# 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. Canonical: https://revnu.com/docs/sequences Last updated: 2026-10-18 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? ### 1. 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. ### 2. 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. ![The 2 Sequences pill on the Leads page, open and listing each sequence with its steps and state, and Connect an Inbox at the bottom](/docs/screens/leads-sequences.webp) ### 3. 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. ### 4. 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](/docs/linkedin-outreach). 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: - ``, `` and `` 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](/docs/lead-details). - `` 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](/docs/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](/docs/connect-email). ## 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](/docs/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?](#when-does-revnu-ask-me-to-approve-again) Writing to buyers in another language? See [does Revnu work in other languages?](/docs/talk-to-revnu#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 ``, 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](/docs/exclude-contacts) 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](/docs/approvals) 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](/docs/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](/docs/connect-email) | | 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?](/docs/emails-not-sending) | | It still pitches something you no longer sell | See [changed what you sell](/docs/changed-what-you-sell) | ## Next step [See where each email is](/docs/email-status) once the sequence is running. ## Frequently asked questions ### Where are my sequences in the dashboard? 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. ### Do I have to approve every single email? No. With Start Sequences on Just Do It, the Pro default, you approve a sequence once and every step then sends for every lead on it. Your first sequence always waits for you. One-off emails follow your One-Off Emails setting, and replies to prospects always wait. ### Why is Revnu asking me to approve the sequence again? Revnu changed the copy, and the change needs your yes: Start Sequences is on Ask Me First, or it's your only approved sequence, or the copy hits Never Say. Even adding one link counts. Batch your edits, then approve once. ### Is it just a one-email sequence? Revnu's first sequence usually starts with a single first email, and it adds follow-ups when you ask. Open the sequence to see its steps, then ask "add two follow-ups a few days apart". It keeps a sequence to at most three follow-ups. ### Why won't Revnu write the excuse I asked for? Revnu writes from true facts, so give it the real reason in one line, such as "we were heads-down shipping version 2", and it writes around that. Or ask for a short check-in with no reason given. ### If I write the email myself, does it still need approving? Yes. Revnu uses your words as written, and the copy goes through the same approval as any other. Your first sequence always waits for your yes. ### What does Cancel do in the sequence editor? It throws away edits you haven't saved, after asking you to confirm, and goes back to the last saved version. Save & Approve keeps your edits on an existing sequence. Save Draft keeps a new sequence without approving it. ### Who do the emails say they're from? The person who owns the mailbox that sends them. If no mailbox is connected yet, Revnu asks once who should send. Answer in chat, for example "sign them as Sam, founder". ### Do follow-ups stop when someone replies? Yes. Every follow-up stops when the person replies or the email bounces. Revnu checks the email thread before each one.