--- title: Email Outreach from the Portal description: "Table of contents - [Before you Start: Understand Your Email Limits](#0-toc-title) - [Opening the Email Composer](#1-toc-title) - [What's in the Composer](#2-toc-title) - [Placeholder Tokens](#3-toc-title) - [How Emails Are Delivered](#4-toc-title) - [Scheduling Emails for Later](#5-toc-title) - [Tracking & Email History](#6-toc-title) -…" url: "https://dotleadscout.com/docs/email-outreach-from-the-portal/" updated: "2026-06-02" category: Outreach Tools --- # Email Outreach from the Portal Table of contents - [Before you Start: Understand Your Email Limits](#0-toc-title) - [Opening the Email Composer](#1-toc-title) - [What's in the Composer](#2-toc-title) - [Placeholder Tokens](#3-toc-title) - [How Emails Are Delivered](#4-toc-title) - [Scheduling Emails for Later](#5-toc-title) - [Tracking & Email History](#6-toc-title) - [Common Issues](#7-toc-title) ## Before you Start: Understand Your Email Limits Your personal email account has daily sending limits that exist to stop spam — and they apply to you whether you know it or not. A free Gmail account is capped at 500 emails in a rolling 24-hour period, but the number that actually matters is much lower. Google watches for sudden spikes in volume, batches of near-identical messages, and bounced or flagged emails, and it can temporarily lock an account well below the official cap — sometimes after just a few dozen sends. If that happens, you can lose access to your inbox for hours or days, which means losing the email you rely on for everything, not just outreach. The safe approach is to treat outreach like a real conversation, not a broadcast. Send a modest number of personalized emails each day rather than blasting a large list all at once, and space them out instead of firing them off back-to-back. For cold outreach specifically, staying under roughly 30–50 emails per day from a single account is the industry rule of thumb, and a brand-new account should start even lower and ramp up gradually over a week or two. If you plan to do higher-volume outreach, consider using a dedicated email address — never your primary personal inbox — so that an unexpected lockout doesn’t take down the account you depend on every day. Engage+ DOT Lead Scout has a built-in email composer for reaching out to carriers without leaving the portal. Emails go out through Postmark, appear to come from your name, and route any replies back to your real inbox — so the carrier responds to you, not us. ## Opening the Email Composer The composer can be opened from three places in the portal: ##### From the lead detail panel Click the **Email** button in the panel header to open the composer pre-filled with the carrier's email address. ##### From the call modal While on a call, switch to the **Email** tab to send a follow-up message without closing the call window. ##### From the map view Click any marker, then click the **Email** icon in the popup to compose without opening the full panel. ## What's in the Composer | Field | Behavior | | --- | --- | | To | Auto-filled with the carrier's FMCSA email. Read-only. | | Subject | Free text. Supports placeholder tokens (see below). | | Template | Dropdown to load a pre-built email template. | | Body | Multi-line message. Supports placeholder tokens. | | Include Rate Sheet | Toggle to append a public rate-sheet link to the email body. Requires an active rate sheet. | | Schedule for later | Toggle to send the message as a reminder to your own inbox at a future date. | ## Placeholder Tokens Subject and body fields auto-replace placeholder tokens with real values when the email is sent. Use these tokens in your own messages or in custom templates: | Token | Replaced with | | --- | --- | | `{name}` | Your name (from your profile) | | `{clinic}` | Your primary clinic name | | `{phone}` | Your clinic phone number | | `{price}` | Your DOT exam price | | `{mc_owner_name}` | The carrier's officer/owner name | | `{mc_company_name}` | The carrier's legal name | ##### Tokens resolve at send time If you change your profile or the lead's data later, the tokens still resolve correctly when the email actually goes out. What you see in the composer is the raw token; what the carrier sees is the resolved value. ## How Emails Are Delivered All outbound email goes through **Postmark**, a transactional email service with strong deliverability. Each message is sent with these settings: - **From:** *Your Name via DOT Lead Scout* - **Reply-To:** Your real email address — replies come back to you, not to us - **Open tracking:** Enabled by default - **Link tracking:** Enabled for HTML and plain-text links - **Tag:** Tagged `lead-email` for analytics ##### Why we use a shared sending domain Sending from `messages@dotleadscout.com` lets us maintain strong domain reputation across all users. Replies still go to your real inbox via Reply-To, so the carrier's response lands with you. If you want emails to send *directly from your own domain*, that's a feature on the roadmap. ## Scheduling Emails for Later ##### Important: scheduling is a reminder system When you schedule an email, it does **not** send automatically. Instead, at the scheduled time you receive an email *to your own inbox* with the pre-written message and one-click buttons to send via Gmail, Outlook, or your default email app. You stay in control of every send. ### Why we built it this way - **You stay in control** — review and edit before sending, or skip if circumstances change - **The email lands in the carrier's inbox from your real address**, not from a marketing system - **No surprise sends** if you change your mind or the lead converts before the follow-up date ### Best times to schedule ##### Tuesday-Thursday mornings Response rates are highest on Tuesday through Thursday between 9 and 11 AM local time. Avoid Mondays (everyone is catching up) and Fridays (everyone is winding down). ## Tracking & Email History Every sent email is logged on the lead's detail panel. The composer also shows the email history for the current lead so you can see what you've already sent. - **Sent emails** appear in the lead's Activity tab with subject, date, and tracking status - **Scheduled emails** appear with a clock icon and can be edited or cancelled before they fire - **Opens and clicks** are tracked via Postmark and feed into the lead's engagement signals ## Common Issues ##### Lead has no email on file Some carriers don't list an email with FMCSA. The composer shows an error in this case. Try the SAFER lookup or a quick Google search for the carrier's website to find an alternate address. ##### Carrier marks email as spam If a carrier replies with "unsubscribe" or marks our email as spam, future Postmark sends to that address may bounce. Switch to a phone call for those leads.