Send sequenced follow-up emails to leads or contacts on a schedule, with smart auto-pause when the conversation moves on.
Automated follow-ups send a pre-written sequence of emails to a lead or contact over time. You build a Topic with one or more email Templates and a delay between each, then Assign recipients. The CRM sends each step on schedule, pauses automatically when the recipient replies (or the related deal is won/lost), and respects unsubscribes. Emails go from your name with a noreply address, and replies go back to your real inbox.
Anatomy: Topics, Templates, Assignments
Three concepts work together to drive an automated sequence.
1
Topic — a named workflow with a scope (Mine / My Team / Whole Company), send-window rules, and auto-pause rules.
2
Templates — the ordered email steps inside a topic. Each step has a delay (minutes, hours, days, or business days) before it sends.
3
Assignments — link a recipient (lead or contact) to a topic. Once assigned, the cron sends the steps on schedule.
Topic Scope
Scope controls who else can see and assign your topic.
1
Mine — only you can see, edit, and assign this topic.
2
My Team — your direct reports can also see and assign it (matching the dashboard's Team scope).
3
Whole Company — anyone in the organization can see and assign it.
4
Edit and delete remain creator-only regardless of scope. To customize someone else's topic, click Copy to make your own version.
Creating a Topic
Topics live under Email > Automated Follow-Ups > Topics.
1
Click New Topic in the top-right.
2
Fill in the Settings tab: name, description, scope, business-hours window, weekend-skip, and auto-pause rules.
3
Save, then switch to the Email Sequence tab and add your first email step.
4
For each step, set the delay relative to the previous email (or to assignment time for step 1) and write the subject + body using merge tags. Use {{Recipient.first_name}} (recommended — works whether the recipient is a contact or a lead), plus {{User.first_name}} for your own info and {{Org.company_name}} for org-level fields. {{Contact.}} and {{Lead.}} are still available for templates that are deliberately one-type-only.
5
Use Send Test on any step to email yourself a fully-rendered preview before turning the topic on.
6
When you're ready, toggle the topic Active in the Settings tab.
Interview Links in Follow-Ups
A topic can hand out personal qualifying-interview links using the {{Interview.link}} merge tag — the automated equivalent of clicking Send Interview on a lead.
1
In the topic's Settings tab, pick a template under Qualifying Interview. This enables the tag for that topic.
2
Insert Interview Link from the merge-field bar in any email step — as plain text, or as the target URL of a hyperlink or button.
3
On the first send that uses the tag, the CRM creates an interview invite for that recipient — pre-filled with their contact info when the recipient is a lead — credited to the rep who assigned the follow-up. It appears on the lead's Interviews tab like a manually sent invite.
4
Every later step reuses the same link, so the prospect always returns to their own partially-completed interview. Links stay valid for 60 days.
5
When the prospect submits the interview, that follow-up sequence auto-pauses (reason: interview submitted) and the rep is notified — no more reminders for something they already did.
Assigning Recipients
Assign one or many leads or contacts to a topic in one go.
1
From the Leads or Contacts list page, select the recipients.
2
In the bulk action bar, click Follow-Up.
3
Pick the topic, then click Run Pre-flight Check. The system tells you how many recipients are ready and which are blocked (already assigned, no email, on the suppression list, etc.).
4
Optionally check Override existing unsubscribes if a recipient explicitly asked you to send anyway.
5
Click Assign to confirm.
Auto-Pause Rules
Each topic has independent toggles for events that should stop the sequence automatically.
1
Recipient replies — if you have OAuth email connected (Gmail/Outlook), replies in your inbox auto-pause the sequence. If not, an inbound webhook on a tracking address detects them.
2
Lead status advances automatically — when the first follow-up is sent to a lead whose status is New, the lead moves to Contacted (statuses a rep set by hand are never overwritten).
3
Lead is qualified — when a lead is qualified into a deal, sequences targeting that lead pause.
4
Deal won — when a deal moves to a won stage, sequences targeting the deal's primary contact pause.
5
Deal lost — same logic for lost stages.
6
Paused assignments can be resumed manually from the Assignments tab if needed.
Send Window
Topics ship with sensible defaults: send only during business hours (9–5 server time) and skip weekends. The cron defers any send that falls outside the window to the next valid slot. You can disable both rules per topic if you need 24/7 sending.
Reply-To Routing & Reading Replies
Follow-up emails are sent From your name but use the noreply@revorbit.com address (a verified sending domain). Replies route through a tracking address so the CRM can capture them, then are forwarded to your real inbox.
1
When a recipient replies, the full reply is stored and appears on the lead/contact Email tab with a Follow-Up Reply badge, alongside the rest of the email history.
2
Open the reply and click Reply to respond — the compose window opens pre-addressed with the original quoted, and your response is logged back into the same email history.
3
The reply is also forwarded to your email inbox with Reply-To set to the prospect, so you can answer from your mail client instead if you prefer.
4
You also get an in-app notification (and optional email alert) — clicking it opens the lead or contact.
Unsubscribes & Suppression
RevOrbit honors recipient consent across all email features.
1
Every follow-up email includes a one-click unsubscribe link (RFC 8058 List-Unsubscribe) — Gmail/Outlook show a tap-to-unsubscribe button.
2
Recipients can unsubscribe from a single topic or globally from all follow-ups for your org.
3
Hard bounces and spam complaints automatically add the address to the suppression list, which blocks all future sends from this org — Email Campaigns and Follow-Ups both respect it.
4
Pre-flight on bulk assign shows blocked recipients up front so you don't waste a step.
Tracking Sends and Replies
Open the Assignments sub-tab to see the global view, or open a topic and switch to its Assignments tab for per-topic detail. Each row shows the recipient, current step (e.g., 2 of 5), next-send timestamp, status, and the assigner. Click in for the full send history including delivered, opened, clicked, bounced events captured from Resend's webhook.
Copying a Topic
Copy any topic you can see (Mine, Team, Company) to make your own version. The copy starts as scope = Mine, inactive, with all templates duplicated. Tweak it as you like, then activate.
Connect your email under Profile → Email Accounts for the cleanest reply experience. Without OAuth, replies still route back to you via a tracking address, but they'll look like forwarded mail in your inbox.
Mind your sequence length and cadence. A 7-step daily sequence is almost always too aggressive — most replies happen between steps 2–4 in a typical 4–6 step sequence spread over 2–3 weeks.
The send cron runs every 15 minutes. After you assign a recipient, the first email goes out on the cron's next run (so worst case, ~15 min latency). If a topic's first step has a non-zero delay, the first send waits for that delay too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — a recipient can be on several topics at once. Each topic runs independently.
All active assignments for that email transition to unsubscribed immediately. The cron stops sending.
The change applies to future sends only. Already-sent emails are not affected.
Check that the topic is Active, has at least one active template in the sequence, and that your recipient passed pre-flight (not on the suppression list). If you're outside business hours and the topic has business-hours-only on, the cron defers to the next window.
Yes — open the topic and switch to the Assignments tab. You'll see every recipient with their current step, status, next send, and the assigner.
