How to include a follow-up email to resend a campaign to "non-openers"

Learn how to use the Add a follow-up email setting to resend a campaign to recipients that didn't open the original email. This option is available in the campaign wizard when setting up a new campaign.

Before you begin

Automatic follow-up emails only target profiles that have opened or clicked an email from your account within the selected window of 30, 60, or 90 days. Sending to non-openers who have never engaged or haven’t engaged in over 90 days can potentially damage your sender reputation and lead to your emails landing in the spam folder.

Apple privacy opens and bot clicks do not count toward the recent engagement required for an automatic follow-up. However, a recorded open of the original email, including an Apple privacy open, excludes that profile from its automatic follow-up.

If you haven’t already, learn the basics of how to create and send an email campaign.

Poor deliverability score

If you see the message Follow-up emails disabled due to poor deliverability score, your account’s deliverability score is below 50. This won’t affect your ability to send the campaign itself.

Learn more about email deliverability best practices to improve your deliverability score.

Limitations with follow-up emails

There are some limitations with resending campaigns:

• Sending an automatic follow-up message is exclusive to email campaigns.
  • It’s not possible to detect open rates for SMS campaigns to determine non-openers, and resending SMS campaigns is not recommended in general.
• You can't automatically follow up when A/B testing campaigns.
• Automatic follow-up emails are not available with Gradual send or Smart send time. To schedule a campaign with an automatic follow-up, you can use Fixed send time.

Include a follow-up email for your campaign

1. Create a new campaign or edit an existing campaign.
2. On the Review step of the campaign wizard, turn on the setting Add a follow-up email in the sidebar. This option is only available when creating a new campaign or editing an unsent campaign.
   

3. Enter a new subject line.
   • The content of the follow-up email will remain the same as the original campaign, but it's important to change the subject to try something different to attract non-openers.
4. Select which profiles to resend to based on their engagement (i.e., if they opened or clicked in the last 30, 60, or 90 days).
5. Set a time delay for how long to wait before sending the follow-up email. You can toggle between days or hours.
   • The minimum amount of time is 2 days or 48 hours.
   • The maximum is 30 days.
6. Check that all of the fields are entered as intended. After all fields are set, the follow-up will be listed in the campaign schedule next to the original email.
   

7. Click Schedule or send and choose when to send the initial email. To schedule it for a specific date and time, choose Fixed send time.
8. Click Schedule message to schedule the initial email, or Send now to send it immediately.

The details of the original and follow-up email are displayed on the confirmation screen.

Cancel or change the details of the follow-up email

The details of the follow-up email can be changed any time before the original campaign is sent.

1. On the Campaigns tab, click on the name of the scheduled campaign.
2. On the follow-up email card, click the 3-dot menu.
3. Click Cancel to prevent a follow-up from being sent, then click Cancel again in the confirmation dialog. Canceling the follow-up does not cancel the original campaign. To change the follow-up details instead, click Edit.

4. If you choose to edit the follow-up, change the subject line, segment, or time delay.
5. If you make changes, click Save.

Manually resend a campaign

It’s recommended to use the automatic follow-up email option in the campaign wizard, but if you’d like to manually send a follow-up email to non-openers, follow the steps below.

Create a segment

Create a segment with the following conditions:

• What someone has done (or not done) > Received Email > at least once over all time > where Campaign Name equals [EXAMPLE]
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > Opened Email > zero times over all time > where Campaign Name equals [EXAMPLE]
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > Clicked Email > zero times over all time > where Campaign Name equals [EXAMPLE]

Replace "[EXAMPLE]" with the name of the campaign you want to resend. To protect your sender reputation, we recommend adding an AND condition for recent engagement (e.g., Opened email in the last 60 days).

Resend the campaign

1. Find the original campaign that you want to resend.
2. Select the 3-dot menu to the right.
3. Click Clone.
4. Keep Single channel selected. If an account selector appears, choose Clone to the current account. Review the Campaign name and Send date, then click Clone campaign.

1. In Send to on the cloned campaign’s recipient settings, replace the original audience with the segment you created above.
2. Make sure to disable the option to Skip recently emailed profiles if you resend the campaign within your Smart Sending window.
   

1. Click Next and review the cloned email’s content. For help with the remaining setup, see how to create and send an email campaign.
2. On Review, click Schedule or send and choose when to send the campaign. If scheduling it, select Determine recipients at send time so the non-opener segment is checked closer to the send. With send time optimization, this option is called Determine recipients at start of sending. Click Schedule message to schedule the campaign, or Send now to send it immediately.

Additional resources