Users from LinkedIn Ads vs Referrals” or “Freelancer vs Agency Owner”.

Acquisition Source

Ties directly to the quality of activation. Users from communities may activate better than from cold ads.

Product Reviews

Helps you understand the user's frustration, work on the real problem inside the platform.

% of users connecting mailbox

Foundational activation step. No mailbox = no campaign.

% of users launching first campaign

Moment of value realization (campaign running).