The Review Requests section of your Grade.us account holds the key to leveraging a lot of your review power. From here you can launch one of Grade.us' most powerful tools: campaigns. Campaigns allow you to reach out to your customer base through a series of emails or texts. These campaigns allow you to request reviews from the customers you have served and direct your customer to your Grade.us landing page. Campaigns have the ability to be scheduled so that the notifications go out over a series of days, and your customers are able to opt-out if they don't want to receive the information.
Prior Reading:
In This Article:
My email campaign recipient wants to be unsubscribed/ resubscribed. How do I do this?
What happens when a recipient clicks an email's unsubscribe link?
Does the system prevent adding duplicate email addresses or phone numbers to my campaign?
Why do I have only 100 active recipient spots at a time?
How can I avoid my drip campaign emails getting caught in a spam filter?
My email campaign recipient wants to be unsubscribed/ resubscribed. How do I do this?
What happens when a recipient clicks an email's unsubscribe link?
Does the system prevent adding duplicate email addresses or phone numbers to my campaign?
Why do I have only 100 active recipient spots at a time?
Is SMS provided in my country?
Why is my area code unavailable?
How can I adjust my text message limit?
How do I deactivate, delete, or unsubscribe an recipient?
How do I un-archive a recipient?
Can you Bulk-Edit a Drip Campaign?
Recipients:
The Recipients tab of the Review Requests section of Grade.us is where you can upload a list of customers who have provided you with their contact information. Here you have the ability to add recipients one at a time, or bulk upload through a CSV/XLSX file.
To add recipients to your list of contacts, perform the following:
Add recipients one at a time:
1. Select the "+Add a Recipient" button.
2. Fill out the form.
- Email: Select this checkbox if the customer has provided an email.
- Text: Select this check box if the customer have provided a phone number.
- First Name* (required): First name of the contact.
- Last Name: Last name of the contact.
- Tags (optional): internal keywords you would like associated with the customer for reporting purposes.
3. Select "Add Recipient."
- Individual should now show up in the In Queue tab.
Upload CSV/XLSX:
1. Select the "Upload CSV/XLSX" button.
2. Choose a file to upload.
Danger:
The CSV or XLSX file you select will need to include the following information in order to be uploaded correctly:
- Email and/or Phone.
- First name.
- Last name.
- Select the "Upload Csv Xlsx" button.
- Navigate to where your file is saved on your computer.
- Select the file and select "Open."
3. Organize Columns.
- Move the options from the "Columns from file" column to the "Expected for upload" column.
Caution:
If your headers do not match our guidelines, you will be prompted to match them after uploading the file.
4. Select "Continue to Upload."
Once all of your contacts have been uploaded, they will show up in the "In Queue" tab. They will remain in this tab until they have been activated. Descriptions of all the recipient statuses can be found below.
- They're manually moved to the Active Recipients list (after clicking Activate all In Queue Recipients or toggling the 'check mark' on/green.)
- They're automatically moved to the Active Recipients list (you must toggle on Auto-activate in queue recipients daily?)

Caution:
Any contacts listed in the "In Queue" tab will not receive emails or texts until they have been activated/ associated with a campaign. Once they have been activated they will be moved to the "Active" or "Complete" tabs and will no longer display in the "In Queue" tab.
From the In Queue tab you have the ability to "auto activate" recipients. This feature will automatically move a set number of recipients to your Active Recipients list every day (provided that there is enough room on the Active recipients list). To turn on this feature, set Auto-activate in queue recipients daily? to Yes. You can then set how many recipients per day you'd like to activate (the default is 10).
FYI
Recipients added via the Client or Staff forms will bypass In Queue and go straight to the Active tab. If the Active tab is full, then they will appear in the In Queue Tab.
- They receive all of the emails in the drip campaign sequence.
- They unsubscribe themselves from the list.
- They are automatically deactivated after opening an email, clicking through an email, or clicking through to a review site from your landing page (you must have turned these settings on in the Email Activity tab.)
- They submit a review directly to your review funnel landing page.


Activity is logged in the Email/Text Activity column.
- Opened means that the recipient opened the email, but did not click the link to the landing page inside.
- Clicked means that the recipient opened the email and clicked the link to the landing page.
- Unsubscribed means that the recipient unsubscribed themselves from the campaign using the link provided in the email (unsubscribes will also display for recipients still on the Complete list. A yellow ! icon will appear next to their entry in that list.)
- Bounced means that the email was not delivered to the recipient (bounces can be due to anything from the recipient having a full mailbox to their email server malfunctioning.)

