Outbound strategy and playbooks
Switch from Outreach to Sellinger: a migration guide
By Asen Levov, co-founder of Sellinger. Reviewed by Viktorio Shopov. Published . Last updated . 8 minute read.
To move from Outreach to Sellinger, export prospect records (an admin may need to grant the option), use the sequence state in the export to leave out anyone mid conversation or finished, import the rest, and reconnect mailboxes and LinkedIn. Check the CRM first: Sellinger syncs two ways with HubSpot, while Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho connectors are coming soon, so a Salesforce team needs a CSV or API plan.
Outreach is a sales engagement platform, usually deployed on top of a CRM and run by a sales operations team. Sellinger is an AI SDR: it finds buyers, writes to each one on LinkedIn, email or WhatsApp, answers replies and books meetings, and it has its own CRM. A move between them is less about exporting a list and more about deciding where your data lives afterwards. This guide covers both. The Outreach details are from its support site, read on 25 October 2026. For the buying decision, see the Outreach alternatives page.
Start with the CRM question
If your reps work in Salesforce and Outreach syncs to it, ask this before anything else: where will contacts, activity and opportunities live after the switch?
- HubSpot. Sellinger syncs two ways with HubSpot, so contacts, deals and conversations can flow both ways. See connect HubSpot.
- Salesforce, Pipedrive or Zoho. These connectors are coming soon, not live. Until they are, your options are a CSV in and out, or the REST API with webhooks, which is available from the Full Stack bundle up and lets you pull analytics, sync contacts and listen for events such as replies and meetings booked.
- Sellinger's own CRM. It holds contacts, deals and the full conversation history across channels. Teams without a heavy CRM process can use it as the system of record. Our post on whether AI can replace Salesforce or your CRM is honest about when that is and is not true.
If Salesforce is the system of record for forecasting and reporting, a switch today means running the new tool beside it, with a manual or API link. That may be a reason to wait.
What moves, and what does not?
| In Outreach | In Sellinger | Moves? |
|---|---|---|
| Prospect records | Leads | Yes, by CSV |
| Prospect fields, including custom fields | Lead fields and custom fields | Yes, if you map them |
| Sequence state (active, finished) | A field or segment you choose | Only if you add it from the export |
| Sequences and templates | Persona, rules, knowledge base | No, rewrite once |
| Engagement score | None | Not as a score; use it to sort |
| Account and opportunity records | Deals in the CRM | Via your CRM, not this export |
| Opt outs | Suppression list | Not by CSV; ask support |
How do you export from Outreach?
Per Outreach's support article: open the Prospects view, select the prospects, click the More Options icon and choose Export, pick a delivery method and click Export. Download now downloads a CSV immediately but is limited to 200 prospect records per download. Email CSV prepares the file in the background and emails it to your default address, with a limit of 100,000 records per download. The export holds all prospect fields, when the prospect was last updated, the most recent touch, the date of last engagement, an engagement score and the active and finished sequences. Some options need admin level permissions, so if you do not see them, ask your Outreach administrator. A separate article describes exporting a sequence's prospects with their state and dates.
Do a small export first and check that the fields you rely on are in it.
Use sequence state to decide who comes across
The sequence columns are your sorting tool.
- Active in a sequence. Let it finish in Outreach, or stop the sequence for that person on the day you move them, so they never get two.
- Finished with no reply. Good candidates for a fresh approach in Sellinger, after a gap that makes sense.
- Replied. A person should finish these conversations. Leave them out.
- Opted out or bounced. Leave them out and keep your own list.
- Never sequenced. Carry across.
The engagement score is a simple count from Outreach, one point per email opened, two per click and three per response on the most recent mailing, so treat it as a rough guide, and remember that opens are unreliable.
Import, connect and set up
Open Add Leads, then CSV, upload, map the columns, review and import. At least one of email, LinkedIn URL or phone is needed on each row, duplicates are skipped and counted, and extra columns can map to custom fields. Details are in the CSV import guide. Connect your mailboxes (Gmail, Outlook or IMAP), and LinkedIn through the hosted login. Put your offer, tone and rules into the persona and knowledge base, and run in approval mode for the first week.
Who should not switch?
Be straight with yourself about fit. Sellinger may not be right if:
- Your reps live in Salesforce and need live, two way sync today.
- Your process depends on detailed, manager controlled step by step sequences with rep level reporting.
- Most of your outreach is to named accounts handled by account executives with their own voice for each message, where the agent's role would be small.
It may be right if you need first touches and replies handled across LinkedIn, email and WhatsApp, with fewer people operating the tool. Our post on what an AI SDR cannot do lists the limits, and the AI SDR buyer's checklist gives questions to ask any vendor, us included.
What do you give up, and what do you gain?
You may give up a sales engagement platform's depth of rep level workflow, and the existing link to your CRM until a connector exists. You start Sellinger with no history.
You may gain a smaller team's worth of work done by the agent: it writes each message from the lead's data, answers replies, asks follow up questions, qualifies and books on a calendar, and a person can take over any conversation. A campaign can run in approval mode, and the agent stops and flags the lead when it cannot answer. Channels include LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp and Instagram, with live chat for inbound. We have not measured how an Outreach customer's results change after moving, so we make no claim of an improvement.
What mistakes should you avoid?
- Switching before the CRM plan exists. Data that lives in two places drifts.
- Letting a sequence and an agent both write to a person. Stop the Outreach steps for anyone you move.
- Exporting only 200 records at a time by accident. Use Email CSV for large exports.
- Trusting the engagement score. It counts opens, and opens are unreliable.
- Moving the whole team at once. Start with one rep's list.
A two week cutover plan
- Week 0. Decide the CRM plan. Do a test export.
- Days 1 to 3. Export, sort by sequence state, clean, import a test group.
- Days 4 to 7. Approval mode. Read every message. Stop Outreach steps for anyone you move.
- Days 8 to 14. Widen in batches and compare meetings per 100 people messaged with your Outreach baseline, counted the same way. See how we define reply rate.
We have not measured outcomes for teams that moved from Outreach, and we make no claim about them. This is general information.
Common questions
Can I export prospects from Outreach?
What does the Outreach export contain?
Does Sellinger connect to Salesforce?
Do my Outreach sequences and templates move?
What about opt outs?
How Sellinger helps
Read how it works on Read how to import leads from a CSV, or see a real campaign in Read the Sellinger case study.
