Reply analysis and automation rules

Automations sort every reply you get, so the interested ones reach you first and the auto-replies stay out of your way.

Two parts work together. Reply analysis reads each new reply and labels it, for example Positive or Out of office. Rules decide what happens next: tell you, save a reminder, stop the emails still waiting to go, or tag the contact.

Set it up in 3 steps

1. 1

   Open Automations. At the top, switch on Analyze replies with AI. Only a workspace admin or owner can do this.

2. 2

   Type what you want into the box, for example “Tell me on Slack when someone asks for pricing or a demo”, and press Draft rule. Or pick a ready-made rule under Start from a preset.

3. 3

   Read the rule, press Test against past replies to see which replies it would have caught, then press Save.

What happens next

Each new reply gets a label in the Inbox, with a one-line summary beside it.

When a reply matches a rule, the rule runs. You can see every match under Automations → Activity.

Rules only see replies Eklow collects. The mailbox must be connected in a way that lets Eklow read its replies.

Reply labels

Every reply gets one of these labels: Positive, Question, Follow up later, Referral, Negotiation, Negative, Unsubscribe, Out of office, Bounce, Automated or Other.

If a label is wrong, click it in the Inbox and pick the right one. Eklow keeps your corrections and uses them as examples for later replies.

Changing a label to Unsubscribe asks you to confirm. Then the contact is unsubscribed.

Check this means the AI was not sure, or no AI answer was available. For that reply, Stop the sequence and Tag the contact did not run. Click the label to confirm or change it.

Your data and AI

• You choose. AI only reads replies after an admin switches on Analyze replies with AI. While it is off, no reply text goes to AI. The switch links to the privacy policy.
• Some checks never use AI. Bounces, out-of-office notices, auto-replies and plain requests like “please remove me from your list” are spotted by Eklow itself, whether AI is on or off. A plain request to be removed unsubscribes the contact right away, because the law requires it. If a reply mixes it with something else, like a new address or a later date, it is marked “Check this” so you decide.
• What SpirenAI receives for each reply: the reply's subject and text, the email it answered, the campaign name, your What matters to you text, the plain-words conditions of your active rules, and up to 15 of your latest label corrections.
• Drafting a rule sends only the sentence you typed.
• What is kept: the label, how sure the AI was, the summary, the date the prospect asked you to follow up, and the first 500 characters of the reply. It stays in your workspace and is deleted when the workspace is deleted.
• AI never writes or sends email here. Rules only notify you, flag replies, save dates, stop waiting emails and tag contacts.

Ways to create a rule

• Draft rule turns your sentence into a filled-in rule. Nothing is saved until you press Save.
• Build it yourself opens the rule editor with your sentence already in it.
• A preset opens the editor already filled in.
• New rule opens an empty editor.

The rule editor

Watch

Choose which Campaigns and Mailboxes the rule looks at: All, or Chosen. With Chosen, pick at least one.

When a reply

A reply must meet every condition you fill in.

• Categories: one or more labels. Leave it empty to match any label.
• In plain words: a condition in your own words, such as “only meeting or demo requests”. The AI checks each reply against it, so Analyze replies with AI must be on.
• Keywords: words or phrases to look for. Capital letters do not matter. One match is enough. Up to 20.
• Minimum confidence: how sure the AI must be about the label. It starts at 70%.
• Priority: High, Normal or Low.

Then

• Notify me: sends you a notification.
• Mark as priority: flags the reply with the rule's priority.
• Save follow-up date: saves the date the prospect asked you to get back in touch, and reminds you that day. If the reply has no clear date, nothing is saved.
• Stop the sequence: cancels every email still waiting to go to this contact, in every campaign.
• Tag the contact: adds one of your contact tags. Create a tag makes a new one without leaving the editor.

Notify

• In-app: an instant match shows on the Inbox icon at the top of the dashboard while the reply is unread, with a pop-up that names the rule and the contact. Reply opens the reply. The pop-up shows even if new-reply alerts are off in your notification preferences, and waits for quiet hours to end. A digest arrives in the bell.
• Email: an email to each person under Who is notified.
• Slack: a message in your Slack channel. Connect Slack first under Settings → Integrations. Connect Slack opens in a new tab, so your rule stays open. See Slack.
• Frequency: Instantly, Hourly digest or Daily digest. A digest is one message that lists several replies.
• Who is notified: Admins (the workspace's admins and owners) or Chosen people in the workspace. Someone who leaves the workspace is skipped.
• Notify during quiet hours: only for High priority rules. A match tells you at once, even during quiet hours.

Testing a rule

Test against past replies checks the rule against your 50 latest labelled replies and lists the ones it would catch. Nothing is saved and nothing runs.

A plain-words condition cannot be checked on past replies, so the test counts it as met. The list may be longer than what the rule will really catch.

If nothing matches, add more categories or lower Minimum confidence.

The Settings tab

• What matters to you: a few sentences about your business and what a good reply looks like. It helps the AI label replies.
• Never notify about: labels that never notify you, whatever a rule says. Out of office, Automated and Bounce are on this list to start with.
• Minimum confidence: from 0 to 100%. Below it, a reply shows Check this, and Stop the sequence and Tag the contact do not run.
• Quiet hours: a start time, an end time and a time zone. During quiet hours, instant notifications wait until the end time. Digests and follow-up reminders are not held back.

Managing rules

Each rule shows what it watches, where it notifies, how many replies it caught and when it last caught one. The switch turns it on or off.

The ⋯ menu lets you edit, duplicate, save as a preset or delete the rule. A copy starts switched off. You can delete presets you saved, but not the built-in ones.

If you delete a campaign, mailbox or tag that a rule uses, it is removed from the rule. If that leaves the rule with nothing to watch or nothing to do, the rule is switched off.

The Activity tab

Automations → Activity lists every match: the rule, the contact, the campaign, the label and the result. Open reply takes you to the conversation in the Inbox. A failed item shows Check reply.

Each rule acts on a reply only once, even if the reply is collected again.

Undoing a stopped sequence

When a rule stopped emails to a contact, the match shows how many and an Undo button. Confirm, and those emails go back to their original times.

Some emails can no longer go: already sent, the contact was blocked since, or the campaign ended or was deleted. Those are skipped, and the result says how many. The item then shows Undone.

The Reply analysis card

The Reply analysis card shows whether AI is on (with Turn on when it is off), when a reply was last labelled, how many were labelled in the last 24 hours, how many are Waiting, and how many failed.

Who can change what

Everyone in the workspace can see rules, presets, activity and settings.

Members, admins and owners can change them, undo a stopped sequence and correct labels. Only admins and owners can switch on AI. Viewers cannot change anything and do not see the draft box.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Next to most messages, Need help? offers Ask AI and Contact support.