Email reply tracking

Overview

Email reply tracking allows users to report on how often customers reply to their email campaigns. It can also trigger Journeys to apply tags and follow-up actions based on replies.

EX: If the reply is sent to an unsupervised address, a notification can alert the team to log in and review the email.

Accessing reply tracking

To access the Reply tracking page, go to Settings > Channels > Emails > Reply tracking emails.

Adding email addresses to be tracked

Email reply tracking works by configuring the email addresses you want to track, so that all received emails are forwarded to Ortto. In this section, we’ll explain how to set up an email address for reply tracking.

Navigate to Settings > Channels > Emails > Reply tracking emails and select New email.

2. In the modal that appears, enter the email address you will use for tracking, then select one of the two tracking options:

Track first reply only
Track all replies

Choose whether Ortto should log an activity for each reply in an ongoing email conversation to track the total number of replies (Track all replies), or select Track first reply only to track only unique replies.

Example of adding a new email address to be tracked for replies.

3. After clicking Setup, you'll see instructions for setting up email forwarding based on your selected email provider. To share these details with a colleague, click I'm getting technical help to email the instructions to them.

Example of instructions for setting up email forwarding.

4. Select your email provider, and you’ll be given a unique tracking email address for your account. Forward all emails to this address. Once email forwarding is set up in your account, click the Send test email button to verify the connection. If everything works correctly, you’ll be returned to the Reply Tracking settings page, where the email address will show a Connected status, indicating that it's ready to go.

If you run into any errors, please see the troubleshooting section below.

The email address is now connected and ready to track email replies.

Repeat the steps above for any additional emails you wish to enable reply tracking for.

Reply tracking with Google Workspaces

If you're using Google Workspaces for your email, an extra confirmation step is required to set up email forwarding. Learn more about reply tracking using Google Workspaces.

Controlling which emails are forwarded to Ortto

If there are emails you don’t want to be forwarded to Ortto, you may be able to set up a filter in your email client to control which emails are forwarded. For example, you can exclude personal emails.

NOTE: Ortto does not store email contents after processing unless they’re identified as replies to an Ortto email (in which case they’re added as a reply activity) or if the email is set up as an incoming message for Talk, in which case it creates a new conversation.

Turning on reply tracking for an email campaign

Now that you have at least one email address set up for reply tracking, you can enable reply tracking on Email campaigns and Journey emails that use one of your configured email addresses as the reply-to address.

When you build an email campaign or Journey email, proceed to the Setup page, and enter your trackable email address as the From email address or Reply-to email.

Example email settings when the 'From' email is also the reply-to email.

Example email settings when you have a separate reply-to email to the from email.

Under the Advanced settings options, you will see a checkbox in the Tracking section called Track replies to <your email>. If the email you have entered to receive replies is connected for reply tracking, you will be able to turn this checkbox ON to enable tracking for replies to this email.

Click "Track replies to ..." to enable tracking for this campaign.

Using merge tags

If you have a merge tag in your from address or Reply-to address, we can't validate that every possible variation of from email or reply-to email that contacts will receive are correctly configured. So we recommend you validate manually that each possible final email address resolves to an email address that is connected for reply tracking.

When using a merge tag in the email address, manual verification of correct set up is required.

If a merge tag results in an email address that is not configured for email tracking, it simply means that replies sent by that contact will not be tracked.

Reporting

Once your email has started sending, you will be able to see the replies from customers coming through in the report.

In the Performance table, you can see the total number of contacts who have replied under the Replied stat.

Example of a journey report showing a Replied stat of 3 replies.

Further down the report, there is a Replies section where you can view the content of the most recent replies to the email:

Example of a list showing the most recent replies to the email.

You can also filter for the Replied to email activity on the Activity tab of the campaign report.

Use cases

The reply tracking feature can help you address a variety of use cases, including but not limited to the following:

Refine messaging strategies: Analyze email replies to identify common themes, questions, and sentiment. This helps you adjust your messaging to emphasize what resonates, address concerns proactively, and refine future content for better engagement.
Control journey & playbooks flow: Manage exit criteria to ensure that recipients who’ve responded to personalized outreach are prevented from advancing further in the campaign. Learn more about ejecting contacts from a campaign upon reply.
Automate Salesforce updates: Automatically update Salesforce campaign member statuses to Engaged when a reply is received, ensuring more accurate performance tracking and reporting.
Improve lead scoring: Enhance lead scoring by tracking responses to specific outreach efforts, allowing you to prioritize high-engagement contacts for follow-up. Learn more about scores.
Segment recipients based on engagement: Automatically segment contacts who reply to specific campaigns, enabling tailored follow-up actions for higher engagement.

Ejecting contacts from a campaign upon reply

A common use case is to automatically eject contacts from a journey or playbook once they reply to an email. This is useful when, for example, the goal of the journey or playbook is to garner engagement from the customer. Once a contact has replied, there’s no need to continue messaging them within the automated flow. Instead, the conversation can transition to a more direct, personal interaction. To do this, follow these steps:

In the People exit when section, click to add a condition.
Select the Replied to email activity and add a where clause to specify the email name.

Example of setting up exit criteria based on a reply. Click on the GIF to view it in full size.

TIP: If you have several emails in the journey and want to eject the contact as soon as they reply to any email within the journey, use the activity: Replied to email occurs where Campaign name is [journey's name / playbook's name].

Example of exit criteria to check if a contact replies to any email in a journey.

Troubleshooting reply tracking

Learn more about troubleshooting email reply tracking.