Why do people ignore email polls in the first place?
Almost never out of reluctance. Most non-voters saw your poll, thought "I'll answer after this call," and then their inbox moved on without them. Email is a queue, and anything that isn't answered in the first pass tends to sink.
That's actually good news. It means the missing votes aren't refusals — they're just deferred. A poll that lives inside the email itself, where voting is a single click in the browser, already removes most of the friction that kills link-out surveys. The reminder's only job is to resurface the question at a moment when the person can act on it.
When should you send a poll reminder?
Two to three days after the original email is the sweet spot for most polls. Earlier than that and you're nudging people who were going to vote anyway; later and the topic has gone cold.
Two adjustments worth making:
- Tight deadline? If the poll closes within 48 hours, remind after one day. The reminder should always land while there's still comfortable time to act.
- Weekend in the way? Aim for a weekday morning. A reminder that arrives Saturday evening gets the same fate as the original email — deferred, then buried.
If you've set a deadline on the poll, say so in the reminder. "Closes Friday" converts far better than an open-ended "when you get a chance."
How many reminders should you send?
One. Send exactly one reminder per poll, then let it go.
The first reminder does the real work, because it catches the large group of people who meant to vote and forgot. A second reminder reaches a much smaller group — people who saw your poll twice and still didn't act — and it reaches them with a message that now reads as pressure. The few extra votes it recovers aren't worth teaching your recipients that your emails come in threes.
Polls for Gmail enforces this for you: each person can receive at most one reminder per poll, ever — and manual and automatic reminders share the same ledger, so you can't accidentally double-send by using both.
Who should get the reminder?
Only the people who haven't voted. This is the single biggest etiquette rule, and the one most "reply-all with REMINDER in the subject" follow-ups break.
Re-sending to your whole list punishes exactly the people who responded promptly — and trains them to ignore the first email next time, since a summary blast is clearly coming anyway. On polls that collect voter identity, Polls for Gmail skips everyone who has already voted automatically, so the nudge only ever lands where it's needed.
What should a poll reminder say?
Less than you think. A good reminder has four parts: a fresh subject line, one line of context, the ask with the deadline, and an escape hatch for anyone you might have missed.
Subject: Quick reminder — offsite poll closes Friday
Hi —
Just a nudge: the "Where should the offsite be?" poll is still open, and I haven't seen your vote yet. It's one click, and it closes Friday at noon.
If you already voted from another device, you're all set — ignore me.
Thanks!
— Dana
Note the escape hatch in the last line. It costs nothing and defuses the one genuinely awkward case: someone who did respond but wasn't matched to their vote. Reminder emails sent through Polls for Gmail include this line by default.
Manual vs. automatic reminders — which should you use?
Both get you to the same email in the recipient's inbox. The difference is who has to remember to send it.
If you send polls more than occasionally, set up the automatic version once and stop thinking about it — here's the step-by-step Auto-Remind setup guide. Either way, the safeguards are identical: one reminder per person per poll, voters skipped, same ledger.
How do you send a reminder in Polls for Gmail?
Vote reminders are a Pro feature. The manual version takes about thirty seconds:
- Open your dashboard at pollsforgmail.com and find the poll's card.
- Click "Remind non-voters." A dialog opens with the recipient list.
- Review the recipients. For polls sent from Gmail, the list is prefilled with the people your original email went to; for dashboard polls shared by link, paste the addresses yourself. Anyone who already voted is dropped automatically.
- Click "Send reminders." Each non-voter gets a short, friendly email — as a new thread, from [email protected], with replies going to you — with a one-click button back to the vote and the deadline shown if you set one.
Prefer not to think about it at all? Turn on Auto-remind non-voters and every future poll handles its own follow-up.