Sequences: Steps, Follow-Ups and Approval
Where your email sequences live on Leads, how steps, follow-ups and waits work, what the fields in your copy mean, what one approval covers and when Revnu asks again, who the emails come from, and how to make them sound like you.
A sequence is the set of emails, and optional LinkedIn steps, that Revnu sends to each person in a campaign: a first email, then follow-ups a few days apart that stop when someone replies.
With Start Sequences on Just Do It, the Pro default, you approve a sequence once and its steps then send for every lead on it. Your first sequence always waits for your yes.
Where do I find my sequences?
Pick the campaign
Open Leads. Click the Campaign dropdown at the top left (it reads All Leads until you pick one) and choose the campaign.
Open its steps
Click the pill next to the campaign. It shows how many steps the sequence has, for example 3 Steps, and its state. The sequence opens in a window. A campaign with no sequence yet shows Add Steps instead.
On All Leads, the pill counts sequences instead, for example 2 Sequences, and opens a menu of every sequence.
Read the copy
The window has three views. Switch between them from the … menu in its top corner:
Steps: each email and LinkedIn step, its copy and its wait.
Recipients: who is on the sequence and how far each person has got, such as "1 of 3 sent", or "Not Started".
Settings: the sending window, time zone and the rules that are always on.
Approve it
Press Approve in the sequence window, or approve its card in Review. Revnu starts it for the leads on it within a few minutes. With no inbox connected yet, the card's button reads Log in and Approve: it approves the sequence, then signs you in to Gmail.
The pill also shows the sequence's state: Needs Approval, Needs an Inbox, Live, Paused or Retired. Anything waiting for you is also in Review.
How many steps does my first sequence have?
Often just one: the first email. Revnu writes follow-ups when you ask for them, and it does best when you give each one a new reason to write, such as a customer result, a new feature or an answer to a question buyers ask. It keeps a sequence to a first email plus at most three follow-ups.
See only one step? Ask Revnu:
Add two follow-ups to this sequence, a few days apart.
It shows you the new steps, and they follow the same approval rules as any change to the copy.
How do steps and follow-ups work?
Step 1 goes out first, on day 0.
Each later step waits a number of weekdays after the step before it, from 1 to 30. Weekends never count toward a wait.
Follow-ups stop when the person replies or the email bounces. Revnu checks the live email thread before every follow-up.
LinkedIn steps can sit in the same sequence: Connect on LinkedIn and LinkedIn Message. A message after a connection request can wait until they accept instead of a set number of days. See LinkedIn invites and messages.
To add a step or change a wait, ask Revnu, or edit the sequence in the window and save it.
What do the fields in my copy mean?
A sequence is one set of emails that Revnu fills in for each person. Fields in angle brackets are filled per lead:
<FirstName>,<LastName>and<Company>come from the lead.Researched fields, such as an opening line about why you're writing now or a relationship route, come from Revnu's research on that person or company. A Relationship Route is a line about a real connection you share with the person, such as a school or an investor. See what's on a lead.
<CalendarLink>is your booking link. When your copy uses it, a Calendar Link box appears above the steps. Put your link there.
Researched fields sit inside a step's copy. They aren't extra steps, so a sequence with a relationship line is still one email for that step.
What does approving a sequence cover?
With Start Sequences on Just Do It, the Pro default, one approval covers every step of that sequence, email and LinkedIn, for every lead added to it later. Its follow-ups don't ask again.
With Start Sequences on Ask Me First, the LinkedIn steps of an approved sequence still send on their own, but its emails from your own Gmail or Outlook follow One-Off Emails. With that on Ask Me First, each email waits for you in Review.
Your first sequence always waits for your yes. After that, Settings > Agent decides what asks first. Replies to prospects, spend, budgets, booking links and new inboxes always wait. See approvals.
When does Revnu ask me to approve again?
It depends on who changed the copy.
You edit it in the window. Pressing Save & Approve on an existing sequence saves your version and approves it. Revnu asks you to confirm first.
Revnu changes the copy. The sequence goes back to Needs Approval when any of these is true:
Start Sequences is on Ask Me First.
It's your only approved sequence. Until you've approved a second one, any change Revnu makes to the copy waits for you, even on Just Do It.
The new copy uses something on your Never Say list, or a field that isn't set up yet.
Otherwise, on Just Do It, Revnu's rewrite goes live and you still see it.
These keep your approval: changing only who the sequence is for, and changing only the sender's name to the person whose mailbox sends it.
Tip
Adding one link or one sentence is a copy change. So a small edit to your first sequence needs approving again before more emails go out. Revnu should tell you, and the pill on Leads shows Needs Approval. Batch your changes and approve once.
