sales-mailshake

What this skill does

# Mailshake Platform Help

Help the user with Mailshake platform questions — from campaign setup and Lead Catcher through recipient management, deliverability settings, API, and integrations.

## Step 1 — Gather context


If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. **What area of Mailshake do you need help with?**
   - A) Campaigns — creating, managing, or optimizing email campaigns (for strategy, hand off: `/sales-cadence {your question}`)
   - B) Recipients — importing, managing, CSV formatting
   - C) Lead Catcher — capturing and managing leads from replies
   - D) Deliverability — sender settings, warmup, domain auth (for cross-platform, hand off: `/sales-deliverability {your question}`)
   - E) Analytics — campaign performance, open/reply/click rates
   - F) Webhooks & API — automation, push events, API access
   - G) Senders & Team — connected accounts, team management
   - H) Integrations — Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zapier, Slack
   - I) Admin — billing, plan features, account settings
   - J) Something else — describe it

2. **What's your role?**
   - A) Sales rep / AE / BDR
   - B) Sales manager / team lead
   - C) RevOps / Sales Ops
   - D) Admin / IT
   - E) Founder / solo seller
   - F) Other

3. **What are you trying to accomplish?** (describe your specific goal or question)

**If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step.** Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end — don't gate your response behind gathering complete context.

Note: If the user needs a specialized skill, route them there with a brief explanation of why that skill is a better fit.

## Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:
- List building / prospecting → `/sales-prospect-list`
- Contact enrichment / data hygiene → `/sales-enrich`
- Cadence strategy / sequence design → `/sales-cadence`
- Cross-platform deliverability → `/sales-deliverability`
- Tool integration architecture → `/sales-integration`

Otherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge using the reference below.

## Step 3 — Mailshake platform reference

Provide module-by-module guidance based on the user's area:

### Campaigns
- **What it is**: A campaign in Mailshake is a multi-step email sequence — an initial message plus follow-ups sent automatically on a schedule
- **Key concepts**: Campaign = sequence, messages = steps, follow-up types (time-based drip, reply-based, click-based on-click message)
- **Campaign statuses**: draft, active, paused, ended
- **A/B testing**: Available on higher plans — test subject lines and body content across variants
- **Best practices**: Keep initial emails under 125 words, personalize with merge fields ({{first}}, {{company}}), test one variable at a time

### Recipients
- **What it is**: The contacts enrolled in a campaign — imported via CSV, API, or manual entry
- **Required fields**: Only `emailAddress` is mandatory. Everything else is optional but recommended.
- **Recommended fields**: `first`, `last`, `company`, `title` — these map to merge fields {{first}}, {{last}}, {{company}}, {{title}}
- **Custom merge fields**: Any additional CSV column becomes a custom merge field automatically
- **Recipient statuses**: active, paused, bounced, unsubscribed, completed
- **CSV import tips**: UTF-8 encoding, first row = headers, one email per row, verify emails before import (Mailshake does not verify on upload)

### Lead Catcher
- **What it is**: Built-in lead management that automatically captures replies as leads for follow-up
- **Lead statuses**: open (needs action), won/closed (converted), ignored (not a lead), lost (dead)
- **Key features**: Auto-assign leads to team members, filter by status/campaign/assignee, view full conversation thread
- **Lead Catcher vs CRM**: Lead Catcher manages the email conversation thread — your CRM manages the deal. Push qualified leads to CRM via integration or API.
- **Best practices**: Check Lead Catcher daily, respond within 1 hour for best conversion, use status labels consistently

### Deliverability Basics
- **Sender accounts**: Connect Gmail, Outlook/O365, or SMTP. Each sender has a daily sending limit.
- **Sending limits**: Varies by plan and email provider. Gmail caps at ~400-500/day, O365 at ~1,000/day. Mailshake enforces plan limits on top of provider limits.
- **Domain auth**: Configure SPF/DKIM/DMARC for your sending domain. Use a custom tracking domain for link tracking.
- **Warmup**: For new mailboxes, start with 20-30 emails/day and increase by 10-20 per week. See `/sales-deliverability` for a full warmup framework.
- **Sender rotation**: Distribute sends across multiple sender accounts to protect reputation

### Analytics
- **Built-in dashboards**: Campaign-level and account-level performance metrics
- **Key metrics**: Sent, opens, clicks, replies, bounces, unsubscribes, Lead Catcher leads
- **Team analytics**: Compare performance across team members and campaigns
- **Best practices**: Monitor bounce rate weekly (<3% target), track positive reply rate not just opens

### Senders & Team
- **Senders**: Connected email accounts used for sending. Each has its own daily limit and reputation.
- **Team**: Members can be assigned campaigns and leads. Roles control access.
- **Sender management**: Settings > Senders to connect, configure from-name, set daily limits

### Mailshake data model

Core entities — understand these to navigate the UI and work with the API:

| Entity | What it represents | Key relationships |
|---|---|---|
| **Campaign** | A multi-step email sequence | Has Messages (steps), has Recipients |
| **Recipient** | A contact enrolled in a campaign | Belongs to a Campaign, has Activity |
| **Lead** | A reply captured by Lead Catcher | Belongs to a Campaign, linked to a Recipient |
| **Message** | A step in a campaign (initial or follow-up) | Belongs to a Campaign |
| **Sender** | A connected email account | Used by Campaigns |
| **Team Member** | A user on the account | Can own Campaigns and Leads |

### API & Integrations

**For detailed API documentation including all endpoints, authentication, rate limits, and webhook event payloads, always consult `references/mailshake-api-reference.md`.** Point the user to this file for the full endpoint catalog, request/response schemas, and rate limit details. Any API question should include a pointer to this reference file.

**Quick reference**: Base URL `https://api.mailshake.com/2017-04-01`, API key auth (`apiKey` parameter), rate limit 100 requests/minute. Key capabilities: campaign CRUD, recipient management, activity tracking, Lead Catcher management, webhooks.

### Native integrations
- **CRM**: Salesforce (push leads, sync activity), HubSpot (push leads, sync activity), Pipedrive (push leads)
- **Automation**: Zapier (triggers for opens, clicks, replies, new leads; actions for adding recipients)
- **Communication**: Slack (notifications for replies, leads)
- **Enrichment**: Voila Norbert, Hunter (email verification before import)

## Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Based on the user's specific question:

1. **Step-by-step instructions** — numbered steps to accomplish their goal in Mailshake
2. **Configuration recommendations** — specific settings to change, with navigation paths
3. **Common pitfalls** — what can go wrong and how to avoid it
4. **Verification** — how to confirm the change worked
5. **For API questions** — always include a pointer: "For the full endpoint catalog, request/response schemas, and rate limits, see `references/mailshake-api-reference.md`."

## Gotchas

- **Don't confuse Lead Catcher with a CRM.** Lead Catcher captures and tracks email replies — it's a triage tool, not a deal pipeline. Qualified leads should be pushed to Salesforce/HubSpot for pipeline management. Claude often treats L