How to Design a Personal Sales Email That Feels Written for One Person (From Real Profile Data)

A personal sales email contains one fact that is true of the reader and of nobody else on your list. Everything else in the email serves that line. This guide shows how to pull candidate facts with the LeadOcean API, choose one, and build the email around it.

TL;DR

• Count a small segment for free, pull five people, enrich one for career history, then write one email around one fact.
• It takes about 20 minutes and spends about 6 records, inside the free 1,000.
• If no fact in the data is specific, do not fake one. A generic email with a merge tag is not personal.

Prerequisites

• A free LeadOcean key in $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY (start free, no card: see pricing).
• curl and jq.
• Any inbox or sending tool. LeadOcean returns data only. It has no sequencer or inbox.
• Related reading: the email templates that use the same fields, and inbox setup. More guides are in the blog hub.

Step 1: Pick a segment and size it for free

Choose a narrow segment first. A narrow segment makes the shared context obvious, which is what makes the email feel written for one person. Counting costs nothing.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jobLevel": ["VP"],
    "jobFunction": ["Sales & Business Development"],
    "country": ["US"],
    "employeeRange": ["201-500"],
    "limit": 1
  }' | jq '.meta | {total, distinctCompanies}'

On 2026-10-21 the free MCP tool leadocean_count_leads returned 12,281 people with a verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all email, across 6,321 companies. With no email condition the same filters matched 35,380. Say which number you mean when you quote one.

Step 2: Pull five people

One search page of 5 is 5 records. Ask only for addresses worth sending to.

curl -s https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jobLevel": ["VP"],
    "jobFunction": ["Sales & Business Development"],
    "country": ["US"],
    "employeeRange": ["201-500"],
    "emailStatus": ["verified"],
    "limit": 5
  }' > people.json

jq -r '.data[] | [.meta.source_ids.person_id,
  .profile_data.profile_full_name,
  .contact_data.contact_current_experiences[0].job_title,
  .contact_data.contact_current_experiences[0].company_name,
  .contact_data.email_status] | @tsv' people.json

Search is a flat JSON body, filters are arrays, and limit runs 1 to 100. Page on with cursor when you want more.

Step 3: Enrich one person for candidate facts

Search gives you title and company. Enrich adds career history: past roles, schools, certifications and awards. These are the facts a stranger would not guess. Enrich takes exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id. Use the person_id from the first column of Step 2.

curl -s -X POST https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"person_id": "1234567"}' > person.json

jq '.data | {now: .contact_data.contact_current_experiences[0],
     past: .resume_data.experiences[0:2],
     school: .resume_data.educations[0:1],
     awards: .resume_data.awards[0:1]}' person.json

A person we hold nothing for is a 404 and costs nothing. Past employers carry no company_id yet, so compare them by name. Each section appears only when held.

Step 4: Score the facts and choose one

Not every fact is personal. Use this test: could you paste the line into an email to the person next to them on the list? If yes, it is a merge tag, not a personal line.

Fact                          Passes the test?   Why
Title: VP Sales               No                 Everyone in the segment has it
Company size: 201-500         No                 Shared by the whole segment
Past role: Head of Sales,     Yes                Specific to this person's path
  previous employer (by name)
Award in resume_data.awards   Yes                Rare, recent and checkable
School                        Maybe              Only if you share it or it ties to the ask

Pick one fact. Two facts in one email read as research done by a script.

Step 5: Write around the one fact

Put the fact in the first sentence, tie it to one problem, and ask one question. Keep the email under 90 words.

Subject: From {{past_company}} to {{company}}

Hi {{first_name}},

You moved from {{past_title}} at {{past_company}} to running sales at {{company}}.
Teams that make that jump often rebuild how they source pipeline in the first year.

I work on {{problem}}. Is that on your list this quarter?

{{your_name}}

Fill the variables in your own script or sending tool. Read every email aloud once. If a line only works because of a variable, cut it.

Step 6: Check the email status before sending

Read email_status on every row. We do not refund bounces.

jq -r '.data[] | select(.contact_data.email_status=="verified") | .meta.source_ids.person_id' people.json | wc -l

What you get

Response shape from the API reference, with placeholder values (not a real person):

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "profile_data": { "profile_full_name": "Jane Doe" },
      "contact_data": {
        "has_email": true,
        "email_status": "verified",
        "contact_current_experiences": [
          { "job_title": "VP of Sales", "company_name": "Acme", "company_domain": "acme.com" }
        ]
      },
      "meta": { "source_ids": { "person_id": "1234567" } }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "count": 1, "limit": 5, "nextCursor": null }
}

Enrich adds resume_data with experiences[], educations[], certifications[] and awards[], each present only when held.

Troubleshooting

FAQ