How auto responders work

An auto responder is a set of emails attached to one list. Anyone who joins that list starts receiving them, in order, on a schedule you set. You build it once and it keeps running.

A campaign is a single email you send to everyone at the same moment. An auto responder is the opposite shape: the same emails, sent to each person on their own clock, starting the day they joined.

Every contact runs on their own timer

This is the part that surprises people. Someone who joined this morning gets your first email today. Someone who joined three weeks ago might already be on the fourth. There is no single "send day" for an auto responder, because everyone is at a different point in the same sequence.

You set the wait before each email, measured from the previous one. A responder with waits of 0 minutes, 3 days, and 7 days sends the welcome immediately, the second email three days after that, and the third a week later.

Joining the list is what enrolls someone

You never add contacts to an auto responder directly. You add them to the list, and the responder picks them up. That holds no matter how they arrived:

• They confirmed a signup form
• You imported a CSV
• You added them by hand from Contacts
• You moved them onto the list in bulk

All four paths enroll. There is no separate step and no way to be on the list but outside the sequence.

What takes someone out

An enrollment ends when the contact can no longer be emailed, or when they leave the list. Unsubscribing, bouncing, or filing a complaint all stop the sequence immediately. So does removing them from the list.

Rejoining picks up where they left off. If they got emails one and two before leaving, coming back puts them at email three. They will not receive one and two a second time.

Finishing is permanent

Once a contact reaches the end of an auto responder, they are done with it for good. Removing them from the list and adding them back changes nothing, and neither does deleting and re-importing the contact. The sequence is finished for that person.

That is deliberate. The alternative is a list operation quietly re-mailing your entire welcome sequence to people who already read it.

If you want to reach contacts who have already finished, send them a campaign, or build a second auto responder on a different list.

Next: Build and activate your first auto responder.