- Deactivate recipients on open?: Move recipients from the Active tab to the Complete tab after they have opened/read a text or email.
- Deactivate recipients on click?: Move recipients from the Active tab to the Complete tab after they have opened the link in a text or email.
- Deactivate recipients on clickthrough?: Move recipients from the Active tab to the Complete tab after they have clicked through the entire text or email.
Activity is logged in the Funnel Activity column.
- Arrived from...: indicates how the customer appeared on your Landing Page (either through email or text.)
- Clicked "x" stars: indicates what rating the customer provided on your Landing Page.
- Continued to...: indicates which third party review site (of the ones you have linked) the customer selected to leave their review.
FYI:
While Grade.us can give you all the resources you need to lead your customer to your Landing Page, and then to the third party review sites, we cannot make them leave a review if they decide to stop at the last step. It is possible to see a customer click all the way through to the end, but not see a review show up in your review stream. Grade.us is unable to track the review process through the 3rd party site.

Email:
Our automated email campaigns allow you to reach out to your recent customers over time to facilitate a steady stream of reviews.
Before accessing any campaign features, you must first complete the initial campaign setup by filling out the fields in the Setup Email Review Requests Campaigns window. Once you have completed this setup, you'll have access to all campaign features.
By default, the first email to a recipient will be sent out Immediately after a recipient becomes Active (more on this below). Deactivate recipients on click will also be turned on. You can adjust both of these settings in the initial setup screen.
Danger:
Using a custom email address in the "From email" field can cause your campaign emails to bounce.
Once your Campaign has been started, you have the ability to customize the information.
FYI:
It is a good idea to customize the information available to you. This will help convert more customers into reviewers. Consider personalizing or intensifying the wording of the emails. The default language is serviceable for a wide range of businesses, but the more directly you can speak to your customers, the more you stoke the sense of reciprocity that motivates them to complete a review for you.
To customize your email, the first thing you will need to do is select the template you would like to modify. On the left hand side you will, by default, have three templates to choose from:
You can add or remove additional templates at anytime. You can also reset the mail templates back to default, if needed.
Once you have selected which template you would like to modify, navigate to the right side of the screen where you can see a preview of your message. From here you can select the different headings and make modifications to fit your brand.
- Sent: This is when you want the email to go out once a recipient has been activated. Select an option from the drop down by clicking on the underlined portion to the right of "sent"
- Send on Weekends: Yes or No. Select based on preference.
- Subject: Customize based on preference.
- Body of Email: Customize based on preference.
The email template also allows for the use of [[Placeholders.]] There are options that you can fill out that will then populate to the appropriate areas of your form wherever you have the placeholder text listed.
- [[first_name]] will display the recipient's first name as entered when uploaded.
- [[last_name]] will display the recipient's last name as entered when uploaded.
- [[profile-name]] will display the profile's names as entered in Business Name in Dashboard > Funnel > Setup > Branding and Design > Brand/Business Name.
- [[profile_url]] will display the profile's URL as it appears in the top right of the dashboard.
- [[profile_short_url]] will display a shortened URL, intended to lower character count (text message only.)
- [[recipient_custom_field_1]] will display the text entered into the Custom Field box for a given recipient in Dashboard > Invites > Recipients.
- [[Logo]] will display the profile's logo if one has been set up.
Once you have completed formatting your form you can send a test email by selecting the "Send a Test" button.
Phone/Text:
Just like email campaigns, Grade.us also has the ability to implement Text Message campaigns. You can quickly engage your customers in the review writing process by guiding them to your landing page via a text message with a link to your landing page URL.
Text messaging is enabled on a profile-by-profile basis. Depending on your plan, there may be an additional charge that varies by country. To get started, perform the following:
1. Add text messaging to your landing.
- Navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Phone/Text and click the Add Phone/Text button.

- This is the number that your customers will see in the ‘From’ field. You can specify an area code by typing it in the Area code (optional) field.
- Select "Find Available Numbers." Choose a number from the list and select "Continue."
Once you have associated a phone number with your Grade.us account, you can start sending Text Message campaigns! To customize the messaging that you send, navigate to the "Campaign" tab.
Caution:
When using our text message system, you agree to abide by our terms of service and only send mobile communications to customers who have agreed to receive them. Please ensure that the customer has ‘opted in’ of their own accord.
- Edit the text content of your message(s.)
- Add images to your text messages (additional charges may apply.)
- Add messages to your text sequence.
To customize your text message, the first thing you will need to do is select the template you would like to modify. On the left hand side you will, by default, have one template to choose from:

You can add or remove additional templates at anytime.
Once you have selected which template you would like to modify, navigate to the right side of the screen where you can see a preview of your message. From here you can select the different headings and make modifications to fit your brand.