Tests Revnu runs on its own
When a sequence is losing, Revnu can try a new one without asking, inside your Experiment Budget in Settings > Agent. By default each test goes to at most 50 new prospects, with up to 2 tests at once. You can raise it to 500 per test and 5 tests, or set it to 0 so every new sequence waits for you. Your block list and Never Say still apply.
What do Cancel, Save Draft and Save & Approve do in the editor?
Press Edit in the sequence window to change the copy yourself. The editor then shows:
Cancel throws away edits you haven't saved. If you've changed anything, Revnu asks "Discard Your Sequence Changes?" first, then goes back to the last saved version.
Save & Approve appears when you edit an existing sequence. It saves your version and approves it.
Save Draft appears when you create a new sequence yourself. It saves the copy without approving it. Revnu sets who it's for before it can be used.
If you reload the page in the same browser tab, Revnu brings back edits you hadn't saved yet. To keep your words safe, save before you close the tab.
Who do the emails come from?
Emails go out from a mailbox you connect, and Revnu writes them as the person who owns that mailbox. Replies go out from the same mailbox, in the same thread.
Before a mailbox is connected, Revnu may not know who should send. Then it asks once, with a full name, for example "should these go out as Sam Lee, CEO?". Answer in chat, for example "sign them as Sam, founder". Your answer sets the sender name and sign-off.
If your approved copy was written as someone else and you then connect your own mailbox, Revnu can swap just the name to yours. That keeps the approval.
With more than one mailbox connected, tell Revnu which to use, for example "send this sequence from sam@yourcompany.com". See connect Gmail or Outlook.
How do I make the emails sound like me?
Say what's wrong, in plain words. On the Review card, or in chat. Revnu rewrites it. Lines that work:
"Lead with the outcome. They don't know what floor authority means, so say what they get."
"Too robotic. Write it like I'd text a founder I've met once."
"Too long. Three sentences, then the ask."
"Cut the compliment in the first line. Get to the point."
Paste your own paragraph. Give Revnu the exact words you want and it uses them as written. The copy still waits for your approval the same way, and your first sequence always does.
Keep the tone for good. Put how you write in Settings > Memory, for example "plain, short, no exclamation marks". See Memory.
Ban words and claims. Add them to Never Say in Memory. Never Say bans phrases. It doesn't fix tone, so describe your tone in one of your other Memory sections.
Keep facts right. Put prices, features and proof points in Product Facts in Memory, so Revnu doesn't guess.
A rewrite of your first sequence asks for approval again. See when does Revnu ask me to approve again?
Writing to buyers in another language? See does Revnu work in other languages?
What Revnu won't write
Revnu only writes what it can back up: your Product Facts, what you tell it, and its research on the person. It won't invent an event, an excuse or a fact about you or the person you're writing to. Ask for "say I was at a funeral" when you weren't, or "congratulate them on their raise" when there's no raise on record, and it won't write that line.
If you want an email with a reason in it, give Revnu the true reason in one line, and it writes around it:
"Write to the people who went quiet last month. The true reason we went quiet: we were heads-down shipping version 2. Keep it short and ask if it's still worth a call."
Or ask for one without an excuse: "a short check-in, no reason given, just asking if it's still on their list".
Pasting your own words doesn't change this. Revnu uses them as written, but it may question a line that states something it has no reason to believe, such as an event that didn't happen. Tell it the line is true, or change it.
What does Revnu check before sending?
No unfilled fields. An email that still has a field name in it, such as
<Company>, is refused and never sent.Your Never Say list. If Revnu's copy for a sequence uses something on it, the sequence goes back to Needs Approval.
A checked address. Every address goes through an email check first, and anyone on your block list is skipped.
The live thread. Before each follow-up, Revnu checks for a reply or a bounce, and stops if it finds one.
Your approvals. Nothing goes out that your approval settings say should wait.
It doesn't check grammar or judge every claim for you. Read your first sequence before you approve it, and open the Why Now source on a few of its leads (lead details).
If it doesn't work
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| The pill says Needs an Inbox | The sequence is approved, but nothing is connected to send from. Press Connect an Inbox, or Log in and Approve on its card in Review for Gmail. See connect Gmail or Outlook |
| It says Needs Approval after you'd approved it | The copy changed. Open it, read the new copy, and approve |
| It says Retired | Revnu stopped starting new people on it, usually because it was losing. Approve it again to bring it back |
| A link from Revnu took you to Leads, not the sequence | Use the steps pill next to the campaign |
| Approved, but nothing went out | See why aren't my emails sending? |
| It still pitches something you no longer sell | See changed what you sell |
Next step
Frequently Asked Questions
On Leads, pick the campaign, then click the steps pill next to it, such as 3 Steps. On All Leads, the pill opens a menu of every sequence. Old /dashboard/sequences and /dashboard/leads/sequences links redirect to Leads.