What happens when a prospect replies, unsubscribes or bounces

Distro reacts to replies, unsubscribes and bounces on its own, so you don't keep emailing someone who answered, opted out or can't receive mail. This page explains what happens in each case and where you see it.

At a glance

When someone replies

The reply lands in your mailbox in Gmail as usual and appears in Outreach → Inbox. Distro stops that person's remaining follow-ups in that campaign, unless a step still ahead uses the trigger If replied or No matter what. Distro also sorts the reply (for example Interested or Not interested), which feeds the campaign's Replied and Interested numbers.

The full detail, including automatic replies and what to do when sorting is wrong, is in How stop-on-reply works.

When someone unsubscribes

People can opt out in three ways:

• The unsubscribe link. With Unsubscribe link turned on in the campaign settings (it's off by default), every email ends with a small line: "Don't want to hear from me? Unsubscribe". You can also place the link yourself with Personalize → Unsubscribe link. After confirming, the person sees "You're unsubscribed".
• One-click unsubscribe. When the campaign offers an unsubscribe link, Distro also adds the standard header that lets mail apps such as Gmail show their own unsubscribe button.
• Replying to ask. A short reply such as "unsubscribe", "remove me", "take me off" or "stop emailing me" is treated as an unsubscribe request.

Whichever way they do it, Distro:

1. Adds their address to your Unsubscribed list (Do Not Contact) for this product, in People → Unsubscribed.
2. Marks the contact Unsubscribed and stops them in every campaign they're active in.
3. Stops them in any Email + LinkedIn campaign too, on both channels.
4. Skips them in every future campaign. Distro checks this list before every single email.

Only resubscribe someone who has asked to be contacted again. In the Unsubscribed list, Resubscribe asks for the legal basis, what happened, and your confirmation that the person asked.

When an email bounces

A bounce is a delivery failure notice sent back to your mailbox. Distro reads these notices in the sending Google account's mailbox and tells the two kinds apart:

• Hard bounce (a permanent failure, for example the address doesn't exist): Distro stops the person in every campaign, marks the contact Bounced and adds the address to the Unsubscribed list with the reason "bounce", so it's never emailed again.
• Soft bounce (a temporary problem, for example a full mailbox): recorded, and the sequence continues. A failure notice that doesn't say clearly which kind it is counts as soft, so a good address isn't blocked by mistake.

If Google refuses an email outright when Distro hands it over, that send shows as Failed rather than bounced. The campaign Overview shows Bounced with bounced and failed counts together.

Many hard bounces point to a list problem. See Why emails bounce and Keeping your prospect list clean.

Where to see the numbers

• Campaign → Overview: Replied, Interested, Unsubscribed and Bounced, each with a rate, plus each recipient's status in Recipients.
• Campaign → Delivery: Stopped counts everyone who replied, bounced or opted out.
• Outreach → Inbox: every reply, sorted into views such as Interested, Out of office, Automatic and Bounced.

Rates use emails accepted by Google as their base. Accepted by Google means Google took the message for delivery; it isn't proof it reached the inbox.