How to answer replies to cold emails

Every reply to a cold campaign lands under Replies, sorted (interested, a question, not now, wrong person, no) with an answer drafted for you to check and send, or for the autopilot to send after a delay. Mark each one as a meeting booked, won or lost.

Updated 2026-10-30

When someone answers a cold email, their follow-ups stop and the reply lands on the Cold email page under Replies (in the full app: Growth → Outreach → Cold campaigns → Replies). This needs your Otto server to receive replies; if it does not, the page says so and replies go to your own inbox instead.

How replies are sorted

Otto puts each reply in one of these:

• Interested: wants to talk, a call, a price or more detail. You get a notice straight away.
• Has a question: asks something before deciding.
• Not now: maybe later, busy, ask again another time.
• Wrong person: says someone else handles this, or names them.
• Not interested: a plain or polite no.
• Unsubscribed: "remove me", "stop" or a bare "no". Otto stops every campaign of yours writing to them and adds them to Do not contact. No answer is drafted.
• Automatic reply: an out-of-office. Kept, never answered.

Automatic replies and unsubscribes are recognised by fixed rules and cost nothing. The rest are read by Otto, which also drafts an answer for the interested, questions, not now and wrong person. Their words are treated as words only: anything in a reply that tries to give Otto orders is ignored. If Otto got the kind wrong, change it in the list beside the reply.

Answer one

1. Press the reply to open it. You see their words and Otto's draft.
2. Change anything you like. Draft again asks Otto for a new one; Save draft keeps your changes.
3. Press Send answer. It waits in Reviews for your yes, unless you set answering cold email replies to Auto. It goes from the same address the campaign wrote from, as "Re:" their subject, with your postal address and a way to stop under it.

Press Done, no answer to file one away. The list shows To answer by default; Answered, Done and All show the rest.

Mark what came of it

When a reply turns into something, choose What came of it on the reply: a meeting booked, won or lost, or nothing. Otto never marks these for you. The campaign counts a meeting for each person marked as a meeting booked or won, and so do niche tests and client report links (see how to run outbound for your clients).

Let the autopilot answer

The autopilot is off until you switch it on, and you choose which kinds it answers: interested, a question, not now or wrong person. For those, Otto's draft goes by itself after a delay you set, from 5 minutes to 24 hours (15 minutes to start with), and only within the campaign's sending days and hours. These answers do not wait in Reviews.

Until it goes, you can stop any one: change its draft, file it as done, or stop the autopilot for that reply, and it is left to you. The autopilot never sends:

• a draft that says Otto could not answer from your offer, such as "I'll find out" or "let me get back to you";
• anything to someone who unsubscribed;
• a second answer to the same person within a day.

Follow up later

For a reply that says not now, choose in how many days to come back, from 1 to 365 (30 to start with). The reply is filed away until then. On that day Otto drafts a fresh, short follow-up, puts the reply back under To answer, and sends you a notice. Nothing is sent until you send it: the autopilot never sends a follow-up.

Send them to your CRM

At the top of Replies, choose HubSpot or Salesforce and how many go there: add people by hand (an Add to button on each reply), everyone interested, or everyone who replies. Connect your CRM on the Integrations page first. Otto only adds contacts (HubSpot) or leads (Salesforce) there.

To have your own system told the moment a reply arrives or is sorted, see how to get cold email events with webhooks.