By the end of this guide, you'll know how to navigate the centralized Contacts section, filter and organize contacts, edit contact information, use lifecycle statuses, perform bulk actions, and leverage the company panel for efficient lead management.

The Contacts section is your centralized CRM hub in lemlist. Instead of managing leads scattered across individual campaigns, you can view all contacts in one place, track their lifecycle status across your entire sales process, enrich missing data, and push contacts to campaigns as needed. This centralization prevents duplicate outreach, maintains clean data, and gives your team a unified view of all prospects and customers.

Before you start:

Contact: A person stored in your lemlist CRM. This represents the actual individual with their core information (name, email, company, LinkedIn profile). A contact exists once in your database regardless of how many campaigns they're in.

Lead: An instance of a contact within a specific campaign. The same contact can be a lead in multiple campaigns. Leads contain campaign-specific information like "Reason to Outreach" or time-based data relevant to that particular campaign.

Example: François Lejeune is a Contact stored in the Contacts section. If François is added to three different campaigns, he becomes three separate Leads—but there's still only one François Lejeune contact with unified data.

💡 Why this matters: Edit François's company name in the Contacts section and it updates across all campaigns. But campaign-specific variables (like custom icebreakers) remain unique to each lead instance.

Step 1: Access Contacts

From the left sidebar, click Contacts. The main Contacts view displays all contacts in your lemlist database.

Step 2: View contact information

Contacts display in a table with columns:

Scroll horizontally to see additional columns. To view or edit a specific contact’s details, click the contact to open the right-side contact panel.

Step 3: Create custom lists

Click the "+" (new tab) at the top, then click New contact list to create a new list view.

In the Contact lists view, create filtered lists for specific segments (e.g., "Tech Companies," "Engaged Leads"). Lists help organize contacts by the criteria you use frequently.

Lifecycle statuses track where each contact sits in your sales process, independent of their campaign status.

Default lifecycle stages:

💡 Key distinction: Lifecycle status reflects your overall relationship with the contact. Campaign status (in a specific campaign) reflects their position in that sequence. A contact can be "Opportunity" lifecycle but "Step 3" in a campaign.

For individual contacts:

Click on the contact to open their card, locate the Contact status field, then select the appropriate lifecycle stage from the dropdown. Changes save automatically.

For bulk status changes:

Select multiple contacts (checkboxes)

Click the Change lifecycle button in the bulk action menu

Choose the new status

Apply to all selected contacts.

Click the Edit lifecycles button

Click Add a new lifecycle stage

Name your custom stage (e.g., "Demo Scheduled," "Contract Sent," "Customer")

Save and use across all contacts.

💡 Use case: Create stages matching your sales funnel: New → Contacted → Meeting Scheduled → Proposal Sent → Won/Lost

Step 1: Use the search bar

Type in the search bar at the top of Contacts section

Search by:

Results filter as you type.

Step 2: Apply advanced filters

Click Filters, then click Add a filter.

Select from available filter criteria:

Apply multiple filters to narrow results.

Step 3: Save filtered views as lists

After applying filters that you'll use repeatedly, save as a custom list.

Provides quick access to important segments without re-filtering each time.

Click on the contact to open their card, then edit fields directly in the Contact fields section.

To modify company information:

To change contact owner:

Select multiple contacts (checkboxes), click More, then choose Change owner.

Select the new owner from the dropdown

Apply to all selected contacts.

💡 Use case: Sales rep leaves the team, bulk transfer all their contacts to a new owner instantly.

If a contact is missing an email address:

Step 1: Open the contact card

Search for the contact in the Contacts section

Click on their name to open the card.

Step 2: Use Find Email

Click Find Email in the contact card.

Lemlist searches for the contact's email using available information (name, company, LinkedIn)

Uses 5 credits per lead for email finding.

Step 3: Verify email added

Select the contact, then confirm the email now appears in the Emails field in the contact card. ✅ Success indicator: Email field populated with a verified address.

Select contacts using checkboxes, then use the bulk action bar at the bottom to perform actions like Add to list, Enrichment, Add to campaign, and Edit field.

