How an Intelligence Sequence Works
No steps to lay out. Each email is written when it is due, for that contact.
What It Is
A template-driven sequence is a plan: you lay out step 1, step 2, step 3, pick a template for each and set the gaps between them. Everyone walks the same path.
An intelligence-driven sequence has no steps at all. You give it an objective, the rules it must follow, how many emails it may send and how long to wait between them. Then each email is written when it falls due, for that one contact, from everything that has happened with them since the last one.
This is why the builder shows no step list when you choose Intelligence-Driven. There is nothing to lay out. The sequence decides what the next email says at the moment it needs to say it.
Why It Matters
The weakness of a templated cadence is that step 3 was written before anyone knew what the contact did about steps 1 and 2. It goes out the same whether they ignored you, opened everything twice, or replied asking a question.
Because an intelligence sequence writes each email at the moment it is due, it has the contact's whole history to work from — including the emails this sequence already sent them, and what they did about those. Follow-up number three can acknowledge that they clicked the pricing link, or change the angle because two messages have gone unanswered.
It is also why a sequence suits a long nurture better than a broadcast does. A broadcast is one send to many people. A sequence is a relationship with one person, conducted over weeks.
How It Works
Each contact in the sequence has their own enrolment, which moves through the same loop independently of everyone else's:
1. Due. The enrolment carries a next-send time. When it passes, and the contact is inside the send window, they are picked up.
2. Written. The email is composed for this contact — from your objective, the mandates you attached, your brand voice, and their own history with you. While this happens the enrolment reads generating.
3. Reviewed. The finished email is held and scored against your quality threshold before it can send. On the first production run the two emails scored 89.8 and 91.1 against a threshold of 85, and both passed. An email that scores below the threshold is held rather than sent.
4. Sent, through your verified sending domain.
5. Waited. The enrolment's next-send time is set by your default delay, counted from the moment the email went out, and the loop begins again.
The enrolment stops when it reaches your maximum number of emails, when the contact replies and your reply rule says to stop, or when you stop it yourself. Set the maximum to 0 and it continues indefinitely.
Examples
A contact replies after the second email
What happens next is your reply rule. Set to stop, the enrolment ends and the conversation becomes a human one. Set to continue, the sequence keeps going and the reply becomes part of what the next email is written from.
Two contacts enrolled a minute apart, in different countries
They progress independently. The send window is read in each contact's own timezone, so one can be mid-window while the other is still an hour from theirs — and each gets their email at a sensible local hour rather than at whatever time suits your server.
You set a maximum of 3 emails
After the third email the enrolment completes and nothing further is sent to that contact from this sequence. The sequence itself stays active for anyone still enrolled.
Important: Each email an intelligence sequence writes carries a per-contact charge that covers writing it and reviewing it. A template-driven sequence writes nothing, so it carries no such charge. Unlike the broadcast builders, the sequence builder does not show you a cost estimate before you activate it — work out the cost from your audience size and the maximum number of emails before you enrol a large list.
