A follow-up is a series of steps that starts when something happens, the same events as Automations. Between actions it can wait for days or hours, and check whether the customer has a tag, an open deal or an order before going on. For example: when a lead arrives, wait one day, check whether they already have an open deal, and if not, create a call task and send an email.
Before you start
- Follow-ups are available when your plan includes Follow-ups with several steps. Your plan also sets how many follow-ups you can have (Follow-ups).
- Only owners and administrators can build, activate and pause follow-ups.
- An email step also needs Email campaigns in your plan.
To open the page, go to Contacts, open Tools, choose Automations, then select Follow-ups.
How a follow-up moves
A follow-up has three states:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | You are building it. Steps can be added and removed. Nobody enters it yet. |
| Active | Each new event puts the contact in at step 1, and people move through the steps. |
| Paused | Nobody new enters. People already inside stay where they are and carry on when you activate it again. |
When a person reaches a step, everything up to the next Wait runs at once. A Wait holds them for the time you set, then they continue. Waiting people are checked about every minute.
Create a follow-up
- Open Follow-ups.
- Type a Name (up to 120 characters).
- In When, choose what starts it: A new lead arrives, A store order is confirmed, A quote is accepted or A deal is won.
- Select Create follow-up, then open it from the list. It starts as a Draft.
Add steps
On the follow-up's page, each step type has its own Add: panel. Open one, fill it and select Add. Steps are added at the end, numbered from 1.
| Step | Fields | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Wait | Days (0 to 365) and Hours (0 to 23) | Holds the person for that long. At least one of the two must be more than zero. |
| Check | Check, Tag, and If not, jump to step (empty to stop) | Tests Has the tag (fill Tag), Has an open deal or Has an order. If it is true, the person goes to the next step. If not, they jump to the step number you give, or stop when the box is empty. |
| Create a task | Task title (up to 200 characters), Due after days (0 to 365) | Creates a task on the contact for the contact's owner, due that many days after the step runs. |
| Add a tag | Tag (up to 60 characters) | Adds the tag to the contact, creating it if needed. |
| Set the owner | Person | Makes that person the contact's owner, when the contact has no owner yet. |
| Send an email | Subject, Message, Reply address, Your postal address | Sends the email to the contact, once per person for this step. |
A jump can only go forward, to a later step, so a follow-up can never loop. A follow-up can have up to 20 steps. To fix a mistake, select Remove the last step: steps are removed from the end, one at a time.
Activate, pause and change
- When the steps are ready, select Activate.
- To stop it for a while, select Pause. Select Activate again to continue.
A follow-up can only be activated if at least one step does something (a task, a tag, an owner or an email), and every jump points to a step that exists.
Once a follow-up has been activated, its steps can't change, so nobody's path shifts halfway through. To change the steps, create a new follow-up, then pause the old one.
The follow-up's page shows how many people are in progress and how many finished.
Good to know
- Once per event. A contact enters once for each lead, order, quote or deal. If the same event arrives twice, it is ignored. A customer who places three orders can be in an order follow-up three times.
- Who leaves early. A contact who is archived, merged into another contact, or erased stops at their next step. If a step fails for someone, that person stops and the others carry on.
- Emails follow the campaign rules. They skip contacts without an email address, contacts who opted out of marketing and erased contacts, they count towards your monthly campaign emails, and each has an unsubscribe link. Emails of a paused follow-up wait until it is active again. See Email campaigns.
- Tasks. Task steps always go to the contact's owner. If the contact has no owner, the task has no assignee. Put a Set the owner step before it to be sure.
- Has an order is true when the contact has at least one store order, whatever its status.
- Imports don't start follow-ups. Contacts and orders imported from your history never enter one.
- Speed. Each company moves up to 100 people a minute, so a large batch may take a few minutes.
- The page lists up to 50 follow-ups.
Troubleshooting
The Activate button gives "Add at least one step that does something." Add a task, tag, owner or email step. Waits and checks alone do nothing.
"A jump must go forward to a step that exists." Change the jump to a later step number, or remove the check and add it again with an empty jump.
"Steps can change only while this is a draft." The follow-up has been activated. Create a new one with the steps you want.
I don't see Follow-ups on the Automations page. Your plan doesn't include it.
Last updated 2026-11-08