A campaign without leads is just a draft. BrandJet AI gives you four ways to get leads into the system, and most teams end up using a mix of them. This article walks through each one, when to use which, and how to recover when something goes wrong.
The four ways are CSV upload, Lead Finder, Lead Collection, and Social Listening.
CSV upload
If you already have a list of leads, you can drop them straight in.
From the sidebar, click Leads, then click Import.
Pick CSV upload.
Download the sample CSV. It shows you exactly which columns are accepted.
Fill in your data. Every column is optional except email. If you only have first name, last name, and email, that is fine.
Upload your CSV. BrandJet AI parses it, deduplicates against existing leads, and shows you a preview before saving.
Confirm the import.
The accepted columns are: first_name, last_name, email, company, title, linkedin_url, instagram_handle, x_handle, whatsapp_number, telegram_handle, phone, country, city, custom_1, custom_2, custom_3, custom_4, custom_5. Column order does not matter. Header names do.
If your CSV has different column names, you have two options. Either rename the columns to match before uploading, or use the column mapper that opens after the first parse. The mapper lets you point your CSV column at the right BrandJet field. The mapping is saved for the next upload from the same file.
If the import says zero leads were saved but your file has thousands of rows, the most common reason is that the file is using semicolons or tabs as separators instead of commas. Open the file, resave it as standard CSV, and try again.
Lead Finder
Lead Finder searches a database of business contacts and lets you pull verified email addresses for the people who match your criteria.
From the sidebar, click Lead Finder.
Set your filters. The most useful ones are job title, seniority, department, company size, industry, and location. You can combine as many as you need.
Click Find leads. BrandJet AI shows you a list of matches with names, titles, companies, and LinkedIn URLs.
Pick how many emails you want to verify. Verifying uses credits. One verified email equals one credit. Unverified profiles are free to view but cannot be added to a campaign without an email.
Click Find emails. The verifier runs in seconds and the verified leads are saved to a new Lead List under Leads.
If your search returns zero results, your filters are likely too narrow. Start with one or two filters first to see what the database has, then add more. Very specific job titles like Head of Procurement Operations will often return less than searching for the broader role like Procurement.
If the verifier finds emails for only some of your selected leads, that is normal. Some profiles do not have a discoverable email. You are only charged for the emails that actually verify. If a previous campaign refunded credits unevenly, open a support ticket with the campaign name and we will reconcile.
Lead Collection
Lead Collection is built for scraping leads from LinkedIn searches, Sales Navigator searches, and Instagram followers. It runs continuously in the background.
From the sidebar, click Lead Collection, then click New collection.
Pick a source: LinkedIn search, Sales Navigator search, or Instagram followers.
For LinkedIn or Sales Navigator, paste the search URL from your LinkedIn account into the field. BrandJet AI browses the search results on your behalf and pulls out the profiles.
For Instagram followers, enter the Instagram handle whose followers you want to collect.
Set a daily collection limit. The default is two thousand five hundred per day to stay within the safe limits of LinkedIn. You can lower it, but raising it past the default is not recommended.
Save the collection.
The collection then runs every day, adding new leads to a dedicated Lead List that you can use in campaigns.
If a Sales Navigator search returns fifty thousand leads in LinkedIn but Lead Collection only saves a few thousand in your first day, that is expected. LinkedIn limits how many profiles can be scraped per account per day. With the default cap of two thousand five hundred, a fifty thousand search will finish in about three weeks.
If Lead Finder or Lead Collection both look like they failed on the very first try and then worked on the second, the LinkedIn or Sales Navigator session probably hit a one off challenge that resolved on its own. Try again. If it keeps failing, log in to LinkedIn from a normal browser and clear any pending security checks, then retry.
Social Listening
Social Listening watches the public conversation for people who match a buying signal you care about, and turns those people into leads.
From the sidebar, click Mentions or Social Listening (depending on your plan).
Set the keywords or phrases you want to track. Examples: looking for cold email tool, switching from Instantly, anyone use Smartlead.
Pick the platforms (X, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube).
Save the listener.
BrandJet AI surfaces matching posts in real time, and you can convert the author of any matching post into a lead with one click. The lead enters your normal Lead Lists and can be added to a campaign like any other lead.
This is the most efficient lead source for software and consulting offers because the signal is intent based. The trade off is volume. You will get fewer leads from listening than from a Lead Finder search, but the conversion rate is usually much higher.
Organize leads into lists
Every lead has to live in a Lead List. Lists are how campaigns pick which leads to target. When you upload, find, or collect leads, BrandJet AI creates a list automatically. You can create more lists, move leads between them, and use Lists as filters when assigning leads to a campaign.
A common pattern is one list per ICP segment (for example US founders, Series A), one list per source (for example Sales Nav export Q1), and one or two utility lists (for example Hot replies, Do not contact).
Why a campaign says no leads when leads are loaded
This question shows up often. Four causes account for almost all of it.
The leads loaded in are missing the email address or the channel handle the campaign requires. A LinkedIn only campaign needs leads with linkedin_url. An email campaign needs leads with email. If the list has the wrong field, the campaign cannot use those leads.
The campaign filters exclude all the leads on the list. Check the campaign filters under Audience and loosen them if needed.
The leads were already sent to in another campaign and the global do not contact twice rule is on.
The leads have been marked as bounced, replied, or unsubscribed by an earlier campaign and are no longer eligible.
The Audience tab of the campaign shows you the final eligible count and the reasons leads were filtered out. Start there before opening a ticket.
What to do next
Once you have a Lead List with at least a few leads in it, move to Create a multichannel campaign and use the list as the campaign audience.