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Outbox page

Written by Alex Bitca

On the Outbox page, you can keep track of all the surveys sent to your customers and all the manual or automated email replies sent to survey respondents. Besides a list with survey records, the page also provides a set of useful filters, giving you the possibility to segment your data and gain more insights meant to improve your survey campaigns down the road.

The survey records

The Outbox is mainly a list of all the surveys that have been sent to your customers over time. Each list row, which we will be referring to as "outbox record," contains details about the respondent and the survey itself (or email reply).

A list row will contain the following data:

Checkbox (display when you hover over the avatar of a customer, or when you select all items on the page) - allows you to select one or multiple records for further actions, such as resending surveys;

Respondent info - displays the customer's name, job title, and company name. If there is no name associated with the customer, then their email address will be displayed instead;

Campaign name - indicates the campaign a specific survey was sent through;

Survey channel icon - points out the survey channel (email, in-app, link, or Intercom). A list of icons in detail:

  • the envelope icon means that a survey or an autoreply/reply message was sent via email; the computer icon means that the survey was sent via the in-app method;

  • the eye icon means that an email or autoreply/reply with a survey was reviewed;

  • the number is the customer’s answer to the survey;

  • the dash means that this field is not supported by autoreply or reply outbox records, as our system can’t know if the customer has replied to these messages;

Survey subject - displays the rating question/subject lines of your surveys, making it an effective tool to A/B test the subject lines over time;

Sent by - shows you how the survey was sent to the customers. There are seven types:

  • Campaign - means that the survey was sent automatically in a survey campaign;

  • Manual - means that you or another user in the account sent the survey manually;

  • Reminder - means that the customer received a reminder survey in an active campaign;

  • Imported - means that this survey record was created automatically when you have imported historical customer feedback;

  • Test - means that this survey was sent as a test from an email survey template editor.

  • Reply - means that an email reply message was sent manually to the customer from the Feedback page.

  • Autoreply - means that the customer has received an automated email reply message triggered by the campaign's autoresponders.

Survey status - shows you the current status of the survey. There are four statuses:

  • Sent - by default, all the records in the Outbox will have this status highlighted since only surveys that were sent to customers will be listed on this page;

  • Opened - will be highlighted if a customer opened your survey;

  • Responded - will be highlighted if a customer provided at least a rating or text feedback. NOTE: The "Responded" status will not appear for the "Reply" and "Autoreply" outbox records as Retently does not track whether the survey respondent has replied to these messages.

  • Opted out - will be displayed instead of the Responded status if the customer has opted out of receiving further surveys.

Survey date - tells you when the survey was sent to the customer.

Survey delivery stats

The delivery stats strip sits right above the outbox list and summarizes how your surveys performed, from the moment they left Retently through to the response. It always describes the records currently in view, so if you have a date range, campaign, or audience filter applied, every number recalculates to match that selection.

Each block also works as a quick filter: click one and the list below narrows down to only the records behind that number, and click it again to clear it. "Sent" is the only block that is not clickable, since it already represents the full list.

The survey delivery stats includes eight blocks with data:

  1. Sent: The total number of surveys sent to your contacts in the selected view. This is a plain count, with no percentage, and it is the baseline that the delivery, opt out, and bounce rates are measured against. Only actual surveys are counted here. Reply, autoreply, and imported outbox records are excluded, even though they are listed in the Outbox itself.

  2. Delivery Rate: The percentage of sent surveys that were accepted by the recipient's mail server. The number in brackets is the count of delivered surveys. A healthy sending list normally sits in the high 90s. Anything noticeably lower means a portion of your contact list is out of date, and it is worth reviewing the addresses behind the Bounce Rate block. The small chart icon next to the value opens the delivery stats page, where the same metric is plotted over time.

  3. Open Rate: The percentage of delivered surveys that were opened. A survey counts once here no matter how many times it was reopened (the individual outbox row shows the full open count and the exact timestamps when you hover over it). Responded surveys are included, since answering a survey implies opening it.

  4. Response Rate: The percentage of delivered surveys that received an answer. The number in brackets is the count of responses. A survey counts as responded once the customer submits at least a rating.

  5. Opt Out Rate: The percentage of sent surveys where the contact ended up unsubscribed. Two situations are counted here: the customer clicked the unsubscribe link in the survey, or Retently unsubscribed them automatically because their address turned out to be non-deliverable or their survey bounced. Contacts that you unsubscribed manually from the Contacts page are not counted, since that was your decision rather than a reaction to the survey. The chart icon opens the deliverability stats page for a breakdown over time and by campaign.

  6. Bounce Rate: The percentage of sent surveys that were permanently refused by the receiving mail server. A bounce means the address does not exist, the domain is invalid, or the mailbox has been closed. The value is color-coded so you can spot a deteriorating list at a glance. Sustained bounce rates above 1% put your sending reputation at risk, so treat red as a signal to clean up your contact list.

