Follow-ups

Most people who abandon a form never come back on their own. If they gave you an email address before they went, follow-ups ask them to finish — and the link in that email drops them back into the same conversation, on the question they stopped on, with every answer they already gave still there.

That last part is the bit worth knowing. The answers live on our side, keyed to the response, not in the browser that started it. So the link works on a phone when the form was started on a laptop, in a different browser, after clearing cookies, or three weeks later.

Turning it on

Settings → Follow-ups. Pro plan and above.

The default sequence is two emails: one four hours after they leave, one a day later. You can add a third, and three is the maximum.

Where the address comes from

The first of these that yields an address wins:

1. A verified respondent. If the form requires sign-in, we already have an address they proved they control.
2. An email question, or the email field of a contact_info question, in the order they appear in the form.
3. A hidden field, if you name one under Address from a hidden field. This is for the case where you already knew their email and put it in the link.

If none of them yields anything, nothing is scheduled. A form that never asks for an email cannot follow anybody up, and switching the feature on will not change that.

What gets sent

One screen, one link, and the progress they made:

You answered 3 of 7 questions in Get a quote — 4 to go, about a minute.

You can add your own text above the button, and use {{ref}} to pull in answers they already gave — the same syntax the auto-reply uses. {{remaining}} is the number of questions left, which is what makes a subject line like "You're 3 questions from finishing" work.

When a follow-up is not sent

Every reminder is re-checked at the moment it is due, not when it was scheduled. It is dropped if:

• the respondent finished, or was screened out, in the meantime
• the form closed, or would be closed by the time the email lands
• the address unsubscribed, bounced, or opted out on the form itself
• the plan lapsed, or the monthly email allowance is spent
• the response was made in test mode

Consent, and why the form asks

A reminder to somebody who did not finish is marketing email, not a service message — in the US, the UK, the EU and Canada alike. Two consequences you will see in the product:

• Respondents are offered an opt-out beside the question that asks for their address. It has to be there rather than at the end, because the whole premise is that they never reach the end.
• Every reminder carries an unsubscribe link and your postal address. Both are legal requirements, and the unsubscribe works in one click with no login.

Use follow-ups for forms people fill in to get something from you — a quote, a demo, a trial, a booking. Not for surveys, job applications, feedback forms or event RSVPs: those are not sales negotiations, and a reminder about one is marketing to somebody who never entered into anything.

Measuring whether it worked

Under Options you can hold back a share of abandoners and send them nothing. The results table marks those Held back, and the ones who were nudged and then finished Recovered.

This is worth switching on. Published recovery rates for this kind of email are almost always the share of recipients who converted, with no control group — so they count everybody who was coming back anyway. A holdout is the only way to know what the reminders actually added.

Webhooks

Two events, both documented in webhooks: followup.sent when a reminder goes out, and response.resumed when somebody comes back through one.

Other channels

WhatsApp and SMS are listed in the channel picker and disabled. Both are blocked on approvals outside this product — WhatsApp does not deliver marketing templates to US numbers at all at present, and US SMS needs per-sender 10DLC registration — so neither has a date attached to it.