Track Replies to My Email Campaigns

[acaringi]

We regularly send out newsletters where the goal is to get the recipient to reply to the email instead of clicking a link. It's been historically pretty hard to track this, as the "reply-to" email is set to the owner of the lead (resulting in the replies going to various different sales reps). Does Hubspot offer any way to track when an email sent from the marketing platform is replied to? 

[sharonlicari · Accepted solution]

Hi Eveyone!

this is now live to all customers, with documentation here on how it works, and how to set it up. Feel free to continue to leave feedback here on how it works, and if you run into any issues please reach out through the normal HubSpot support channels.  

Thank you and Happy friday!

Sharon 

[mauworkato]

@sharonlicari Is there an API for all the email performance stats (opens, clicks, replies), or do we have to do some filtering, grouping, and calculations via the Events API?

[mattbenati]

The new HubSpot functionality is limited to tracking human replies -- it specfically excludes all but human replies. That is, none of the auto-responses are mined for critical information (e.g., identifying when someone is no longer at the company, which becomes gray mail).

[hubspotusername]

Looks like this has been built, exciting stuff.

Replies to marketing emails now show up in the timeline and on the email performance tab.

[dang5941]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that wants this to be implemented. After testing it for the first time today. I sent an email to over 70 customers and got a couple of responses hoping they would be in contact records. But nope, I had to manually log the customer's reply. More steps to take. 😞

It also baffles me that after a marketing email doesn't mark the contact as worked. So you then have to fiddle about with all the different types of filters to show customers that haven't been contacted at all. 

This means that your diary just looks full constantly and you cannot bulk tick them off as worked. And you just have to find the right filters. 

Make it simpler.

[mattbenati]

Hi Daniel - many HubSpot customers use LeadGnome to solve this gap in the HubSpot platform. If you're interested in learning more, please feel free to reach out to me directly (matt@leadgnome.com).

[sharonlicari]

Hey @acaringi 

Thank you for your feedback. I'd recommend adding your thoughts on this idea and upvote for it. As @PamCotton was advising upvoting here will alert our Product Team to the popularity of this request. Doing so will also auto-notify you if/when this functionality becomes available within HubSpot. You may read more about how that review process works here. The idea is currently in planning.

Thanks

Sharon

[JamieTew]

This is totally insane!!! 

Is there a plan to change this??? 

How could you consciously decide not to show responses?? I am staggered. 

[EBHamann]

Thanks, Jamie. I couldn't agree with you more!!!! 

Prospects and customers respond to our newsletters (sent via marketing email function) every time we send. This is amazing and we love their engagement with us. That being said, their notes back do not track. If I want to keep record of their question/comment/etc, which I do, I have to manually cut/paste and put into their contact in HS.  

Dearest HS--as you know, the goal is to use marketing to get the prospect to raise his/her hand and ask for more info so we can make the sale.  

People respond to what's in front of them. They are not going to craft a separate email if they want to send a note right away. Even with all of the links we include in our newsletter, this is the quickest and easiest way for them to communicate back with us. It is top of mind and right in front of them.

Please--HS gods and goddesses--take a look at this function and please reconsider so that responses to all marketing and sales outreach is tracked under the respective contact's info.

Thanks in advance for your consideration😘

[PamCotton]

Hi @JamieTew,

Currently, HubSpot does not offer a feature that associates replies to marketing emails with contacts. Replies to your marketing emails will be sent to the inbox of the reply-to address on your email, but they will not be associated with the recipient contact.

I was able to find this post in the HubSpot Community Ideas forum. Upvoting here will alert our Product Team to the popularity of this request. Doing so will also auto-notify you if/when this functionality becomes available within HubSpot. You may read more about how that review process works here. The idea is currently in planning.

I hope this information helps,

Pam

[ChrisEldridge]

We were able to figure out a way to at least stamp a property in Hubspot to know if a contact has replied to a marketing email.  It does not log the actual email, however now we are able to do an if/then in our workflows to basically say "did someone reply in the last 4 days? If no, send the next email, if yes, exit the workflow.

Feel free to get in touch if you are interested!  chris.eldridge@avgfunds.com

[ChrisEldridge]

Hello, I have had many people reach out to me based on my comment above on how we have solved this issue with a workaround using Zapier.

I get 2 to 3 emails per week of people asking, so I felt like I should comment here on how we do it!

-------

We utilized Zapier and Gmail in order to get it to work.  If you have a standard @gmail.com account the max is 500 replies per day and if you have a business Suite accounts is 2,000 replied per day.

The basic outline is:

Setup a new Gmail inbox that you can forward copies of all replies to such as “marketingreplies@yourdomain.com”.

We then had our sales team who would get replies to a specific email setup a forward rule for their inbox that said basically “anything with “X” in the body of the email, forward to “marketingreplies@yourdomain.com”.

In the footer of our Marketing emails we not have a white bar with white text at the WAY bottom with a random string that we use when we want to track the marketing email.

^^^That would then capture all replies

We then created a Zap in Zapier which would listen to that inbox for new emails with the trigger and then had it update a property (that we made) in Hubspot called “Marketing Email Replied Date” with the date of the email.

Now we have that date on the hubspot contact that we can use to kick people out of a workflow.

We also now use Zapier to add a copy of the email to the engagement record as well.

I know its a lot (and I probably did not explain it well) but that was our workaround and it has been bulletproof for a few months now!

[mattbenati]

It seems that HubSpot wishes to address this issue with Connect partners. Our company, LeadGnome, is a Connect partner that provides the capability. You can learn more at https://www.leadgnome.com. If you'd like to schedule a time to talk, please feel free to send me an email (matt@leadgnome.com) or request a demo.

[Mike_Donnelly]

Check out www.leadgnome.com which does exactly this and then some.  They're a HubSpot Connect Partner.  https://www.hubspot.com/integrations

[Rachel10]

can you briefly explain how this works? Really struggling with Hubspot not providing this functionality. 

[mattbenati]

Hi Rachel - my name is Matt Benati and I am the CEO of LeadGnome, a HubSpot Connect partner, that specializes in managing email replies. I can be reached via email at matt@leadgnome.com. If you're interested in learning more about how LeadGnome might fit your needs, please send me an email or register for a demo. Thank you.

[SantaR]

Hello! Does anyone know if Leadgnome is still providing their solution? I have been trying to get in touch to set up a demo but haven't heard back from them.

Thanks,
Santa

[mattbenati]

Hi Santa - my apologies. I’ll reach out via email to schedule a demo.

[pknobloch1]

that would be super helpful to automate sales nurturing that started with a personalized marketing mail. 

[meharrington]

This would be very helpful to us:

1) We want to improve the efficacy of our emails and track response rate over time.

2) We want to take action on it.  i.e. create a list of all contacts who have opened an email but not reply.