Invitations and emails

The Collecting reviews group in the menu contains four screens:

Screen	Purpose
Invitations	All invitations created, their status and the reasons why some were stopped
Invitation sending	When invitations and reminders are sent and by which route
Email templates	The subject line and sections of the invitation email
Message log	All messages sent to customers (by email or through your own system): invitations, reminders and rejection notices

Conditions for creating an invitation

An invitation is created for an order line when all of the following conditions are met:

1. The line has been reported as delivered, and the information is not an estimate.
2. The order’s payment is complete (paid or partially refunded).
3. The order contains the customer’s email address.
4. The waiting time after delivery has passed.
5. The time allowed to write a review from delivery (90 days by default) has not expired.
6. No invitation has been sent for the line before and no review has been written for it. Lines reviewed on the site after verifying the order are not added to an invitation either.

Products from the same order that can be invited at that moment are combined into a single invitation; products whose waiting time ends later (for example ones delivered on another day) are asked for in a separate invitation. The link in the invitation is only valid for the products in the invitation, and only while the time allowed to write is open. The link carries the token in the part of the address after the # sign: https://www.yourbrand.com/write-a-review#review_token=…. Browsers do not send this part to servers, and it does not reach the page address recorded by analytics tools on your page. The script also reads the ?review_token=… form used in older invitations.

No product invitation is created for returned or cancelled lines; a process invitation is created for them instead (see below). If, after the invitation has been created and before it is sent, the line is returned or cancelled, the order’s payment is no longer complete or the time to write a review runs out, the invitation is not sent and the reason is recorded. While the order’s channel is off, no new invitation is created, a pending invitation stops with the reason “Channel off” and no reminder goes to an invitation already sent; once the channel is turned back on, invitations are created for lines that have not been invited yet (Turning a channel off and removing it).

Process invitation after a cancellation or return

The Turkish Advertising Board’s Guideline on Consumer Reviews (Art. 5/4) treats reviews limited to the experience up to the stage the purchase reached, when an order is cancelled, the contract is terminated or the right of withdrawal is used, as within the scope of a purchase. For this reason Sayproof creates a shopping experience invitation instead of a product invitation for cancelled or returned lines.

• The invitation is created when the latest valid delivery information reported for the line is cancelled (cancelled) or returned (returned), and that information is within the time allowed to write a review (90 days by default). Estimated delivery information does not affect this decision.
• The waiting time after delivery does not apply, and the order’s payment does not need to be complete. The order must contain an email address, the customer must not have stopped receiving emails and an invitation landing page must be available; the sending hours, the daily limit and the reminder apply to this invitation too.
• If a review has already been written for the line, or a process invitation has already been created for it, no new invitation is created.
• The default email’s subject line is “Tell us about your return or cancellation” and its button is “Review my experience”. On the Email templates screen, a template of its own can be prepared for this invitation by choosing Shopping experience invitation as the invitation type.
• When the link is opened, the form opens with the heading “Review your order experience”. The customer gives the overall rating and can add text and a photo or video; rating topics are not asked.

The submitted review goes through the same automatic checks and the same approval process as other reviews, and once published it is included in the average rating like any other review. On the site it appears in the same stream as other reviews, with the label “Cancelled or returned order: covers the experience up to that point”; in the panel, the review details carry the “Cancelled or returned: process experience” badge. The verification section of the method statement also explains how these reviews are collected.

Invitation sending

The top of the screen shows What happens to an order; it updates as you change the settings, even before you save. Below it the settings sit directly on the screen in four sections: Sending route, When, Daily limit and Reminder. When Our store asks for reviews on its order page is chosen, no invitation email goes out, so the last three sections are hidden. At the bottom are Rules for every invitation and Why invitations were stopped (only reasons seen on invitations whose status is still “Stopped”); click a reason to open the Invitations screen with the invitations stopped for that reason.

When you change a setting, a save bar appears at the bottom of the screen; Save changes saves all changes together and Cancel undoes them all. If you try to leave the screen without saving, the panel warns you. “Invitation sending › Sending route” links on other screens open this screen at that section.

