Get a Slack ping when a prospect reads your proposal
By Nick ·
Send the proposal as a tracked link instead of an attachment, and the follow-up stops being a guess. When the prospect reads it, the deal owner gets a Slack message saying who, how far, and how long - and the CRM gets an activity logged against the deal without anyone typing it.
What you need
- Any EveryPage plan for the alert itself. Basic adds the page-by-page depth, Pro adds per-recipient links.
- An API key from Account → API keys.
- An account on Zapier, Make, or n8n.
1. Send one link per recipient
Upload the proposal, then mint a link variant for each person you send it to, labelled with their name. Every variant is its own short link off the same document, so the read that comes back is attributed to a named recipient rather than to "someone". Without variants you still get the read - you just cannot tell which of the four people on the thread it was.
Automate the minting too: a new row in your deal tracker, or a stage change in the CRM, creates the variant and hands back the link to send.
2. Trigger on the read
Subscribe to document read (file.viewed). One detail shapes every alert you build on it: it fires when a reading session ends, not when the document opens. That is deliberate - it means the event can tell you how far they got and how long they spent, which "they opened it" cannot. The trade-off is that a prospect still reading has not fired it yet.
Your own views never fire it, so previewing your own proposal will not ping the channel.
3. Make the alert worth reading
The event carries the document, the recipient label from the variant, the pages viewed, and the time spent. A message built from those beats a bare notification:
Jane at Acme read Acme-proposal.pdf - 9 of 12 pages, 4m 12s. Stopped on the pricing page.
For the "stopped on" line, add a Get Readership step after the trigger and read the funnel, which shows where readers drop off. That is Basic and above; on the free plan you get the summary numbers without the page detail.
4. Log it where the deal lives
- Create a CRM activity against the contact, with pages read and duration in the note.
- Nudge the deal stage when the proposal is read end to end - completion is a far better signal than an open.
- Start a follow-up task the same day, so the call lands while it is still fresh.
- Flag a re-read: a second session days later usually means it is being shown to someone else internally.
Which platform does what
| Step | Zapier | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read trigger | New Document Read | Watch Reads | Trigger → file.viewed |
| Read-through detail | Get Analytics Summary | Get a readership summary | File → Get Readership |
| Per-recipient links | Create Link Variant | Create a link variant | Link Variant → Create |
All three carry the whole workflow. On Zapier the read trigger comes in both instant and polling flavours - prefer the instant one, since the alert is only useful while the read is news.
Without any automation at all
If one document is all you need this for, skip the platforms: turn on view notifications and EveryPage emails you when someone reads it, throttled to at most one an hour per document. The automation route is what pays off once alerts need to reach a channel, a CRM, or a colleague.
Questions
Does the alert fire the moment they open the proposal?
It fires when their reading session ends, not when the document opens. That is what lets the event carry how far they got and how long they spent - information an open-notification cannot give you. A prospect who is still reading has not fired it yet.
Will my own previews trigger alerts?
No. The owner's own views never emit the event, so opening your own proposal to check it will not ping the channel.
How do I know which person on the thread read it?
Send each recipient their own link variant, labelled with their name. The label travels with the read event, so the alert names the person. A single shared link tells you the document was read but not by whom.
Do I need a paid plan?
The read event and the alert work on any plan. Page-by-page depth - the read-through funnel and per-page time behind the "stopped on" line - needs Basic or higher, and per-recipient link variants need Pro.
Can I do this without Zapier, Make, or n8n?
For a single document, yes: view notifications email you directly when someone reads it, at most once an hour per document. The automation platforms are worth it when the alert has to reach Slack, a CRM, or a colleague.
Related
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