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Add follow-up emails to a campaign

Add up to 4 automatic follow-up emails to your email campaign sequence, choose when each one sends, and delete the ones you do not need.

Written by Veronica Fletcher

Add follow-up emails to your campaign so journalists who have not replied get a second or third email. Available on: all paid plans. Not included in the 7-day free trial.

A follow-up is a later email in a campaign that sends if the person has not replied. A campaign is an email and its follow-ups sent to a set of people. A campaign can hold 5 emails in total: the first email and up to 4 follow-ups.

Add a follow-up

  1. Open a draft campaign and go to the Compose step.

  2. Under your first email, click Add follow-up. A new email opens with the heading “Follow-up 1 · sends 1 day after the previous email”.

  3. Optional: click 1 day and choose from 1 day to 7 days.

  4. Leave the subject empty. The follow-up then sends as a reply in the same thread as the previous email.

  5. Write the follow-up in the box under the subject. It saves automatically.

  6. Optional: click Add follow-up again to add the next one.

After 4 follow-ups, Add follow-up no longer shows.

If you enter a subject in a follow-up, you see this note:

“Note: Adding a subject will send this as a new email, not a reply in the same thread.”

When a follow-up sends

The sending window is the days and hours campaign emails are allowed to send. We count follow-up days as calendar days, in the time zone the sending window uses. By default, that is each journalist's local time. A follow-up sends when the sending window opens on that day.

For example, with Business hours (Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm):

  • A first email sends on Tuesday at 4:30 pm. A 1-day follow-up sends on Wednesday soon after 9:00 am.

  • A first email sends on Wednesday. A 3-day follow-up lands on Saturday, so it sends on Monday soon after 9:00 am.

What stops follow-ups

Follow-ups to a person stop when:

  • They reply to the campaign. Their follow-ups in this campaign stop. Other campaigns keep sending to them.

  • An email to them bounces. Their follow-ups stop in all your campaigns.

  • They mark your email as spam. Their follow-ups stop in all your campaigns.

An automatic out-of-office reply does not stop follow-ups. What happens when a journalist replies explains out-of-office replies.

Delete a follow-up

You can only delete the last follow-up. To remove an earlier one, delete the follow-ups after it first.

  1. On the Compose step, go to the last follow-up.

  2. Click the bin icon on the right of its “Follow-up” heading.

  3. In the “Delete Follow-Up” window, click Delete.

Warning: A deleted follow-up cannot be brought back. Its text is gone.

The bin icon on earlier follow-ups is greyed out. Hovering over it shows “Can only delete the last follow-up”.

Limits

  • 5 emails in total per campaign: the first email and 4 follow-ups.

  • Each follow-up sends 1 to 7 days after the previous email.

  • Every follow-up must have text. If one is empty, the campaign does not launch and you see a message such as “Follow-up 2 has no content. Write it before launching.” Write the follow-up, or delete it.

To add a follow-up after launch, see Edit a campaign after it has launched.

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