Skill - Route to teammates

With Route to teammates, you can route emails to specific people, as well as update these contacts in your Marketing Automation Platform. You can also dynamically route emails to your team, or use Drift Email to send emails to the contact's lead owner. 

When we process a match to your skill the system sends a copy of the email. This email is made to appear to have come from the original sender even though it is sent by our mail server. The Reply-To address has been changed to allow a direct reply to the original sender.

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To get started, click the "Skills" button in the navigation bar, then click "Create skill" in the top right corner of your screen. From there, click the Route to teammates box.

 

Step 1: Skill Name and Filters

First, name your skill. We suggest naming the skill something that will help you easily identify the purpose of the skill. For example, "Dynamic Routing skill."

Then, you can select the type of emails to process in this skill. Over 90% of the use cases for email routing will involve Human type replies. Occasionally we have customers that also want to route Unsubscribe or Spam Shield emails. You can learn more about how we classify email replies in this detailed article.

In the example below, we've named our skill "Dynamic Routing skill," have specified that we want emails classified as human replies to be processed, and also specified that we only want emails which have the source "test@drift.com" to be processed through the skill.

 

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Step 2: Routing

Next, you'll decide where you want the emails sent. There are three routing options available: specific people, dynamic alias, and lead owner lookup. Each is described below:

Option 1: Route to specific people: 

In this routing option, you can specify specific email addresses where you want the emails to be sent. This will send a copy of the email as an alert from notifications+email@reply.drifttmail.com to the email addresses you add. In this example, we're sending the emails to lauren@siftrock.com

 

Option 2: Routing via dynamic alias:

Many marketing teams send emails on behalf of actual members within the organization, or even on behalf of sales reps who manage the prospect to make them more personalized.

Setting up a dynamic alias ensures the emails matching your skills get sent to the correct person. Here is an example:

Let's say we've set hello.drift.com as our reply domain. Someone on our marketing team (let's call her Susan Jones) is sending emails that are personalized and sent from susan.jones@hello.drift.com.

But Susan's actual email address is susan.jones@drift.com (note the missing "hello" portion of the domain).

A dynamic alias tells Drift Email to take any replies that came back to susan.jones@hello.drift.com and send them on to susan.jones@drift.com.

 

You are also allowed to include a specific email address where you want the emails to be sent. Simply click "add specific email address" and type the address where you want the emails to be sent in addition to routing dynamically. In this example, emails will also be sent to test2@drift.com

Option 3: Lead Owner Lookup

The third option for routing emails is by using your MAP integration to lookup the lead owner, and send the email to them. Here, you need to specify your integration, then select the field in your MAP where the lead owner's email address is stored. Drift Email will automatically use that email address and send the email to that person. 

You will also need to add a fallback address. Drift Email requires a fallback address in the event that the field specified is null or does not contain an email address. In the example below, the fallback address is test2@drift.com .

 

You are also allowed to include a specific email address where you want the emails to be sent. Simply click "add specific email address" and type the address where you want the emails to be sent in addition to routing dynamically. In this example, emails will also be sent to test2@drift.com

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Step 3: Updating

The third step of "Route to teammates" allows you to update the contacts who have replied in your Marketing Automation Platform. Simply specify your MAP and the list in your MAP where you would like the contacts to be stored. 

Next, you can select fields you would like Drift Email to update. There are two different types of field mapping available: static field mapping and Drift Email field mapping.

In static field mapping, you can have Drift Email update a field in your MAP with a static value. For example, you may want to specify that the lead source is " Drift Email". 

In Drift Email field mapping, you can choose from the metadata fields which Drift Email determines from an email, and map that data to a field in your MAP. For example, you may want to map the "Text from the Reply" to a field in your MAP so that you can easily see what the contact said in their email in your MAP.

Drift Email will also let you know the field type of each field you are trying to map. When the fields are of different types, we'll give you a warning that we may not be able to push data to that field. 

 

Once you've specified which fields you would like Drift Email to update, you've finished your skill. It's important to note that you can also only set up routing, or only set up updating depending on your use case. Simply skip the steps that don't apply to the skill you are creating. Simply click "Save changes" in the top right hand corner of the screen. You will be able to see your skill in the "Skills" section of the app. If you have any questions, please reach out to support@drift.com.