Reply Loop — the wedge that makes Mama compound.
Reply Loop watches replies to your outbound, classifies them, and attributes outcomes back to the archetype that produced the brief. Every reply makes the next brief sharper. This is Mama's defensible feature — and the one most users don't discover until week 3.
TL;DR
Connect your sequencer. Reply Loop reads inbound replies, classifies them (interested · objection · unsubscribe · referral · noise), and feeds the outcome back into your archetype scores. The system gets smarter every week. Without Reply Loop, Mama is a one-way signal pipe. With it, Mama is a learning system.
01What Reply Loop is
A closed-loop system. Mama generates a brief → you send outreach via your sequencer → prospect replies → Reply Loop captures the reply → classifies it → attributes outcome to the archetype → archetype confidence updates → next brief in that archetype is informed by what happened.
The result: your archetype matcher gets sharper over time. Reply rates climb. The longer you use Mama, the harder it becomes to switch.
02Sequencer integration
Reply Loop requires read access to your sequencer to see reply events. Supported sequencers:
| Sequencer | Connection | Reply visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Outreach | OAuth | Full (with reply text) |
| Salesloft | OAuth | Full |
| Apollo | API key | Reply event + metadata, no text |
| Smartlead | OAuth | Full |
| Instantly | API key | Full |
| Lemlist | OAuth | Full |
| Mailshake | OAuth | Reply event + metadata |
| Reply.io | OAuth | Full |
| HubSpot Sequences | OAuth | Full (via HubSpot connector) |
Don't see your sequencer? Use the email-forward fallback: forward replies to your Mama-issued ingest address and the loop works without an API integration. Slower but functional.
03The 4-tier reply classifier
Every captured reply runs through a classifier that bins it into one of 4 outcomes (plus noise):
The classifier runs locally on the reply text — no third-party LLM call on your data. Accuracy is ~92% based on internal eval. Misclassifications can be corrected in-app and the model adapts to your team's patterns over time.
04How attribution works
Every brief carries an archetype tag. When a reply arrives, Reply Loop looks up the archetype and updates:
- Reply rate for that archetype (rolling 90-day window)
- Outcome mix (% interested / objection / unsubscribe)
- Confidence score based on volume + outcome consistency
- Sub-archetype proposals if a pattern emerges within the archetype that replies differently
The archetype's metrics show on its card in the Archetypes screen and influence lookalike ranking.
05The 5-stage flywheel
| Stage | What happens | Latency |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Brief generated | Archetype tag attached | Real-time |
| 2 · Outbound sent | Mama logs send event from sequencer webhook | < 5 min after send |
| 3 · Reply received | Reply event captured from sequencer | < 5 min after reply |
| 4 · Reply classified | Classifier bins into 1 of 4 outcomes | < 30s after capture |
| 5 · Archetype updated | Reply rate, mix, confidence recalculated | Real-time |
06Privacy and data handling
Reply Loop reads inbound emails (from your sequencer's API). Three privacy guarantees:
- No third-party LLM. Classification runs on Mama-controlled infrastructure.
- Reply text retention: 90 days by default, configurable down to 0 (metadata-only).
- No use for model training across workspaces. Your replies inform your archetypes only.
Full data-handling details: /security.