A change applies as soon as it is saved. The sending hours, daily limit, reminder and sending route are read again on every send, so queued invitations also go out under the new settings. A change to the waiting time applies to invitations not yet created.

Setting	Default	Range	Description
Days to wait after delivery	2	0–60	The invitation is sent after this period so the customer can try the product.
Sending hours	10:00–19:00	0–23	Invitations are only sent between these hours. The clock follows the installation’s time zone (Europe/Istanbul in the Türkiye region); the time zone is shown above these fields. An invitation created outside these hours is sent in the next sending window. If the start and end hours are the same, invitations are sent at any hour of the day.
Per person, per day at most	3	1–100	Prevents a customer from receiving many invitations in one day. The customer is identified by the customer ID on the order (customer_key), or by the order’s email address if no ID is sent. An invitation held back by the limit does not count as failed; it is recorded as “Stopped”. The next day a new invitation is created for the same products and the old row becomes “Block lifted”.
Reminder	On, 5 days	1–60	If not every item in the invitation has been reviewed, a reminder is sent once, this many days after the first invitation; the reminder only lists the items without a review. The reminder’s subject line starts with “Reminder: “. Who gets the reminder can be Everyone who got the invitation (the default) or Only people with marketing consent; with the second, customers without marketing consent get no reminder, the Message log screen shows the “No consent” result and the first invitation is not affected. When your own system sends the invitations, reminders are passed to your system too.
Sending route	Sayproof		Sayproof sends them by email, Our own system sends them or Our store asks for reviews on its order page. For the second option, see Sending invitations with your own system; for the third, Without invitation emails.
Sender email address	Sayproof’s address		To use your own address, your domain’s ownership record and email settings (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) must be verified. Invitations of a channel with its own sender address go out from that address.
Support page address	Empty		The support link in the invitation email opens this page (https). Invitations of a channel with its own support page use that page. If no address is entered anywhere, no link is shown.

The domain of the sender email address must be verified on the Sender domains card on the Channels › Domains tab; see Channel, domain and keys.

If one of your channels should appear to customers under another name, from another sender address or with another support page, enter Name shown to customers, Sender email address and Support page address for that channel in the Edit the channel form on the Channels screen. That channel’s invitation emails go out with these details; rejection notices and the unsubscribe page also show the channel’s name shown to customers. Where a field is left empty, the brand name and the value on this screen are used (Editing a channel).

The sending route, the notification address, the sender email address and the support page address can only be changed by a user signed in to the panel. A request that tries to change these fields with an API key receives 403 refused / panel_session_required; this way a leaked key cannot redirect invitations to another address.

Without invitation emails

If you do not want invitations to come from Sayproof, choose Our store asks for reviews on its order page in the Invitation sending › Sending route step. With this route the customer writes the review on your store’s order details page; because they are signed in, they are not asked for an order number or email address.

With this option:

• Sayproof does not create or send invitation emails. Invitations created earlier but not yet sent are stopped on the Invitations screen with the reason “The store asks for reviews on its order page”; invitations already sent get no reminder.
• The waiting time, sending hours, daily limit, reminder, invitation email templates, sender address and support page are not used.
• Sayproof keeps sending the rejection notice to the author of a rejected review.

Two things are done on the store side:

1. Sayproof’s order reviews section is added to the order details page: Order detail page.
2. A Write a review link that takes the customer to that order’s details page is added to the email your platform sends when an order is delivered.

On Akinon, this email’s template is emails/orders/order-delivered.html in Omnitron; in the template the order comes as order and the store domain as site_domain. In Akinon Next projects the order details page is usually at /account/orders/<order id>/:

<a href="https://{{ site_domain }}/account/orders/{{ order.pk }}/">Write a review</a>

Akinon’s template documentation does not list the order object’s pk field; check the link with a test email and write the address in the format of your own order details page.

