Email: templates, sequences, unsubscribing

Templates

Account → Email → New template. A template is a name, a subject and a text. Both subject and text can use merge fields, which are filled in for each recipient:

Field	Becomes
{{ contact.first_name }}, {{ contact.last_name }}, {{ contact.name }}, {{ contact.email }}, {{ contact.title }}	the person you write to
{{ customer.name }}, {{ customer.company }}, {{ customer.email }}	their company
{{ user.name }}, {{ user.first_name }}, {{ user.email }}	the colleague the email comes from
{{ unsubscribe_url }}	the address of the unsubscribe page, if you want to place the link yourself

Give a field a fallback for when it is empty: {{ contact.first_name, fallback=there }} turns into “Hi there” for someone whose first name you do not know. A field name that does not exist is refused when you save the template.

Writing one email

On a customer’s page: Write an email. Pick the person, start from a template if you like, change what you want, send. The email appears on the customer’s timeline with whether it went out. People are added under People on the same page.

Sequences

A sequence is a list of emails with waits between them: the first goes out within ten minutes, the second so many days after the first, and so on. Account → Email → New sequence; every step can start from a template and then keeps its own text.

You enrol a person on the customer’s page (Enrol in a sequence), or an automation does. All emails of a sequence come from whoever enrolled the person.

A sequence ends for a person

• after its last step,
• when their company starts paying (unless you switch that off for the sequence),
• when they unsubscribe or are marked do not email,
• when you press Stop on the customer’s page.

Switching a sequence off pauses it for everyone; switching it on again continues.

sumwerk cannot read mailboxes, so a sequence does not stop when someone replies. When a reply arrives, stop the sequence for them on the customer’s page.

Automations that send

Two actions are available in Account → Automations: Send an email (a template) and Enrol in a sequence. Both go to the customer’s first person who has an address and may be emailed, and come from the customer’s owner, or from a colleague you name, with a fallback for customers that have no owner yet.

Unsubscribing

Every email an automation or a sequence sends carries an unsubscribe link, and so does every email you write by hand unless you untick it for a personal reply. Mail programs such as Gmail and Outlook also show their own “Unsubscribe” button next to the sender; it works with one click.

Someone who unsubscribes gets nothing further from your account: no single email, no automation, no sequence, and running sequences stop for them. Their entry under People shows “Unsubscribed on …”. They can undo it themselves on the same page; you can mark anyone as do not email by hand.

Where emails go out from

From your own Google mailbox once it is connected (set it up), otherwise as “Your Name via sumwerk” with replies going to you.

What sumwerk does not do

It does not read mail, track opens or clicks, or send attachments.