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Daily

Send personal emails to a lead sheet and follow up on no-replies

Each weekday the next batch of leads in your sheet gets your email from Gmail, people who do not reply get a follow-up, and the sheet tracks every status.

Runs
Daily
Apps
Gmail, Google Sheets
AI
Optional
Access
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.modify (read threads + send)

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: each weekday at 9am, email the next 30 leads in my Leads sheet using my template, send a follow-up after 3 days to anyone who hasn't replied, and record the status in the sheet.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A founder has a sheet of 400 prospects from a trade show. Sending them one by one from Gmail takes days, she loses track of who has had a follow-up, and two people get the same email twice.

Sending in small daily batches from your own mailbox, with follow-ups only to people who have not answered, keeps outreach personal and stops replies being met with another reminder.

What you get out of it

  • Emails come from your real inbox

    Messages are sent from your own Gmail, so replies land in your normal conversations and read like one-to-one email.

  • Follow-ups stop when someone replies

    Each thread is checked before a follow-up is sent, so nobody who has already answered gets chased.

  • Small daily batches

    Sending a few dozen a day protects your sender reputation and keeps the replies manageable.

  • The sheet is your campaign record

    Status, send date and thread are written back on each row, so you can see at a glance who is waiting, who replied and who is done.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every weekday at 9am ClickRuntime reads your Leads sheet.

  2. For leads already emailed, it checks the conversation in Gmail and skips anyone who has replied.

  3. It sends the first email to the next leads with no status, and a follow-up to those who have waited 3 days without a reply.

  4. Each row is updated with its new status and date, so you can see where every lead stands.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsDaily
Send personal emails to a lead sheet and follow up on no-repliestoday, 9:00Succeeded
Gmail · SentTo: jo@acme.example. Subject: Quick follow-up from the expo. Hi Jo, great to meet you at the Northwind expo. Would a 15-minute call next week be useful?

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Gmail and Google Sheets steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
email_campaign_from_a_sheet_with_follow_ups.pyexample
import base64
from datetime import date, timedelta
from email.message import EmailMessage
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http
SHEET, G = "your-spreadsheet-id", "https://gmail.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/me"
FIRST = "Hi {name},\n\nGreat to meet you at the Northwind expo. Would a 15-minute call next week be useful?"
FOLLOW = "Hi {name}, just bringing this back to the top of your inbox."
@on_trigger
def run(event):
    h = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('google', 'work')}"}
    rows = http.get(f"https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/{SHEET}/values/Leads!A2:E", headers=h).json().get("values", [])
    updates, sent, today = [], 0, date.today()
    for i, r in enumerate(rows, start=2):
        name, email, status, sent_on, thread = (r + [""] * 5)[:5]
        if status == "sent" and sent_on <= str(today - timedelta(days=3)):
            replied = len(http.get(f"{G}/threads/{thread}", headers=h).json()["messages"]) > 1
            status = "replied" if replied else "follow-up"
            body = None if replied else FOLLOW
        elif not status and sent < 30:
            status, body = "sent", FIRST
        else: continue
        if body:
            m = EmailMessage(); m["To"] = email; m["Subject"] = "Quick follow-up from the expo"; m.set_content(body.format(name=name))
            res = http.post(f"{G}/messages/send", headers=h, json={"raw": base64.urlsafe_b64encode(m.as_bytes()).decode(),
                                                                    **({"threadId": thread} if thread else {})}).json()
            thread, sent = res["threadId"], sent + 1
        updates.append({"range": f"Leads!C{i}:E{i}", "values": [[status, str(today), thread]]})
    if updates: http.post(f"https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/{SHEET}/values:batchUpdate", headers=h,
                  json={"valueInputOption": "RAW", "data": updates})
    return {"sent": sent}

FAQ

Common questions

How is each email personalised?
Your template can use any column in the sheet, such as first name, company or the event where you met. AI can also adjust the opening line from a notes column if you want.
Can I change the number sent per day?
Yes. Set the batch size to whatever suits your mailbox; smaller batches are safer for new accounts.
How many follow-ups does it send?
One follow-up after 3 days by default. You can add a second step with a different template and gap.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.modify (read threads + send). Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No, but you can ask for an AI step (for example a summary). It then uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (daily). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

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