A customer who ordered without an account cannot open the order details page. That customer can write a review with the “Verify my order to write a review” link on the product page by entering the order number and email address.

Invitations on WhatsApp

Coming soon

Invitations by WhatsApp arrive with v2.

Invitations will also be able to go from your brand’s WhatsApp Business account as an information message tied to a specific order: it will carry the brand name, the order number, the item names and the review link, with no coupon, discount or campaign. A link at the end of the message will let the customer stop review invitations on WhatsApp; their emails will not be affected.

Email templates

The invitation is a service email: it asks for feedback on a delivered product and does not promote any product or service. For this reason no separate marketing consent is required from the customer. The editor contains no coupon, discount, product recommendation or campaign sections, and such phrases are not saved in your own design either.

The wizard has four steps: Basics (name, design, invitation type, language, channel, market) → Subject line → Content or Design → Check and save. There are two kinds of design: With ready-made sections or My own design.

The preview on the right is built with the texts used when sending, a sample order and items from your catalogue, at desktop and phone width; the sender line shows the address the email will come from. If a channel is selected in the Channel field, the preview and the test email use that channel’s name shown to customers, sender address, support page and privacy notice link. With Which email you preview the First invitation or the Reminder. The Send me a test button in the Check and save step sends the email in the preview to your panel account’s email address; while Reminder is selected, the button becomes Send the reminder to myself as a test. Links in the test are examples; at most 5 tests can be sent per hour. If your account has no email address the button is disabled; an administrator can add the address on the Users screen (Email and password link).

If the sending route is Our own system sends them, a warning at the top of the screen says that this route only passes on the subject line and plain text and does not use the design; if it is Our store asks for reviews on its order page, the warning says that no invitation email is sent and the templates are not used.

With ready-made sections

The available sections:

Section	Content
Greeting	The salutation to the customer
Products bought	The products covered by the invitation
Order details	The order number and date
Write a review button	The link that opens the review form
Support link	Your support page (if set on the channel or in Invitation sending)
Footer	Sender details

The rules:

• The section texts are fixed and provided by Sayproof. The brand decides which sections are shown, in which order, and the subject line. The subject line is limited to 200 characters and contains no variables.
• The Write a review button section is required; a template cannot be saved without it (cta_required).
• The Footer section can be removed; the link to stop receiving emails is in every email regardless of the sections chosen.
• If no support page address is set, the Support link section does not appear in the email; a warning below the preview says so.
• If a privacy notice link is set on the order’s channel, the Privacy notice on the processing of personal data link is in the email footer, above the link to stop receiving emails, regardless of the sections chosen (Editing a channel).

Your own design

When My own design is chosen in the Basics step, the Content step is replaced by a Design step. Logo, colours, layout and text are entirely yours; only the required parts and content rules below are checked. The editor opens holding the HTML of Sayproof’s default email; start by changing the logo, colours and texts, paste your own HTML or upload it as an .html file. Once the content has changed, Go back to the default design puts the default email back in the editor.

Fields are written as {{ name }} and filled with each order’s own details when sent:

Field	Content
{{ brand }}	The name shown to customers of the order’s channel; your brand name if it is empty
{{ order_number }}	Order number
{{ order_date }}	Order date
{{ review_url }}	The review link (required)
{{ unsubscribe_url }}	The opt-out link (required)
{{ support_url }}	Your support page; empty if set neither on the channel nor in Invitation sending
{{ privacy_url }}	The privacy notice link of the order’s channel; empty if it is not set on the channel
{{#reminder}}…{{/reminder}}	A part shown only in the reminder email; {{^reminder}}…{{/reminder}} is shown only in the first invitation
{{#products}}…{{/products}}	A part repeated for each item the invitation covers; inside it you can use {{ name }}, {{ image_url }} (if the catalogue has an image) and {{ quantity }}

If you wrap a field that can be empty in {{#support_url}}…{{/support_url}}, that part only appears when there is a value. The default design shows the privacy notice link in the footer inside {{#privacy_url}}…{{/privacy_url}}.

