Follow Up With Stalled Applicants in a Google Sheet, and Prove It Worked

A shared sheet, four formulas and about twenty minutes a week are enough to follow up with a few hundred stalled applicants, and to keep an honest comparison group that shows whether it helped.

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8 min read

Published On

Oct 2, 2026

Read: 8 minutes

Last updated: October 2, 2026

In this guide

The columns and formulas that flag who to follow up with today
A message cell with one true thing, one step and one time estimate
How to keep a holdout group in a spreadsheet, and how to read it
The signs that a sheet has stopped being enough

Why a Sheet Is Enough to Start

A follow-up process needs a list, a rule for who is due and a message worth sending. A Google Sheet gives you all three, and everyone on the team can see it, which a hidden automation never allows. It takes about an hour to set up and twenty minutes a week to run, for a few hundred stalled applicants at a time.

The most useful thing a sheet can do is keep an honest comparison. Most platforms send follow-ups and never learn whether they helped. That is why this guide builds the comparison group in from the first row.

Set Up the Columns

Keep one row per applicant.

Column	Header	What goes in it
A	First name	Pasted from your export
B	Email	Pasted from your export
C	Started	The date they started, as a real date
D	Step left	The one step they stopped at, in plain words such as ID upload
E	Status	Stalled, Submitted or Done, from a dropdown
F	Days stalled	A formula, below
G	Last contacted	A date, blank until you write to them
H	Due	A formula, below
I	One true thing	A fact about them you can point to in your data, or blank
J	Group	Send or Hold, set once and pasted as values

Use a dropdown for Status. Select column E, open Data, then Data validation, and add the list Stalled, Submitted, Done. It stops typos from breaking the formulas.

Three Formulas and a Split

Paste each into row 2 and drag it down. Days stalled, in column F:

=IF(E2="Stalled", TODAY()-C2, "")

Due, in column H, flags anyone stalled at least two days, never contacted and in the Send group:

=IF(AND(E2="Stalled", F2>=2, G2="", J2="Send"), "Due", "")

A count on a second tab shows how many are waiting:

=COUNTIF(Applicants!H:H, "Due")

Add a filter view on column H showing only Due, and each morning you have the day's list. Now the split. Put the share you want to hold back in a cell, say M1, then fill column J once:

=IF(RAND()<$M$1, "Hold", "Send")

Paste as values straight away. RAND changes every time the sheet recalculates. Copy column J, choose Paste special, then Values only. If you skip this, people move between groups and the comparison is meaningless.

How large the Hold group has to be is a statistics question, covered in the holdout guide. With only a few hundred rows, a one-in-ten group is too small to read, so expect to hold back more or to keep the test running for several months.

The Message Cell

Write the message in one cell so everyone sends the same shape: a fact about them, the one step left and how long it takes.

="Hi "&A2&". "&IF(I2="","",I2&" ")&"Your "&D2&" is the last thing left on your application. About two minutes."

Hi Rosa. Your ID upload is the last thing left on your application. About two minutes.

Output with column I blank

Hi Rosa. Your shop's deposits have been climbing since September. Your ID upload is the last thing left on your application. About two minutes.

Output with a true thing filled in

Column I is what lifts a message above a template, and the rule is strict: every fact must be something you can point to. Good candidates are a sales trend visible in data the applicant gave you, or three of four steps already finished. If you are guessing, leave it empty. A wrong fact is worse than none. The reasoning behind the message shape is in The Case Against the Reminder Email.

Reading the Result: Rosa's Row and the Month-End Count

One row, then one month (illustrative)

Rosa's Bakery started on October 21 and stopped at ID upload. Her row says Stalled, Step left ID upload, and I holds the deposit line because her statement is linked.

At the end of a month the first tab shows submissions by group. Suppose 70 of 234 people in Send submitted, about 30 percent, and 6 of 26 in Hold did, about 23 percent.

That looks like a seven-point lift. With 26 people it is easily luck. A group that small cannot tell you, which is why the size matters. Write both numbers down and keep running it.

Your Monday Routine

Paste in new stalled applicants and set Status to Stalled.
Mark anyone who has since submitted as Submitted, so they stop showing as Due.
Open the Due view, send those messages from your normal email tool, and fill in Last contacted.
Check the weekly count. If Due keeps growing, you are behind, which is the signal to automate.
Once a month, compare Send and Hold.

Keep the Sheet Honest

Name one owner and write their name at the top of the first tab.
Protect columns F and H so only the owner can edit them. One bad paste can make a week of Due flags wrong.
Add a Notes column for replies, such as a wrong email or a request to stop.
Remove anyone who asks not to be contacted straight away, and keep a list so they are never added back.

Send only to people who started an application with you, and check the sending rules first: Follow-Up Email Compliance covers consent and content. Never put an amount or approval language in a message. Say what step is left and how long it takes.

When a Sheet Stops Being Enough

The signs are clear. You spend more than an hour a week pasting, the list passes a thousand rows, teammates overwrite each other, or writing a different message for each stage has become the bottleneck. Then automate the same loop in your CRM or a workflow tool, or let Slate Rally write each message. If you are still deciding where to look first, find the step applicants stall on.

Slate Rally writes follow-ups like these for platforms. See how Rally works.

Common Questions

How many applicants can a Google Sheet handle for this?

Several thousand rows open fine. The limit is the time it takes to send by hand. Past a few hundred active stalls, automate.

Can I use Excel instead?

Yes. Excel has the same functions used here, including IF, AND, TODAY, COUNTIF and RAND, and a dropdown list through data validation. Sharing is easier in Google Sheets.

Should I add a column for money?

No. Keep amounts and approval language out of follow-ups.

Why paste the Group column as values?

Because RAND recalculates. Without pasting values, the groups reshuffle and you lose the comparison.