Check for replies

• Overview
• How it works
• Best practices

Overview

"Check for replies" is the Action for monitoring replies to the messages sent via any Action of the campaign. If no reply from the profile is found within the indicated time period, then the profile is moved to the next Action in the Workflow.

Important:

• The messaging history analyzer works only for 1st level connections in LinkedIn and Sales Navigator (analyzer for Recruiter is under development), and for your 2nd and 3rd-degree connections in case a message was sent via group.
• Check for replies now detects InMails as replies, but only in LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, not in Recruiter or Talent platforms.
• Check for replies cannot detect a reply if the messaging thread was archived in LinkedIn.
  

You can switch between several of its tabs to configure your action.

In the "General" tab you can:

• set a name for the action;
• postpone the start of the action with the "Start at" button;
• set the delay (indicate the number of days and hours or make the delay infinite by choosing the "never" option) for the profiles, i.e. how much time each profile will be sitting in the Action Queue before it will be moved to the next action in case a reply is not found;
• set a timeout between checks for replies;

In the "Tags" tab you can automatically add or delete tags to successfully processed profiles: how to use tags in Linked Helper;

In the "Advanced settings" tab you can:

• enable the option to treat "Message Request Accepted" as replies. This feature may help to identify group members and coworkers who accepted your message request but haven't responded. Reference materials:
  • Send, Receive, and Manage Message Requests (LinkedIn Help Center article)
  • How to message LinkedIn group members
• enable "Keep in queue permanently if request is not accepted" option, which allows you to keep profiles in the Queue of the action even if the specified amount of time for checking replies has passed. This can be helpful if you'd like to send another follow-up to 2nd or 3rd-degree connection via a Group or Event, as in these cases you cannot send a follow-up unless profile accepts your initial message.

In the "Send replied to Zapier | Webhook" tab you can automatically send profileswho replied (including the reply itself) to any other app / CRM  that supports Zapier or Webhook integration:

• How to send profiles to Google Sheets or any other CRM / webapp via Zapier Webhook
• Send person to webhook

Please, note that:

• Check for replies action works in cycles: it only checks who replied to your previous message every X hours (12 by default).
• Check for replies action searches for replies from the profile only in one platform where the previous message was sent; it does not check messaging history in several platforms.
• Those who replied will be moved to the "Replied" sub-list and this is the ending point of the campaign for them, even if you have other actions in your workflow below.
• If no reply found within a specified period of time, a profile is moved to the "Successful" list and further down in the workflow, and his replies to the previously sent message won't be checked anymore.
• Enabling the "never" option means that profiles will never be moved to the "Successful" list and further down in the workflow even if you have other actions below, so we recommend using this option only at the end of your workflow.
• The time period Action waits for reply starts when the previous message was sent, not when a profile was added to the Queue.
• Check for replies action, unlike Invite 2nd and 3rd level contacts or Endorse my contacts actions, does not visit each profile separately, it checks all the profiles from the Queue at once, yet triggering this Action very often may attract LinkedIn attention, that's why it's not possible to set the timeout between checks to be less than 1 hour.
  

How it works

The Action checks profiles in its "Queue" every "X" hours (12 by default) for replies to the previously sent message in the current campaign, moving those who replied to the "Replied" sub-list and leaving the rest in the "Queue" until the next check.

Depending on the settings, the Action either moves the profile further in the funnel if no reply was found within a specified period of time ( countdown starts from the time when the previous message was sent), or it leaves the profile in the "Queue" until a reply is found, no matter how much time passed since the message.

As you may know, the "Message to 1st Connections | Group members" action already has settings for reply detection, which can:

• Stop profiles from being processed further in the funnel if they replied to the previous message of your campaign
• Stop profiles from being processed further in the funnel if you or Linked Helper messaged profiles after the connection date (manually or automatically via another campaign).

The main problem here is that with the "Message to 1st Connections | Group members" action, Linked Helper can detect such replies only at the moment of sending the message with this certain "Message to 1st Connections | Group members action, so it may not work for your specific needs, because it checks for reply only once, when trying to send the message. 

"Check for replies" action can look at your message inbox every set amount of time (12 hours by default) during a certain time period, delaying profiles from being processed by the next action in your workflow, so it may help to gather daily statistics or to make a delay between your messages in the workflow or just to detect the reply in the period between sending the messages.

Best practices

Here are some examples of when "Check for replies" can be used:

Between the messages in your campaign

Let's imagine you have a message sequence of two messages. You want to send the second message in 2 days after the first one if there was no reply, so your campaign looks like this:

Technically, both "Delay between actions" and "Check for replies" can  both do the two days delay, but there are some differences:

• "Check for replies" can detect a reply earlier because it checks your inbox for a reply every "X" hours (12 by default). So that means if the profile replies in three hours after the first message, it will appear in the "Replied" sub-list of "Check for replies" in 12 hours or less (remember that the default timeout between checks is 12 hours, but you can decrease it). If you use "Delay between actions" instead, Linked Helper will check for reply only at the moment of sending the second message, which will be only in 2 days. In other words, "Check for replies" allows you to know about the reply earlier.
• Since "Check for replies" can detect a reply earlier, it can be useful if your goal is to detect and then send replied profiles to your CRM or any other app via Zapier / Webhook integration as soon as they reply. Using "Delay between actions" as "Action #2" in the same message chain will lead to the detection of the reply by "Action #3 - Message to 1st" only in 2 days while sending the second message, even if the profile replied much earlier.

After the last or the only message of your campaign

If your campaign has only one message, the only way to automatically detect reply for it is by adding the "Check for replies" action after your message. The same applies to the last message of your message chain. Here is when the "never" option of the "If no replies are found, move the contacts to Successful list" setting can be used.

This option disables the transfer of profiles to the "Successful" list of this Action, and by enabling it, you basically create a dead-end for profiles in this action since "Check for replies" will not anymore transfer profiles to the end of your campaign. Instead, it will be checking for replies to your previous message in a loop, moving replied profiles to the "Replied" sub-list and leaving the rest in the "Queue" until the next check.

This is a useful way to detect replies to the last or the only message of your campaign because some profiles can reply in 1 day and some in 1 week and making "Check for replies" work in a loop for those profiles pretty much solves this issue.