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Reviewing and sending emails

Edit and approve drafts, how the send window and daily limits work, follow-ups, replies, bounces and opt-outs.

3 min readUpdated

Nothing is sent until you approve it. The project's Review tab is where drafts wait for you, where approved emails queue for their send window, and where sent emails and replies end up.

#The three views

ViewWhat's in it
To reviewDrafted leads waiting for your decision
ScheduledApproved emails waiting for their send date and window
SentSent, replied and linked leads, newest first

#Reviewing a draft

Click a lead to open its emails. For each one you can edit the subject, the body and the send date. Your edits save as you go.

Read the first email as if you were the recipient:

  • Does the first line prove a human looked at their page? If not, rewrite it.
  • Is the suggestion something they'd actually want?
  • Is it short? Most good outreach emails are under 120 words.

Then click Approve, or Skip if it's not worth sending. Changed your mind after approving? Click Approved ✓ (undo).

Edit, don't rewrite

The drafts are a starting point. Changing one sentence to something only you would say ("I used your list when I was learning Rust") does more than polishing the whole thing.

#Approving in bulk

Tick several drafts (or Select all) to act on them together:

  • Approve selected approves them all as they are
  • Schedule 1/day from tomorrow spreads their send dates one per day, starting tomorrow
  • Skip skips them all

#When approved emails are sent

An approved first email goes out when all of these are true:

  1. Its send date has come (or it has none)
  2. It's a weekday inside the send window set in Settings → Sending (SMTP), in UTC hours (default 7-16)
  3. Its campaign hasn't hit its daily limit (Emails per day, default 1, set on the Setup tab)
  4. The project is active and SMTP is connected

Each run sends at most two emails, so even a big batch goes out gradually. Use Send due now to send whatever is due immediately (it still respects the rules above), and Check inbox now to look for replies without waiting.

If you see Connect SMTP to send instead, add your SMTP account in Settings first. Brevo setup

#Follow-ups

Follow-ups are sent automatically, threaded under the first email:

  • Follow-up 1 at least 4 days after the first email
  • Follow-up 2 at least 5 days after follow-up 1

They only go out while the lead is still Sent. A reply, a bounce or skipping the lead stops them. Daily limits don't apply to follow-ups, since they're replies to a conversation you already started.

#Replies, bounces and opt-outs

With an IMAP inbox connected, Larvabot reads recent mail every few minutes:

It seesIt does
A reply from the leadMoves the lead to Replied and stops follow-ups
A bounceSkips the lead, so nothing else is sent to that address
A reply saying "no"Counts as a reply: follow-ups stop, and you can read it in your inbox

Replies stay in your inbox. Larvabot never answers for you.

Without IMAP, follow-ups can't stop on reply

If you don't connect an inbox, Larvabot can't see replies, so someone who answered might still get a follow-up. Connect IMAP before approving anything, or delete the follow-ups from each draft.

Once a day, Larvabot rereads the pages of leads you've emailed. If one now links to your site, the lead moves to Linked and it's counted as a backlink won on the Reports tab.

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