<p>Hello, your {{ brand }} order has arrived.</p>
{{#products}}
<p><img src="{{ image_url }}" width="80" alt=""> {{ name }}</p>
{{/products}}
<p><a href="{{ review_url }}">Review my items</a></p>
<p><a href="{{ unsubscribe_url }}">Stop sending me review invitations</a></p>

The rules checked on saving; if any one is not met, the email is not saved and the reason is shown below the editor:

Rule	Detail
Required links	{{ review_url }} and {{ unsubscribe_url }} must each be the address of a link (<a href>) as they are, and must appear in both the first invitation and the reminder, with or without a support link, a privacy notice link or item images; no query string or path can be added to the address.
No promotion or incentives	The subject line and text cannot contain promotion or incentives for reviewing, such as coupons, discounts, campaigns, gifts, earning points or percentages. The invitation stays a service email.
No steering	Phrases that steer the customer towards a particular rating or review (such as “5 stars”) are not allowed.
Links	Links can only go to your verified domains and their subdomains, and to mailto: and tel: addresses; web links must start with https. The rule applies to every element that carries an href (including <area> and sections written for Outlook).
Images	Images load from https addresses; this also applies to the background attribute and to url() addresses in styles. Tracking images 2 pixels or less in width or height cannot be used. Styles cannot load another file with @import. Item images from your catalogue are not part of this check.
Security	Elements such as script, iframe, form, button, link and svg, attributes that run code such as onclick, and javascript: addresses cannot be used.
Fields	An unknown field, an unclosed section or an unreadable {{ }} blocks saving. The content of {{#…}} and {{^…}} sections is checked against every rule even when the section is not shown at that moment.
Size	The HTML can be 200 KB at most.

Text written inside an image cannot be checked; images must not contain promotion or incentives either.

The plain text version is created from the HTML automatically and includes the link addresses. In the reminder email the subject line starts with “Reminder: “. If your own system sends the invitations, the text field of the notification request is created from this design; the HTML is not passed on.

Which email is sent

• An email template is prepared for one invitation type (Product review invitation or Shopping experience invitation), in Turkish or English. In the Channel field you choose All channels or a single channel. If a channel is chosen, the template is used only for that channel’s orders; the market comes from the channel and the Market field cannot be changed. With All channels, the template can optionally be tied to a market. While a channel is selected in the top bar, the list shows only the templates that can be used on that channel (those made for the channel, for its market and for all markets) and a new template starts with that channel.
• Only one template can be saved for the same invitation type, language, market and channel; a second one is not saved (template_scope_taken), and the existing template has to be edited or removed first. In a brand that already had several templates for the same scope before this rule, those templates can still be edited as long as their scope does not change.
• When an invitation is sent, the template is chosen among the templates of the invitation’s type in the order’s language, in this order: the template for the order’s channel, otherwise the template for the order’s market, otherwise the template prepared for all markets. A template in another language is not used.
• If no suitable template exists, Sayproof’s default invitation email is used in the order’s language: all sections, with the subject line “How was your order?” (“Siparişiniz nasıldı?” in Turkish). For the shopping experience invitation, the default subject line is “Tell us about your return or cancellation”.
• In the template list, the In use or Not in use label under the name shows whether a template is used when sending. If your brand has channels, the list also has a Channel column showing the template’s channel. If there is more than one template for the same type, language, market and channel, the most recently created one goes out; the others are marked Not in use with the name of the template that goes out instead.
• The Remove button on a row deletes the template after confirmation, and the action is recorded in the Activity history. The template is then chosen in the same order as above: if a channel-specific template was removed, the template for the order’s market is used; if a market-specific template was removed, the template in the order’s language for all markets, otherwise Sayproof’s default invitation email.

