followup/patch_by_id

Tool: update

Update a followup's content, timing, or thread settings.

Performs a partial update — only supplied fields are changed. Returns the full updated followup object. To clear a field — and to know why null fails — see call-contract.

subject and body take personalization variables from a closed list — see personalization-variables. Nothing is checked here, only at campaign/start_by_id, so this is the operation to fix a followup that a start-time 422 named: patch the corrected text, then start again.

useOriginalSubject: true does not waive the subject requirement. Omit subject entirely to inherit the campaign's subject — do not send subject: "", which defeats inheritance and makes campaign/start_by_id fail with a followup-validation error.

Conditional — shown while this account's documentation includes the Outreach Playbook

If you are rewriting subject or body, Follow-up emails covers what a bump has to add — a proof point, a sharper angle, a smaller question, never "just bumping this up" — and when a followup earns a new thread instead of riding the original (sendInSameThread). If you are changing waitMin on a campaign that is already running, Campaign scheduling and pausing explains why to leave the gaps alone mid-flight: shortening them compresses the sending load into a volume spike.

Arguments

name	type	req	notes
id	integer	✓	Followup ID — the object's `followupId` (int64)

Body

field	type	req	constraints	description
subject	string	–	≤1024 chars	Email subject; may include personalization variables (see the note above)
body	string	–		HTML email body; may include personalization variables, Liquid conditionals and A/Z variants (see the note above)
waitMin	integer	–	1–1000	Wait duration before sending
waitUnits	string	–	one of: Minutes, Hours, Days	Unit for the wait period
useOriginalSubject	boolean	–		Use original campaign subject instead of custom subject
sendInSameThread	boolean	–		Send as a reply in the same email thread
replyInThread	boolean	–		Reply in the original email thread
replyInThreadToFollowupId	integer	–	int64, positive	Reply to a specific earlier followup in the thread

Response

200 — Updated followup object: see schemas/followup. Deltas: bounceCount/replyInThread may be absent from this single-item response.

Errors: 400, 401, 404, 406, 415, 422, 429, 500 — shared schema: schemas/errors.

Invoke

Call update with name: "followup/patch_by_id".