How to find and tag your hottest leads
How-to guide Updated 12 July 2026
How do you find and tag hot leads from your replies?
Ask Claude to read your HotHawk Master Inbox and pull the replies that show real intent: pricing questions, call requests, send-me-more. It ranks them by how hot they are, shows you the lead behind each, and tags the interested ones so your warmest prospects are grouped and easy to act on.
No credit card required.
Before you start
You need a HotHawk account and the HotHawk MCP server connected to Claude. It takes a couple of minutes and no code. Full setup is on the MCP server page.
Step by step
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1
You ask Claude
Read my inbox and find the replies that sound interested, asking for pricing, a call, or more detail.
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__search_threadsquery buying-signal replies scope Master InboxClaude reads across every mailbox in one place and pulls back the threads that actually matter: the "how much is it", the "can we jump on a call", the "send me more".
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2
You ask Claude
Which of those are genuinely hot versus just polite?
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__search_threadsranked by intent return the lead behind eachIt separates the real buying signals from the soft "maybe later" ones, and shows you the lead attached to each thread so you know exactly who is asking.
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3
You ask Claude
Tag the hot ones as Hot Lead so I can find them again.
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__crm_leads_tags_updateleadId per hot lead tag "Hot Lead"Each interested lead gets the tag, straight from the reply. Now the warm ones are grouped and findable instead of buried in a busy inbox.
The reply is the buying signal
Cold email has no reliable opens or clicks to read intent from, and at HotHawk that is on purpose: open and link tracking are off, because the pixels that power them are exactly what mailbox providers use to sniff out cold outreach. So you throw away the fake signal and keep the real one. The real one is the reply. When someone writes back to ask what it costs or whether they can jump on a call, that is the strongest thing a prospect can tell you.
The trouble is volume. Run outbound across a stack of mailboxes and the good replies get lost among the auto-responders, the polite passes and the "wrong person, try Dave". The signal is in there. It is just buried.
Let Claude do the reading
This is where the Master Inbox earns its keep. Every reply from every sending mailbox sits in one view, so Claude can read the whole lot in a single pass with search_threads. You describe what a hot reply looks like for your offer, and it pulls those threads to the top, ranked by intent, with the lead attached to each.
You stay in charge of the judgement call. Claude sorts and suggests; you glance down the list and confirm which are genuinely worth chasing. It reads a hundred threads faster than you can open five, and it never gets bored halfway through.
Tag it so nothing warm goes cold
Finding the hot leads is pointless if they are cold again by Friday. So the last move makes the signal stick: crm_leads_tags_update puts a Hot Lead tag on the person behind each reply, not the thread. The interest is now attached to the lead and follows them everywhere.
From there the tagged group is yours to work. Pull every Hot Lead into a tighter follow-up campaign, hand them to sales, or have Claude draft the replies then and there. The point is simple: the moment someone raises their hand, that intent is captured and grouped, instead of decaying at the bottom of a busy inbox while you were mid-campaign.
The HotHawk tools behind this
Every action here is a real endpoint. Claude reaches it over the MCP server, and you can hit the same endpoints directly from the REST API if you would rather build it into your own stack.
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mcp__hothawk__search_threadsRead the Master Inbox and surface the buying-signal replies -
mcp__hothawk__crm_leads_tags_updateTag the lead behind a hot reply
Frequently asked
How does Claude know which replies are hot?
It reads what people actually wrote. A question about price, a request to book time, a "send me the details" all read as intent. A polite "not right now" does not. You can steer it too: tell it what a hot reply looks like for your offer, and it sorts to that.
What is the Master Inbox and why does it matter here?
It is every reply from every sending mailbox in one view. When you run cold email across a dozen inboxes, the interested replies are scattered. The Master Inbox pulls them together, which is what lets Claude read the lot in one pass instead of hopping between accounts.
Why tag the lead instead of just reading the reply?
Because a reply gets buried by tomorrow. Tagging the lead makes the signal stick to the person, not the thread. You can then pull every Hot Lead into a follow-up campaign, hand them to sales, or just make sure nothing warm goes cold while you were busy.
Does reading replies affect deliverability at all?
No. Reading and tagging is a receiving action, it changes nothing about how you send. Your mailbox rotation, warmup on real Google and Microsoft inboxes, and open and link tracking staying off all carry on exactly as before.
Do I need to write code to do this?
No. You ask in plain language and Claude reads the inbox and applies the tags through the MCP server. The same search and tagging endpoints are in the REST API if you want to run this on a schedule.