Invitations

This screen lists all invitations created. The counters show the invitation statuses and the Invitation to review rate; the rate is the share of sent invitations where at least one product was reviewed (the same definition as the conversion in Statistics), and its label says how many sent invitations it is based on (e.g. “12 invitations sent, all time”). The rate is rounded to a whole number. Clicking a counter filters the list by that status, and statuses at zero are listed on the At zero line below the boxes. The Only sent ones box in the Filters panel limits the list to invitations whose email was sent; the choice shows below the filter bar as the Sent chip. If a channel is selected in the top bar, the list and the counters cover only that channel’s orders (Channel and market).

Each row shows the recipient’s address (“Erased address” if the customer’s personal data was erased with a data protection request) and the Result column: for a stopped invitation the reason, for a sent one the latest information from the email service (delivered, opened, bounced). An invitation waiting for another attempt shows “Will be tried again”, and one that could not be sent shows the latest result from the email service (for example “Sender address refused”). If the customer reviewed every item in the invitation another way before the invitation email went out, the invitation becomes “Reviewed”, the Result column shows “Closed before sending” and it is not counted in the rate. An invitation whose email was sent, or blocked, has a Show in Message log link in its Order cell; the link opens the Message log screen with that order’s messages.

Status	Meaning
Queued	Waiting for the sending hours or its turn
Sent	The email has been sent
Reminded	The reminder has also been sent
Reviewed	Every product in the invitation has been reviewed
Failed	The attempts ran out or the email service did not accept the address; it can be tried again once the problem is fixed
Stopped	Not sent because of a rule; the reason is recorded
Block lifted	Stopped at first; once the block cleared, a new invitation was created for the same items and it is sent in that new row

The reason for every stopped invitation is recorded:

Reason	Description
Payment not completed	The order’s payment has not been completed
No email address on the order	The order has no address, or the customer’s personal data has been deleted
Customer’s daily invitation limit reached	The next day a new invitation is created for the same products and this row becomes “Block lifted”
Customer does not want emails	The address is on the list of people who do not want emails: the customer unsubscribed, the address bounced permanently or a complaint was made
No marketing consent from the customer	The customer has not consented to an email that counts as a marketing message
No invitation landing page set	The channel has no invitation page and the product has no page address in the catalogue
Item cancelled · Item returned	After the invitation was created and before it was sent, the line was cancelled or returned
The time to write a review has passed	The time allowed to write a review ended before the invitation could be sent
The store asks for reviews on its order page	Sending route was changed to Our store asks for reviews on its order page
Channel off	The order’s channel was turned off

If the stop is not final (any reason other than the customer not wanting emails or having no marketing consent) and every item of the stopped invitation is included in a new invitation created later, the old row’s status becomes Block lifted; the invitation is sent in the new row.

If a send fails because of a temporary error, it is retried after half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours and 4 hours; if the fifth attempt also fails, the invitation’s status becomes “Failed”. If the email service refuses the recipient address or the sender address, or the sender address’s domain is not verified, the invitation becomes “Failed” at once; other connection errors are treated as temporary. If a reminder cannot be sent (the order no longer has an address, there is no landing page, the customer has stopped receiving emails, the line was returned or cancelled, the time to write has passed or the send attempts have run out), the invitation’s status does not change and stays “Sent”; only the reminder is not sent.

If there are invitations in the “Failed” state, users with the Can change settings permission see the Try failed ones again button above the list, together with their number. If a channel is selected in the top bar, the number on the button and the action cover only that channel’s invitations; invitations in other channels are left as they are. First fix the problem (for example the sender domain’s verification or your own system’s notification address). After confirmation these invitations are queued again with their attempt count reset, and are sent within the sending hours and the daily limit. Invitations whose link has expired are not queued again and stay “Failed”; the result message says how many invitations were queued and how many links had expired. The action is recorded in the Activity history.

Sayproof sends at most 500 invitation emails per hour on behalf of a brand; the invitations of all the brand’s channels count towards this limit together. An invitation held back by this limit is also retried at the same intervals and is subject to the same limit of five attempts; if it still cannot be sent on the fifth attempt, it becomes “Failed”.

