How Proofy Integrates with Close CRM for Cleaner Outreach

Close CRM is built for sales teams who actually pick up the phone — calling, SMS, and email in one place, with sequences that ship fast. The speed is the point, and the speed is also the risk: contacts who left their job last quarter quietly accumulate in your sequences. Proofy plugs into Close CRM to filter those out before they damage your sender reputation, using the same Zapier-based pattern that already connects it to Mailchimp, HubSpot, and other integrations added in the 2025 platform upgrade.

Why Close CRM Lists Go Stale Faster Than Most

Three things conspire against Close CRM lists. First, reps enter contacts in a hurry between calls — typos in domains (gmeil.com, yahooo.com) slip through because nobody's typing carefully mid-pipeline. Second, Close's core workflow is high-velocity outreach; that same velocity means a bad address goes through a full sequence before anyone notices the bounce pattern. Third, B2B contacts churn faster than most senders account for: roughly 30% of business email addresses go invalid every year, which means a list built over two years has an expected invalid rate close to 50% if it hasn't been cleaned.

How the Integration Works

The integration runs through Zapier. When a new contact is added to Close, a Zap triggers Proofy to verify the email address in real time. Proofy returns a verification result — valid, invalid, risky, or catch-all — and the Zap writes that result back as a custom field on the Close contact record. From there, Close's filtering and view tools make it straightforward to suppress invalid contacts from sequences or flag risky addresses for manual review before they go into a high-stakes campaign.

No code is required. The Zapier workflow uses Proofy's native Zapier integration and Close's native Zapier triggers, so the setup runs through the standard Zapier interface without any webhooks or API calls to configure manually.

Step-by-Step Setup

Step 1: connect both apps in Zapier

In your Zapier account, connect your Proofy account (you'll need an active API key from the Proofy dashboard) and your Close CRM account. Both connections use OAuth or API key authentication through Zapier's standard app-connection interface.

Step 2: set the trigger

Set the trigger to New Contact in Close. This fires the Zap every time a new contact is added, which is when verification is most useful — catching bad addresses before they enter any sequence.

Step 3: add the Proofy verification action

Add a Proofy action: Verify Email. Map the contact's email field from the Close trigger to the Proofy verification input. Proofy returns a verification result object with the status field you'll use in the next step.

Step 4: write the result back to Close

Add a Close action: Update Contact. Map the Proofy verification status to a custom field on the Close contact record — create a field called something like "Email Status" if one doesn't exist. The result is a labeled field on every contact record that sequences and views can filter on.

Step 5: filter sequences by verification status

In Close, create a Smart View or filter that excludes contacts where the Email Status field is "Invalid" or "Risky" (or both, depending on your risk tolerance). Apply this filter as a pre-condition on sequences. Contacts that haven't been verified yet will also be filtered out until the Zap has had time to process, which is a useful side effect: it prevents brand-new unverified contacts from entering sequences before their status is known.

Handling Existing Lists

The Zapier integration handles new contacts in real time, but most Close accounts have an existing backlog of contacts that haven't been verified. For those, the most direct approach is to export the contact list from Close, run it through Proofy's bulk email verification service, and import the results back as a custom field update. This can be done as a one-time operation to establish a clean baseline, with the Zapier integration maintaining cleanliness from that point forward.

What to Do with Risky and Catch-All Results

Invalid addresses should be suppressed from sequences immediately — they add nothing and damage sender reputation with every bounce. Risky and catch-all addresses require a judgment call. For most senders, the pragmatic approach is: include them in low-priority sequences where a bounce has minimal reputational impact, and exclude them from high-stakes campaigns (product launches, re-engagement sends, time-sensitive offers) where deliverability is critical. Some senders exclude all non-valid addresses; others keep catch-alls in rotation and monitor bounce rates at the campaign level to catch problem segments.

ROI Framing

The value of the integration compounds over time. A sales team sending 500 outreach emails per week with a 10% invalid rate is wasting 50 sends and accumulating bounce events that damage the sending domain's reputation with every campaign. Eliminating those 50 sends and removing the bounce signal doesn't just save the cost of the invalid contacts — it improves deliverability for the 450 valid sends, which affects reply rates across the whole program. At typical enterprise outreach volumes, the compounding effect of cleaner sending is usually larger than any optimization to subject lines or sequence timing.

Common Mistakes

• Only cleaning at signup, not on re-engage. Contacts who were valid at signup go invalid over time. Run verification before re-engagement campaigns, not just at initial capture.
• Treating catch-alls as valid. Catch-all domains accept any email at the SMTP level, regardless of whether the mailbox exists. Sending to catch-alls as if they're valid addresses produces unpredictable bounce rates depending on the domain's actual configuration.
• Ignoring verification status in sequence enrollment. Adding a status field without actually filtering sequences on it provides data without benefit. The value is in the suppression, not the field itself.
• Verifying once and assuming permanence. Email address validity decays. A contact verified as valid twelve months ago may have left their company since. Build a re-verification schedule into your list management workflow, especially for contacts who haven't been emailed recently.

FAQ

Does the integration work if Close CRM contacts are added in bulk via import?

Yes, with a caveat. Zapier triggers on individual contact creation events, so bulk imports trigger one Zap run per contact. Zapier's task limits apply, so very large imports may need to be staged. For very large one-time cleanups, the bulk verification workflow (export → verify → import) is more efficient than relying on the per-contact Zapier trigger.

What does a catch-all result mean for outreach?

A catch-all means the receiving domain is configured to accept all incoming email at the SMTP level, regardless of whether the specific mailbox exists. The result is ambiguous by nature — you won't know if the address is real until you send to it. Most senders treat catch-alls as "send with caution" rather than either confident include or confident exclude.

Can I verify Close contacts without Zapier?

Yes. You can export your Close contact list as a CSV, upload it to Proofy's bulk verification interface, and import the results back into Close as a custom field update. This works without any Zapier account and is the most practical approach for one-time list cleanups. For teams that need continuous verification as contacts enter the CRM programmatically, the email validation API handles that at the point of entry.

Related reading: see also our guide on HubSpot integration.