Create Custom Sequence Rulesets

This feature is only available for Professional and Custom plans

Sequence Rulesets have two important functions:

• Protect you and the team from emailing the wrong people
• Help you work faster leveraging automations with Triggers

When creating a sequence, you're prompted to select a Sequence Ruleset in the Add Sequence modal. These rulesets allow you to build in rules as to who you can and cannot email in the sequence and maximize usage of basic automation in your sequence (call tasks triggered with a specific action, etc). And, after you've tested your ruleset across a few sequences, or 20, you can easily make changes to the settings of the Sequence Ruleset, and the change will apply in all 20 of the sequences where that Sequence Ruleset is applied. 

We're going to cover in this article how Sequence Rulesets work and how to customize them, Not Sent Emails, and Recommended Sequence Rulesets

Create a Sequence Ruleset

Navigate to Settings > Sequence Rulesets > Click +Add to add a Ruleset

Security in the Sequence Ruleset

You've arrived in a blank Custom Ruleset. Now, add in your security and automations for the type of sequence you're looking to build; ie. Outbound Sales, Nurture Sequences, Upsell for Current Clients…

EXCLUDED Contact and Account Stages

First, exclude Contact Stages that you don't want to email. For example, in an Outbound Sequence, you don't want to email: 

• Replied
• Interested
• Do Not Contact
• Bad Data
  

Now, Exclude your Account Stages that you don't want to email in our example Outbound Sequence: 

• Current Client
• Active Opportunity
• Dead Opportunity
• Do Not Prospect
• Churned   *a custom stage
• Nurture - Timing   *a custom stage
  

This means, any email attempted to send to a contact at one of these stages will fail to send and end up in your Not Sent Emails list. A related resource is Find and Resend Emails "Not Sent" Because of Missing Snippets.

Setup Triggers to Leverage Automation in Your Sequence

The Triggers build into Sequence Rulesets cover up signs of automation, by making smart actions for you and scale out your efforts, helping you schedule call tasks or finish contacts in the sequence due to certain actions. Here's an explanation of these Sequence Ruleset Triggers:

1. "Mark subsequent emails as failed if anybody in the same account replies."
   For example, if you're emailing 3 Contacts in 1 company in a sequence, and one of these Contacts replies, emails to the other 2 Contacts from the same company who did not reply will not send in the sequence, because you already got a reply from that account, and can follow up using the Chrome Extension and tasks. 
   
   
2. "Create a phone call task if an active contact opens an email at least [a # of] times."
   For example, if a Contact in your sequence opens your email 5 times, you'll automatically be prompted to call her, because she's expressed interest, continually opening the email.
   
   
3. "Mark sequence as finished when contact clicks on a link in the email."
   For example, you can stop sending emails to Contacts in a sequence when they click a link in your emails. 
   
   
4. "Mark contacts as unresponsive if they do not reply or schedule appointment [a # of] days after the last step."
   For example, when a Contact has received every touchpoint in your sequence, and there are no more steps left, the Apollo App will automatically mark this Contact as the Stage Unresponsive so you can know at a glance to re-engage this contact.
   
   

Press Save and select this sequence ruleset when creating your Sequences or apply a ruleset to an existing sequence navigating to Sequences > Click into your Sequence > Settings of your Sequence > Scroll to the Sequence Ruleset dropdown and choose your Ruleset.