Message log

All messages sent to customers (by email or through your own system) are listed together with their results. When a channel is selected in the panel’s top bar, the list and the counters show only that channel’s messages: invitations and reminders count under the order’s channel, rejection notices under the review’s channel and answer notices under the question’s channel. If the customer’s personal data was erased with a data protection request, the row and the details show “Erased address” instead of the recipient; the message’s record and result stay.

Result	Meaning
Queued	About to be sent
Sent	The email service accepted the message
Delivered	The message was reported as delivered to the recipient
Delayed, will be retried	The email service postponed delivery
Bounced	The message was returned
Customer complained	The recipient marked the message as spam
Customer does not want emails · No consent · Sender address refused · Sending limit reached	The message was not sent; the reason it was not sent
Failed	A technical error occurred

The “Delivered”, “Delayed”, “Opened” and bounce information comes from the email service’s notifications. If these notifications are not connected, this information is not shown; see Email delivery events.

The Sending column and filter show whether the message went by email (Email) or to your own system’s notification address (Notification address). The search box searches the recipient’s email address (part of the address is enough), the order number and the review number. Clicking a row shows which invitation or review the email was sent for, and the latest information received from the email service.

Rejection notice

When a moderator rejects a review, the author is informed of the rejection reason by email:

• The notice is sent in the language in which the review was written; the subject line is “About your review”. As the brand name, the notice shows the Name shown to customers of the review’s channel, or your brand name if it is empty.
• The notice contains a fixed text for the reason; if the review is linked to an order, a Correct my review link is added too. The link is valid for 30 days by default (the period can be changed on the Automatic checks tab of the Settings screen) and can only be used once.
• As required by Article 8/5-c of the Turkish Advertising Board’s Guideline on Consumer Reviews, the text only states the rejection reason; it does not steer the customer to change their rating or review.
• The rejection notice is a service notice; it is also sent to customers who do not want to receive emails.
• If a moderator uses the Ask for a correction button on a rejected review, another notice is sent with the same reason, the same text and a new Correct my review link; for example, when the first link has expired.
• If a temporary error stops it, it is retried at the same intervals as invitations (after half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours and 4 hours); it is given up after the fifth attempt. If the mail server refuses the recipient for good, it is not retried.

How quickly rejection notices are sent is tracked on the Statistics › Compliance tab; the limit is set on the Settings › Warning limits tab.

Customers who do not want emails

Every invitation, even when the template has no Footer section, contains a link to stop receiving emails and the List-Unsubscribe header that email programs recognise. When the customer clicks the link, a confirmation page opens; if the customer confirms, they receive no further invitations or reminders from any channel of your brand. The confirmation page shows the name shown to customers of the channel the email came from, but the record applies to the brand, not the channel: the customer is taken off the invitations of all your channels. Addresses that bounce permanently, are marked as spam or have unsubscribed at the email service are also added to this list.

• The list stores a digest derived from the address, not the address itself.
• Rejection notices are not affected by this list.
• An address added to this list stays on it permanently; no invitations or reminders are sent to it.

How long order contact details are kept

The email address, phone number and customer number on an order are used to send invitations and to let the customer write a review; once they are no longer needed they are turned into a pseudonym that cannot be reversed. This job runs every day:

• For delivered, cancelled or returned lines, the period is the review writing period counted from the line’s last delivery update (the period in the brand’s market rules; 90 days by default). When the period of every line on the order has ended, the details are turned into pseudonyms.
• Orders whose payment is not completed (pending, cancelled or refunded) and that have no delivery update never get an invitation; their details are turned into pseudonyms 30 days after the order date.
• For paid orders that never get a delivery update, the period is the review writing period counted from the order date.
• If the order has an invitation or correction link that has not expired, the job waits until the link expires.

Reviews, the proof of purchase and the order number are kept; the review stays a “Verified buyer” review. An order whose details were turned into pseudonyms gets no invitation or reminder and cannot be reviewed from the order page; even if the order is sent again later, these details do not come back. On the Message log screen the recipient address of these orders’ invitations is not shown. If the customer later makes a personal data deletion or access request, these orders are found as well.