Quickstart — your first send in 10 min

This walkthrough takes a brand-new account from zero to a sent batch of outreach in under ten minutes. Five steps.

Shortcut: start from a starter pack

The first time you log in, Direct REI asks what kind of real estate business you run: Traditional real estate investor, Land investor, House wholesaler, or Agent / realtor. Pick one and it sets up campaigns with the messages already written, automations for the busywork, and a website draft. Nothing sends, charges, or goes public until you turn it on.

• Campaigns start paused. Add your leads, read the messages, then press Resume. AI replies start as drafts you approve. Seller campaigns come grouped (for example Homeowners), so adding leads to the group puts them in every channel at once.
• Automations that only create tasks, add tags, or change a lead's stage start on. For example, a reply labeled interested creates a "call them today" task, and a website form creates a "call this new lead" task. One Pro & Scale example (scoring leads with AI) starts off.
• Websites are unpublished drafts with a starter address like yourbiz-ab12cd.directrei.site. Change the address, add your phone and photos, then publish when you're ready. The Land investor pack comes with two: one to buy land and one to sell it.
• Skipped it? Add a pack any time from Settings → Help → Starter packs. You can add more than one; anything you already have is left alone.
• Added the wrong one? On the same screen, the pack's card has a Remove button. It shows what will go first. Campaigns that already have contacts stay unless you choose to remove them too, and a website you've published stays (delete it from Websites). Your contacts, deals and pipeline stages are never touched.

With a pack, steps 3 and 4 below are already done: connect a mailbox (step 1), add contacts (step 2), then add them to the pack's campaign and start it (step 5).

1. Connect a mailbox (~3 min)

Go to Settings → Email → + Add mailbox. You'll need an app password from your email provider — not your normal login password.

• Gmail: first turn on 2-Step Verification (myaccount.google.com → Security → 2-Step Verification → Turn on), then open myaccount.google.com/apppasswords directly (it's no longer listed in the Security menu) → Create.
• Outlook / Microsoft 365: account.microsoft.com → Security → Advanced security options → App passwords.
• Other providers: any IMAP/SMTP mailbox with app-password support works. Yahoo, iCloud, custom domains via Zoho/Fastmail/etc.

Paste the app password, click Test connection, then save. Green badge = ready.

2. Add some contacts (~2 min)

Two options:

• Find leads — Go to Find Leads, which has two tools. Property Records lets you filter nationwide county property records (county, vacant, acreage, tax delinquent, absentee owner, and more), preview the results, and import the owners into your CRM — searching is free, and you pay only per record you import (1¢ basic / 8¢ full, which adds the owner's mailing address + full property detail). AI Research takes a market (e.g., "Austin TX") and contact types (Builders, Wholesalers, Owners, etc.); click Research leads and the AI searches the live web, dropping real contacts with real emails into your CRM (~20–30 seconds per contact, so a batch of 10 lands in a few minutes; requires a paid plan — Starter and up).
• CSV import — Go to CRM → Import CSV, upload your existing list (.csv, .tsv, or .txt), map columns to fields, and save.

3. Create a campaign (~1 min)

Open the Email page (or Texting for SMS) — the sequence editor is right at the top. Click + New next to the Campaign dropdown (or open All Campaigns and click + New campaign):

1. Name it something descriptive ("Austin Wholesalers Q4")
2. Pick a channel (Email, SMS, or Direct Mail)
3. Pick your role: Buying (you want to acquire from them), Selling (you want to sell to them), Partnership, or Other
4. Set a Reply Goal in plain English — e.g., "find off-market land sellers willing to take an offer". (There are quick-pick presets: Discover buy box, Qualify budget & timeline, Book a call, Partnership / referrals.)

Save. The Reply Goal is what the AI uses to steer every reply it writes.

4. Generate a sequence (~1 min)

Still in the editor, with your campaign selected, click Generate with AI. The AI writes a full cadence (default 4 messages, customizable 1–12) — initial pitch, follow-ups, and a break-up message. Subject + body for each.

Read them. Edit anything that sounds off. Save.

5. Add contacts to the campaign + send (~3 min)

First, in the CRM, select the contacts you added in step 2 and click Add to campaign → pick this campaign (they have to be in the campaign before they'll show up to send). Then scroll down to Enroll contacts in a campaign on the Email page (the Enroll & Send → button jumps straight there) — your campaign's contacts appear automatically. Select them (checkboxes, or Select all) and click Send to Selected. Confirm.

Sends are paced across your business hours with 5-15 second delays between each. The first email goes out within a minute; follow-ups land on Day 4, Day 9, and Day 16 by default (configurable per campaign).

What's next

Once you're sending, check out Connect Gmail / Outlook / SMTP without spam for deliverability deep-dives, and Writing sequences that get replies for the craft side.