- Add an image: Yes or No. Select based on preference.
- Please note: Adding an image will use 2 texts per recipient. This is a billable action.
- While we do not have an aspect ratio limit, some images may experience cropping while on mobile. Please size the image down until no cropping appears for the optimal experience.
- Sent: This is when you want the text message to go out once a recipient has been activated. Select an option from the drop down by clicking on the underlined portion to the right of "sent."
- From: This is the phone number that will appear on the message. This will auto-populate.
- Text Body: Customize based on preference.
Clicking out of the text box will automatically save your changes. You can send yourself a test message by clicking Send a Test and specifying a recipient number.
Here, you'll see a list of any replies you have received, with the most recent message displayed. Click Details to see the entire conversation.
In the Details pop-up, you'll also be able to reply to the selected recipient.
Caution:
Please note: replies that you send from the Details pop-up will count toward your monthly SMS usage.

You can edit the existing autoreply or adjust the settings in the top right corner of the screen. You'll see the following options:

- Autoreply only (default): This is the default setting. When a reply is received, the autoreply will be sent to the recipient and their reply logged in the Inbox. No further action will be taken.
- Autoreply OTHERWISE Notify Owners: This option is the same as Autoreply AND Notify Owners, except it will only send notifications out when you receive follow-up messages beyond the first, auto-replied one.
- Autoreply AND Notify Owners: This setting will do everything that Autoreply only does, and will also send out an email notification to all users associated with the business profile. This will apply to every message sent.
- Notify Owners only: This option will never send out autoreplies but will instead notify associated users that a message has been received.
Print:
One of the unique features available to our Grade.us customers can be found within the Print tab of the Review Requests area. From here you are able to create and print your own physical invite cards that can be passed out to customers.
A preview image of your info card is displayed on the right hand side of the screen.
- Description: Customize based on preference.
- Download PNG: Allows you to download a PNG of your info card that you can take to have printed.
- Print: Allows you to print a sheet of ten invite cards.
- This template will be standard 3.5 x 2 business cards on 8.5 x 11 paper.
- Intended to work with the Avery 5371 Template.
Client & Staff Forms:
To help collect customers information for email or text messaging campaigns, Grade.us has designed two forms: The Review Requests Form and Opt-In Form. These tools allow your customers to volunteer their information so that you can reach out to them for reviews as a part of your campaign.
FYI
Recipients added via the Client or Staff forms will bypass In Queue and go straight to the Active tab. If the Active tab is full, they will appear in the In Queue Tab.
The form is password-protected and you can change the login credentials at any time. Simply share your form's URL and login credentials to get your staff members started. They do not receive access to any part of your account.
On the left side of the screen, you'll find a small menu of options. Click on any of them to expand.

Access Credentials
The Access Credentials section shows the randomly generated username and password required to access the review request form. You can edit the username and password at any time. Simply click on the field you'd like to edit, type in your new credentials, and click Save to save your changes.
The "Magic" Link section contains a unique, private URL that allows team members to access the form without using the login credentials. Reset this link at any time by clicking Reset Access Token.

Customize
In the Customize section, you’ll find several options for customizing the form. Simply click any of the following fields to edit:

