We've just launched a new feature which automatically organizes replies to your Gmail email marketing campaigns. Bounces, replies, block-notifications, and other types of replies received after you send an email campaign with GMass will now be categorized for you under the "GMass Reports" label. This means that you no longer have to sift through countless bounces and replies trying to determine which responses are the important ones you need to see.
You'll notice two new sub-Labels under "GMass Reports": "Bounces" and "Replies". Based on your particular email campaigns, you may also notice sub-Labels "Blocks", "Delays", and "Over Limit".
Here are the details on each reply management category:
Bounces: Bounce notifications indicating that an email address you sent to is invalid. These are removed from your Inbox and placed under the Bounces Label. Additionally, the bounced address is added to your account's bounce list, and further attempts to send to this email address will be suppressed by GMass. This means that you no longer have to manually extract bounces from your Gmail account. (If you click the regular Gmail "Send" button, however, you can still send to bounced addresses.)
Replies: Human-based replies where a person clicked the "Reply" button and sent an email in response to your email marketing campaign. Replies remain in your Inbox but are also tagged with the Replies Label.
Delays: Delays are a kind of soft-bounce when Google is unable to transmit an email message but will attempt to later on. Usually delay messages are received if an email server for your recipient is temporarily down. Delays are removed from your Inbox and placed under the Delays Label.
Blocks: Blocks are a special type of bounce indicating that your message was rejected because the receiving server determined it contained spam like content. Blocks will be extremely rare since blocking of emails sent from GMass is almost non-existent. Blocks remain in your Inbox and are also tagged with the Blocks Label. If you notice blocks as a result of your email campaigns, contact our Support team so we can determine what is causing the block and how to resolve it.
Over Limit: These are special types of bounces generated by Gmail indicating that an email wasn't sent because your account is over your limit. These may occur, based on your sending patterns, but GMass also attempts to prevent you from going over your limits to begin with. Over Limit emails are removed from your Inbox and placed under the "Over Limit" Label.
Other points to note about automatic reply management:
This feature also lays the groundwork for an upcoming enhancement to the follow-up campaigns feature. In addition to being able to send follow-ups to people based on whether they clicked and opened, you'll soon be able to send follow-ups based on whether an email address replied or didn't reply!
You'll notice two new sub-Labels under "GMass Reports": "Bounces" and "Replies". Based on your particular email campaigns, you may also notice sub-Labels "Blocks", "Delays", and "Over Limit".
Here are the details on each reply management category:
Bounces: Bounce notifications indicating that an email address you sent to is invalid. These are removed from your Inbox and placed under the Bounces Label. Additionally, the bounced address is added to your account's bounce list, and further attempts to send to this email address will be suppressed by GMass. This means that you no longer have to manually extract bounces from your Gmail account. (If you click the regular Gmail "Send" button, however, you can still send to bounced addresses.)
Replies: Human-based replies where a person clicked the "Reply" button and sent an email in response to your email marketing campaign. Replies remain in your Inbox but are also tagged with the Replies Label.
Delays: Delays are a kind of soft-bounce when Google is unable to transmit an email message but will attempt to later on. Usually delay messages are received if an email server for your recipient is temporarily down. Delays are removed from your Inbox and placed under the Delays Label.
Blocks: Blocks are a special type of bounce indicating that your message was rejected because the receiving server determined it contained spam like content. Blocks will be extremely rare since blocking of emails sent from GMass is almost non-existent. Blocks remain in your Inbox and are also tagged with the Blocks Label. If you notice blocks as a result of your email campaigns, contact our Support team so we can determine what is causing the block and how to resolve it.
Over Limit: These are special types of bounces generated by Gmail indicating that an email wasn't sent because your account is over your limit. These may occur, based on your sending patterns, but GMass also attempts to prevent you from going over your limits to begin with. Over Limit emails are removed from your Inbox and placed under the "Over Limit" Label.
Other points to note about automatic reply management:
- GMass's reply management system only works on replies/bounces sitting in your Inbox. If you manually move bounces/replies from your Inbox and into a separate Label, or if you delete them before the GMass reply scanner processes them, then they will not be categorized for you.
- It can take anywhere from a few minutes up to a couple hours to process replies in your Inbox. If you see bounces, replies, and other notifications sitting in your Inbox after sending an email campaign, please wait a couple of hours for GMass to categorize your replies.
- This was a difficult feature to build, and I'm especially proud of the algorithm I derived and the computational efficiencies I achieved when writing the code for this feature. GMass already excels as the most powerful email marketing platform for Gmail and Google Apps, but now GMass is the only Gmail-based email marketing solution that can automatically manage replies.
This feature also lays the groundwork for an upcoming enhancement to the follow-up campaigns feature. In addition to being able to send follow-ups to people based on whether they clicked and opened, you'll soon be able to send follow-ups based on whether an email address replied or didn't reply!