ARC funnels — authors & publishers

Advanced Review Copy for books (PDF), not a general “any product” review funnel.

Read this first: The ARC Review & Lead funnel type exists for authors and publishers who send tokenized, watermarked PDF ARCs and want download tracking plus a timed review reminder. If you are an e‑commerce seller, coach, course creator, or SaaS team, you almost always want a Review & Lead or Lead Capture funnel instead—see Funnel types & overview first so you do not pick the wrong type.

If you are distributing book ARC PDFs, use the rest of this page for reminders, watermarking, what you see on the Leads screen, and what has to be turned on in your deployment for reminders to send.

Where to start in Help: Help home → Funnels → Funnel types & overview first, then return here if an ARC funnel is the right fit.

Who can create ARC funnels

Plan: Growth or higher (same check as other Growth features in the app).
Account type: Author, Enterprise, or Whitelabel (with a fallback when business type is Author if the role label does not match).
Internal Admin / Super Admin accounts still require Growth+ for ARC in the UI (for realistic testing).

What you configure in the funnel wizard

Funnel type ARC Review & Lead — one product only.
ARC PDF — required before go-live; PDF only, 10 MB max in the current UI.
Review reminder days — choose 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 calendar days after a successful download. That value is stored on the funnel and drives when the single automated review reminder is scheduled.
Optional ARC expiration — after that instant (server UTC), token download links return “gone” and readers cannot fetch the file from ReviewLead anymore.
Same review-flow choices as a normal review funnel (marketplaces, rating style, copy, optional freebie, etc.) where your plan allows.

Who receives the ARC — you decide (by design)

The PDF is not emailed automatically to every lead who joins your funnel. That way you control distribution: advance copies stay scarce and targeted, and the ARC does not go out to everyone by default.

From Leads, select specific readers — bulk email (checkboxes) or contact lead — then send using your ARC download template so each person gets their own link. Repeat whenever you want another wave or cohort.

Pick leads that lift review conversion

Prefer readers who show recent activity or stronger engagement signals—they tend to open mail and finish reads faster.
Use download and reminder columns to avoid blindly re-targeting people who already got the file (unless that is intentional).
Many authors send in waves (warmest contacts first, then the next tier) to stack momentum and honest reviews.

What happens when a reader downloads the ARC

They use a personal, tokenized download URL (not a single shared static file link for everyone).
The server loads your stored PDF, applies an ARC watermark (copy label, author identity, download time, unique id), then streams the watermarked bytes. A watermark record is written when that succeeds.
The lead gets arc_downloaded_at set, a download_completed event is logged (tagged as ARC), and the funnel download counter increments.
If reminder days are set to 3 or more, the system creates one row in the scheduled-email queue: send type arc_review_reminder at download time + N days. If a pending reminder for that reader already exists, the original send date is kept (duplicate downloads do not reschedule it).

Reminders — what you must run in production

Pending reminders are processed by the scripts/send_scheduled_emails.py worker (typically cron, for example hourly). If that job never runs, reminders stay pending and never leave ReviewLead.

First touch with the file: Intentionally manual — only recipients you select get an ARC mail from ReviewLead. Use templates plus merge fields so each chosen reader gets their personal link from bulk send or contact lead — see Sending emails from the leads table. Automated reminder emails only kick in after someone downloads (they do not replace your choice of who receives the file first).

After the reader continues the funnel

arc_thank_you — queued in the background when a review is saved on submission for an ARC funnel (public review path completes with stored review text/rating).
arc_feedback_thank_you — queued when the reader submits non-empty private feedback on an ARC funnel (separate from the public review thank-you).
Configure bodies for arc_download, arc_review_reminder, and the thank-you types under Email templates.

Leads table — what you can see

Downloaded — from download events (ARC or other downloads that log the same event type).
ARC reminder email — pending, sent, failed, or cancelled from the scheduled-email row; “not scheduled” if the funnel was not configured for 3+ day reminders.
Review / review link / rating — what the reader actually submitted. If the reminder shows as sent but these stay empty, treat that as “still needs a follow-up” from your side if you want one.
New leads from an ARC funnel are tagged for reporting when the lead row is first created; if the same email already exists on that funnel, the existing lead row is reused like other funnel types.