- Header/Title: This is the message that will show up right below your business name. Set based on preference.
- Body Text/HTML: This is the message that will appear right below your header. This field accepts HTML.
- Call-to-Action: Change what the Submit button says. The default text is Send Me a Request.
- Customer CSS: Change the look and feel of the Opt-in Form using CSS styling.
This form lives in its own URL - simply append your landing page URL with "/optin." For example, if your landing page URL is:
https://www.myreviews.com/scdpinc
Your opt-in URL would be:
https://www.myreviews.com/scdpinc/optin
Customers who use this form to sign up will automatically be added to your campaign sequence. They will be placed directly on the Active Recipients list, bypassing the In Queue list. If the Active list is full, they will go to the In Queue list instead.
Customizing the Opt-in form:
You can customize the Opt-in form to best fit your needs by performing the following:
- Header/Title: This is the message that will show up right below your business name. Set based on preference.
- Body Text/HTML: This is the message that will appear right below your header. This field accepts HTML.
- Call-to-Action: Change what the Submit button says. The default text is Send Me a Request.
- Customer CSS: Change the look and feel of the Opt-in Form using CSS styling.
- Advanced
- Use custom field?: Yes or No. Select based on preference. This will allow you to add additional fields to your form.
- Custom field label: Title of the custom field.
- Allow recipients to be re-added and reactivated?: Yes or No. Select based on preference. Will allow customers to re-add and reactivate themselves, but only using this form.
End of Article
Congratulations! You are well on your way to acquiring more reviews for your business through our campaigns! The next article will cover "Reviews," which will show you the responses you have received from your customers.
Common Questions
How do I export my campaign data?
You can generate CSV spreadsheets containing campaign stats for all of your In Queue , Active, Complete, and archived recipients.
1. Navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Recipients.
2. On the right hand side of your screen, you will see two blue buttons: "Export recent recipients" (In Queue, Active, Complete) and "Export archived recipients".
What's in the spreadsheet?
Column by column, the spreadsheet contents are as follows:
- email_address (column A): The recipient's email address as added to the campaign, if any.
- phone_number (B): The recipient's mobile phone number as added to the campaign, if any.
- first_name (C): The recipient's first name as added to the campaign.
- last_name (D): The recipient's last name as added to the campaign, if any.
- sent_count (E): How many emails or texts they have received.
- started_at (F): The date they first received a campaign message.
- last_sent_at (G): When the most recent campaign message was sent.
- is_pending (H): Whether they are on the In Queue recipients list or not (true/false.)
- is_active (I): Whether they are on the Active recipients list or not (true/false.)
- is_archived (J): Whether they have been deleted entirely from your campaign or not (true/false).
- rejected (K): Whether the recipient's email provider rejected the sender address or not (true/false.)
- blocked (L): Whether the recipient's email provider blocked the message or not (true/false.)
- bounced (M): Whether the email message bounced or not (true/false.)
- clicked (N): Whether the recipient clicked the message's review link or not (true/false.)
- flagged (O): Whether the email message was flagged as spam or not (true/false.)
- opened (P): Whether the recipient opened the message or not (true/false.)
- unsubscribe (Q): Whether the recipient unsubscribed (true/false.)
- tags (R): displays the tag associated with the customer.
Is SMS provided in my country?
Why is my area code unavailable?
Australia Only - Why do I receive an error after submitting my address for approval for SMS activation?
How can I adjust my text message limit?
2. Under "Text Message Template" click the number next to "Text Message Limit" and enter a new number.
- The default monthly text message limit is 200, with a maximum monthly limit is 2000.*
*Messages over the 200 default may incur an additional fee.
How do I deactivate, delete, or unsubscribe an recipient?
To remove a recipient before they automatically become Complete, navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Recipients > Active. Under the "Edit" Column, you will be presented with options to deactive, delete, or unsubscribe.
How do I un-archive a recipient?
By default, your recipients are automatically archived when a campaign has been completed. To unblock a recipient, perform the following:
1. Navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Recipients.
2. Select the "Complete" tab.
3. Click the "x" under the "Edit" column to delete the recipient.
4. Re-add the deleted recipient.
- Select the "+Add a Recipient" button and re-fill out the information.
Can you Bulk-Edit a Drip Campaign?
Warning:
This feature is only possible for profiles that are "Multi-Location" profiles.
You have the ability of copying the email/text drip campaign settings of your parent profile to all of its sub-profiles.
1. Navigate to the top-level, parent profile of your multi-location business, and make your desired edits to the email and text campaign content.
2. Once you have finished customizing your campaign sequence and content, click the "Copy Campaign to Sub-profiles (beta)" button.
Warning:
As indicated in the interface, this action is permanent, irreversible, and will delete any existing customization's on child profiles. We are unable to reverse this action for you, so please proceed with the appropriate precaution.
Can you add a customized unsubscribe link?
Custom unsubscribe links can only be applied to custom email templates and not the ones that Grade.us provides by default.
1. Navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Email.
2. Select "+Add an Email" or select and existing custom email.
3. At the bottom of the email creation menu, toggle on the Use custom footer? checkbox.
4. Enter your customer footer text and edit the unsubscribe link text. The end result will look similar to this:
Warning:
You must use the [[unsubscribe]] placeholder somewhere in your footer - this adds the unsubscribe link.
