The Scenario
You are a sales ops manager. Your team has assembled a workbook of 200 competitor domains and known DNC email addresses, collected from opt-outs, partner no-contact lists, and a DNC agreement signed last quarter.
None of them should ever receive outreach. But right now they are just in an Excel workbook on the Suppression tab, and your SDRs are supposed to check it manually. Nobody does.
The solution is Instantly's block list. But adding 200 entries through the UI one at a time is not how you plan to spend your Wednesday.
The slow version:
- Log into Instantly
- Open block list settings
- Paste entry 1, click add
- Repeat 200 times
- You stop at 30 and hope nobody emails the rest.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI reads the Suppression tab and pushes every entry to Instantly's block list without you opening the UI once.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Add every entry in column A of the Suppression tab as a block list entry in Instantly — some rows are full email addresses, others are domains — add each one appropriately and write 'blocked' or the error into column B.
SheetXAI reads column A, identifies whether each row is a domain or full email address, calls the Instantly block list API for each entry, and writes the result into column B.
What You Get
200 entries on the Instantly block list without touching the block list UI:
- Domains blocked — any outreach to addresses at those domains is suppressed
- Individual addresses blocked — DNC contacts are protected at the lead level
- Column B log — "blocked" for every entry that went in, or an error for anything that failed
- Compliance record — the workbook shows exactly when each entry was blocked
The column B log is your audit trail. If a DNC complaint comes in, you can show when the address was added.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Suppression lists from multiple sources are never perfectly formatted.
When the list has mixed formats in one column
Some entries are "example.com", some are "@example.com", some are "noemail@example.com". Instantly needs consistent formatting.
Normalize all entries in column A of the Suppression tab: if a cell contains "@" treat it as an email address, otherwise treat it as a domain, stripping any leading "@". Then add each entry to Instantly's block list and write the result into column B.
When you want to split emails and domains into separate columns for the audit report
Your compliance team wants the final workbook to clearly separate blocked emails from blocked domains.
Split the Suppression tab column A into two columns: full email addresses into column B, domains into column C. Then add all entries from both columns to Instantly's block list and write the block status into column D.
When some entries are already on the block list
You ran a partial import last month. Duplicates will error.
Add all entries in column A of the Suppression tab to Instantly's block list. If an entry already exists on the block list, write 'already blocked' into column B. Write 'blocked' for new entries and the specific error for anything unexpected.
When your suppression data is split across multiple tabs
The Competitors tab has domains, the DNC tab has individual emails, the Opt-Outs tab has both.
Combine all entries from the Competitors, DNC, and Opt-Outs tabs into one list. Deduplicate by value. Then add each unique entry to Instantly's block list and write the results to a new Results tab with columns for entry, type (domain or email), and status.
The pattern: normalize, combine, block — one prompt instead of three operations.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your suppression workbook, then ask it to push everything to Instantly's block list. The Instantly integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to bulk-add verified leads to a campaign in Excel or the Instantly in Excel overview.