Blog
Notes on gating downloads, checking that an email address is real, and handing the whole job to an assistant.
Add Replilo to Claude as a custom connector
Paste one URL into Claude's connector settings, approve it once, and your assistant can upload a file and hand back a gated share link. What dynamic registration removes from the setup, what the single scope actually grants, and how to check the approval page before you agree.
Gated vs ungated content: when a gate is worth the reach it costs
A gate trades reach for contact, and most content shouldn't take that trade. Which assets earn a form, which should never be gated — starting with anything you want indexed — and the split that gets you the links and the addresses both.
How to deliver a lead magnet without a full email platform
Delivering a lead magnet is three jobs — confirm the address, hand over the file, record who took it — and the form-plus-autoresponder rig only does the middle one. Why the emailed attachment fails, and what a link that verifies before the file moves gives you instead.
How to build an email list without a website
The standard advice — landing page, form plugin, ESP account — is three separate jobs before anyone can hand you an address. The minimum that actually works, where to paste the link when you have no site, and the part you still do yourself: emailing the list.
Double opt-in vs single opt-in: what confirmation costs, and why it wins
Single opt-in gets you a bigger list; double opt-in gets you one you can actually send to. A comparison table, an honest accounting of the signups confirmation costs you, and the single case where skipping it is defensible.
How to block disposable email addresses on a signup form
Throwaway inboxes cluster on download gates because the deal only needs a mailbox for thirty seconds. The three defences, what each one actually costs, and why blocking subaddressed Gmail is the expensive mistake.
How to check whether an email domain can receive mail: MX and SPF
Two dig commands tell you whether an address is worth sending to, with real output for the cases that matter — null MX, NXDOMAIN, and the parked typo domain. Plus a decision table for signup forms and a clear line where DNS stops proving anything.
How to track who downloaded a PDF you shared
A shared cloud link reports opens by account, not by person, and an emailed attachment reports nothing at all. What a download record needs before it's worth reading — identity, a timestamp, which document — and how to get one without building it.
Expiring download links and download limits: control after the send
A shared file URL is a bearer token — permanent, public, and identical in every forwarded copy. What an expiry date, a download cap and revocation each buy you, why pausing a link and rotating its slug fix different problems, and what to do when one is already out.
Share a file from Claude: how MCP turns a report into a link
An assistant that has just written a report can render it and nothing else — it has no way to hand the file to anyone. What an MCP connection changes, the two auth paths, the tools an agent gets, and why real files go up over a one-time curl URL.
Send verified subscribers to a webhook or a Google Sheet
An address sitting in someone else's dashboard is worth nothing until it lands in the system you actually run. The two events, how to verify the HMAC signature, what retries do to your handler, and how to reach a spreadsheet with no server.
Email-gated downloads: how to put a PDF behind a signup wall
Typed addresses aren't collected addresses. Here's what a download gate has to do to earn its keep, and how to set one up in about a minute.