Email Setup

Enable the email channel so Sift can receive enquiries forwarded from property portals (Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket), forwarded from your own agency mailbox, or sent directly by a lead — then qualify and reply automatically, keeping a proper email thread the whole way.

What the Email Channel Does

• Leads (or portals) email your Sift address; Sift creates a lead and replies with qualification questions.
• Replies stay in one continuous thread for each buyer — both inside Sift and in the buyer's mail client.
• The agent keeps full conversation context across every message, so it never re-asks what it already knows.
• When a lead is ready, the agent offers a viewing of the specific property they enquired about and books it.
• Self-sent mail and auto-responders are ignored, so the agent never talks to itself.

Your Inbound Email Address

Every Sift account has a unique inbound address:

{agency-slug}-{org-id-prefix}@inbound.sift.software

For example, "Smith Jones Lettings" might get smith-jones-lettings-abc123@inbound.sift.software. Find your exact address in Settings → Channels after enabling email.

Step-by-Step Setup

Forwarding From Your Own Address

You don't have to ask buyers to email a @inbound.sift.software address. You can keep advertising your own public address (e.g. enquiries@youragency.co.uk) and forward it into Sift. Sift resolves the right account from the envelope recipient (the address the message was actually delivered to), so forwarded mail is routed correctly even though the visible To line still shows your public address.

Threading: One Conversation per Buyer

Sift threads by the buyer's email address, so everything from one buyer stays together as a single conversation — even if they reply days later or start a fresh email with a different subject line. You always see the whole history in the dashboard under Activity.

Replies are also threaded in the buyer's mail client: Sift sets the standard In-Reply-To and References headers from the buyer's real message, so Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail group the exchange into one tidy "Re:" thread instead of scattering it into separate emails.

Conversation Continuity

The agent reads the prior messages before every reply, so it has the full picture: it won't re-ask the buyer's budget or timeline once they've given it, and it builds on what's already been said. If a buyer starts a brand-new email about a property they've already been discussing, the agent recognises the continuation rather than starting over.

Specific-Property Viewings

When a buyer is qualified and wants to view, the agent names the exact listing they enquired about — e.g. "let's arrange a viewing of 12 Oak Street E1 6RF" — rather than a vague "a property matching your requirements". It only ever references a real listing from your database; if several match and the buyer hasn't chosen, it lists them and asks which one. The booked viewing is recorded against that specific property, so your calendar shows what's actually being viewed.

Seeing Both Sides of the Thread

If you reply from your own domain (see Custom Email Domain), Sift BCCs your mailbox on every reply it sends, so your own inbox shows the complete two-way conversation — not just the buyer's incoming mail. The canonical, always-complete transcript is in the Sift dashboard under Activity.

Built-in Safety: No Reply Loops

Email automation can loop if a reply gets forwarded back into the system. Sift prevents this two ways:

• It drops any inbound message that came from one of its own addresses (your reply-from address, your inbound address, or …@inbound.sift.software).
• Every reply it sends carries an Auto-Submitted: auto-replied header, the standard signal that tells other mail systems not to auto-respond.

It also ignores out-of-office and other auto-responders, so the agent never ends up talking to a robot.

A Clean Reply Experience

• Replies are body-only — no stray Subject: lines, [Your Name] placeholders, or "I hope this email finds you well" filler. A signature is added automatically.
• When you use a custom domain, the Reply-To is your clean address — buyers never see a long …@inbound.sift.software address.

Deliverability (Avoiding Spam)

Sift's sending domain is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which is what mailbox providers check first. The most common reason early test emails land in spam is simply a new-sender reputation cold-start — a brand-new sending identity hasn't built trust yet. This settles as real conversations flow. If you send from your own domain, complete the DNS records in Custom Email Domain so your domain is aligned and authenticated.

What to Forward (and What Not To)

Forward genuine new buyer enquiries only. Don't forward:

• Newsletter or marketing subscriptions
• Your entire inbox / all mail from an account (this creates noise)
• Internal team emails

The cleanest setup is portal-level forwarding (or a dedicated public enquiry address) so only real buyer enquiries reach Sift.

Custom Email Domain (self-serve add-on)

By default Sift replies from your @inbound.sift.software address. You can instead reply from your own domain — e.g. enquiries@youragency.co.uk — on any paid plan:

• Starter & Growth — £9/mo add-on, billed alongside your plan.
• Scale — included, no extra charge.

Activation is entirely self-serve, from Settings → Channels:

Until the domain is verified, replies are sent from Sift's platform sender (@inbound.sift.software), so no message ever fails to go out while you're setting DNS up. Once verified, outbound replies switch to your own domain and BCC your mailbox so you see both sides of the thread.

Next Steps