Create new campaign or push to existing:

Change lifecycle:

Enrichment:

Change owner:

Export:

Add to list:

Delete:

Select multiple contacts, click Edit field, choose the field you want to update, enter the value, then click Update.

Scenario: Export all contacts marked "Not interested" for analysis

Step 1: Click Add filter

Step 2: Select Lifecycle filter

Step 3: Choose Include → Not interested

Step 4: Apply filter (list shows only "Not interested" contacts)

Step 5: Select all filtered contacts

Step 6: Click Export button (CSV icon)

Step 7: Download CSV file with filtered contacts.

Step 1: Select contacts

Choose contacts individually or use bulk selection

Can filter first, then select all matching contacts.

Step 2: Push to campaign

Click Add to campaign in the bulk action bar

Choose the destination campaign from the dropdown.

Step 3: Launch campaign

Navigate to the destination campaign

Adjust campaign settings if needed

Launch when ready.

💡 Workflow: Contacts section → Filter by criteria → Select → Push to targeted campaign → Launch

From a contact's card, you can:

Send email (if email address exists):

Send LinkedIn message (if LinkedIn URL exists):

Call contact (coming soon):

💡 Quick outreach: Use for one-off communications outside campaign sequences.

The company panel centralizes company-level information and actions:

From Companies section:

From a contact:

1. View all contacts at the company:

2. Add contacts to campaigns:

3. Enrich contact information:

4. Access from campaign leads:

💡 Account-based workflow: Open company panel → Review all contacts → Select decision-makers → Push to executive outreach campaign

Issue: Can't find a contact in search

Root cause: Typo in search term, contact not imported, or searching by field that doesn't exist

Fix: Double-check spelling. Try searching by email instead of name. Verify contact was actually imported to lemlist. Check if the contact exists in a campaign but not yet synced to the Contacts section.

Issue: Lifecycle status not updating

Root cause: Changes not saved, page needs refresh, or insufficient permissions

Fix: Refresh the page. Verify you clicked save or the dropdown closed properly. Check you have edit permissions for contacts. Try from a different browser if the issue persists.

Issue: Email Finder not finding emails

Root cause: Insufficient information (no company or LinkedIn), email doesn't exist publicly, or credits exhausted

Fix: Verify contact has company name and/or LinkedIn URL filled in. Check you have available credits for email finding. Try manual research if automated finding fails.

Issue: Bulk actions not appearing

Root cause: No contacts selected, or selection not registered

Fix: Ensure at least one contact is selected (checkbox checked). Refresh page if bulk action menu doesn't appear. Verify you have permissions to perform bulk actions.

Issue: Exported CSV missing contacts

Root cause: Filters still applied, or selection cleared before export

Fix: Check filters are set correctly before selecting contacts. Re-select contacts and export immediately without navigating away.

Issue: Contact appears multiple times

Root cause: Duplicate imports with slightly different data (typos, formatting differences)

Fix: Lemlist should deduplicate by email, but variations cause duplicates. Manually merge or delete duplicate. Clean data before import to prevent duplicates.

Use lifecycle statuses consistently - Train team on when to move contacts between stages. Consistent usage makes reporting and filtering reliable.

Create custom lists for key segments - Save frequently used filters as lists (e.g., "High Priority," "Tech Industry," "Engaged Last 30 Days"). Saves time vs. re-filtering constantly.

Leverage company panel for account-based outreach - When targeting companies with multiple contacts, use the company panel to orchestrate multi-threaded outreach.

Regular cleanup - Periodically export and review "Not interested" or "Bounced" contacts. Remove invalid data to keep the database clean.

Enrich strategically - Email finding costs credits. Prioritize enrichment for high-value contacts or specific campaigns rather than enriching the entire database.

Set contact owners - Assign ownership for territory management. Makes handoffs clear and prevents duplicate outreach from multiple team members.

Use bulk actions for efficiency - When updating many contacts (change owner, update lifecycle, push to campaign), use bulk selection rather than one-by-one.

Export before major changes - Before bulk deleting or making significant updates, export affected contacts as backup.

Searchable field dropdowns during import - When importing via CSV, use the searchable field dropdowns to quickly map columns to correct variables.