  7. Postponed: A plain count of surveys that Retently held back in the sending queue (in the Queue page) instead of sending them right away, and then retried. A survey gets postponed when the account ran out of survey credits for the current billing cycle, hit its daily sending limit, hit the campaign's own daily survey limit, or the subscription was canceled. The queued survey is retried once a day, for up to 30 attempts over a maximum of 30 days, and it goes out as soon as the limit clears or credits are topped up. Most postponed surveys are delivered in the end, and they keep counting in this block afterwards, so a non-zero value is a record of the delay rather than of a failure. The affected outbox rows show a small clock icon over the envelope, and hovering it tells you how many times the survey was postponed, when it was first postponed, when it was originally triggered, and the reason. A consistently high Postponed count usually means your plan's survey volume is too tight for the campaigns you are running.

  8. Spam Complaints: The percentage of delivered surveys that were reported as spam. The number in brackets is the count of complaints, and very small rates are displayed as "<0.01%". A complaint is registered when a recipient hits "Report spam" or "Move to junk" in their mailbox and their email provider notifies us. This is the most damaging deliverability signal there is, so the block is color coded against the thresholds mailbox providers use. Once you cross 0.3%, providers start throttling or filtering your surveys, which drags down every other metric on this strip. Spam complaints have been tracked since 28 October 2025. If your selected date range starts before that, the block only reflects complaints registered from that date onward, and the tooltip will point this out. The chart icon opens the deliverability stats page.

A note on cached numbers

When no filters are applied, the delivery stats are served from a cache that refreshes every few hours, so very recent sends may take a little while to appear. The information icon at the end of the strip tells you how long ago the values were updated and when they refresh next. As soon as you apply any filter, the numbers are calculated live and that icon disappears.

Outbox filters

If you send recurring surveys, even to a relatively small audience, your Outbox will get crowded and stretch across multiple pages (by the way, there are 50 survey records on any given page). Sorting through the data in an Outbox with hundreds, or especially hundreds of thousands of records, would be quite a challenge, to say the least.

That's why you can use the filters from the top of your Outbox to segment your data. The filters are handy when paired with the survey delivery stats, which will help you gain invaluable insights to improve your survey campaigns down the road.

Saved filters - when applying one or more filters, you can save them for quicker access. When saving a filter, you can choose whether to keep it private or make it available for the other users in your account.

Date range - allows you to filter your Outbox by a preset or custom date range.

  • Todays;

  • Last 7 days;

  • Last 30 days;

  • Last 90 days;

  • This month-to-date;

  • Past month;

  • This quarter-to-date;

  • Past quarter;

  • This year-to-date;

  • Past year;

  • All-time;

  • Custom range.

Campaigns - this allows you to view only the surveys that were delivered in a specific campaign.

Audience - gives you the possibility to filter outbox records using customer attributes (properties and tags). When applying this filter, please keep in mind that the data will be filtered based on your customers' historical attributes (they had received the survey).

Survey - this is a group of filters that includes the following filters and options:

  • Engagement filter - gives you the possibility to filter the Outbox by the engagement level of your customers with the received surveys.

    • Sent, not opened

    • Opened, not responded

    • Responded, no feedback

    • Not opened or not responded

  • Template filter - allows you to view all surveys that were sent out with a particular survey template.

  • Channel filter - allows you to view all surveys that were sent out on a specific survey channel:

    • Email

    • Link

    • In-app

    • Intercom

  • Sent by filter - allows you to view survey records (or email replies) that were sent in a particular way:

    • Campaign - automatically by a survey campaign.

    • Reminder - an automated reminder survey in an active survey campaign.

    • Manually - was sent manually by an account's user.

    • Imported - the outbox record was created automatically when importing historical feedback.

    • Test - the survey was sent as a test from an email template editor.

    • Reply - email reply was sent manually.

    • Autoreply - email reply was sent automatically by a campaign's autoresponder.

  • Survey records display filter - the Outbox page may include multiple survey records of the same customer (literally a record for each survey a customer has received). This filter allows you to display only the last survey per customer.

Resend surveys

When you select one or more customers, the survey Resend button will become available. This option gives you the possibility to send to the selected audience another one-time email survey that will be recorded in the same campaign. Still, this time you will be able to choose a different survey template if needed.

All the records of the surveys sent through the Resend option will be listed in the Outbox as being sent manually. Learn more about resending surveys manually.

Export Outbox data

When needed, you can easily export all your Outbox data or only the filtered records. You can download the data in a CSV file, share it via email, or select both options.

The exported file contains the following data:

  • First and last name

  • Email address

  • Company

  • Campaign name

  • Survey channel (email, in-app, or Intercom)

  • Survey subject

  • Sent by (campaign, manual, or reminder)

  • Status (sent, opened, or responded)

  • Sent time

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