How can I avoid my drip campaign emails getting caught in a spam filter?
Spam filter issues are notoriously complex and difficult to pinpoint. That said, we do periodically test email deliver-ability and monitor for systemic issues with our messages being flagged as spam.
To help make sure your emails have the smallest chance of getting picked up by a spam filter, avoid the following:
- Avoid exclamation points.
- Don't write in all caps.
- Avoid red or green fonts
- Don't include large images or a large number of images
- Maintain a text-to-image ratio of two lines of text for every image included
- Keep any HTML formatting neat and minimal.
A certain percentage of emails (around 15 percent of all opt-in marketing emails) will inevitably end up in spam filters, even if you've done everything "by the book." Please reach out to support@grade.us if you are experiencing issues with spam filtering. We will investigate any reports of spam activity to ensure the best possible performance for all of our customers.
My email campaign recipient wants to be unsubscribed/ resubscribed. How do I do this?
Unsubscribe:
While campaign recipients always have the option to unsubscribe themselves via the industry-standard unsubscribe link that appears at the bottom of every campaign email, many users anticipate occasions where they may need to unsubscribe recipients themselves. You can do this from the Review Requests tab:
1. Navigate to Dashboard > Review Requests > Recipients.
2. Using the "search" field, enter in the email of the customer who needs to be unsubscribed.
- You may need to switch between the "Active" and "Complete" tabs to see them in the results.
3. After the customer has been located, select the grey exclamation point to the right of the table under the "Edit" column.
- If the exclamation point is yellow, it means the customer has unsubscribed themselves and no further action is needed.
4. The grey exclamation point should turn yellow when the unsubscribe is successful.
This unsubscribe is permanent, but reversible.
Re-subscribe:
Sometimes a customer unsubscribes by accident and needs to be resubscribed. To reverse the unsubscribe simply click on the yellow exclamation point until it turns back into a grey exclamation point.
What happens when a recipient clicks an email's unsubscribe link?
If the recipient is unsubscribing from a drip campaign email, they will be directed to a simple unsubscribe confirmation page in their web browser.
Does the system prevent adding duplicate email addresses or phone numbers to my campaign?
Our system prevents the addition of duplicate email addresses and phone numbers across the board. As long as the address/number is already on the Active, Complete, or In Queue Recipients list, you will be prevented from adding it manually or uploading it in a CSV/XLSX file (your other valid entries will not be affected and will still be added).
Note that Complete recipients automatically expire and are archived after a default period of 180 days. You can change the length of time a recipient remains on your Complete list before being purged.
Exceptions:
We've includedan optional toggle on theOpt-in form that allows you to re-activate Complete recipients when they are input via the Opt-in form only (reason being, the opt-in form is designed for the end customer to opt themselves into the email or text campaign).
Access this toggle in Dashboard > Invites > Invite & Opt-in Forms > Opt-in Form > Advanced. From there, set Allow recipients to be re-added and reactivated? to Yes.
Why do I have only 100 active recipient spots at a time?
- Protecting you from spam detection.
- Ensuring a steady trickle of reviews instead of a sudden flood, making your business more trustworthy in the eyes of both review site algorithms and your potential customers.
Note that you are allowed 100 active recipients per location - for example, if you manage five profiles, each profile has its own email/text campaign. Each campaign can have up to 100 active recipients at any given time.
How do I create a separate, limited-access user account for a client or employee?
FYI:
You do not need to create separate user accounts if you only want to allow clients to upload recipients into their email drip campaigns.
We provide a password-protected, dedicated invite form that allows a business to upload recipients to drip campaigns with no dashboard access required. We generally do not recommend providing user accounts to clients unless you are explicitly providing a self-serve solution to them.
Our user management feature allows you to create separate logins with varying degrees of access for clients or employees. To add a new user, navigate to Manage > Users.
In the top right of the Users tab, click the Add a User button.
Enter the new user's first name, last name, and email address. Then, specify the level of access you want to give them in the User access-level drop-down menu. You can give a user access to:
- Admin: give the user access to your entire account. They will be able to access all businesses, locations, and functions, including user management and billing
- Staff: give the user access to all businesses and locations within your account. Users at this level will be able to manage and create other users, but will not receive access to billing
- Single business: give the user access to the control panel for single business and landing pages for all of its locations
- Single location of a business: give the user access to the control panel for a single location (profile) of a business
- A combination of businesses and/or locations of a business
Additionally, you can select which portions of the Dashboard you'd like them to see for their selected businesses and/or locations by editing their Custom Permissions. You can change these at any time, along with the user's account type.
If you have multiple domains associated with your account, use associate user with domain select which domain you'd like to associate with the new user.
Click the Submit button to submit your request. An email will be sent to the new user with a link that will allow them to set up their new account. The token contained in this email is valid for two weeks, after which the administrator must send a new invitation.
When the user has logged in for the first time, it will be reflected in their User List entry under the Last Login column (this column is blank until the user sets up their account).
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