Custom lead labels and how they relate to AI reply categories

Draft — written from product facts + domain knowledge; UI labels to be verified before publishing.

OutreachFox gives you two ways to tag a conversation: reply categories, which the AI assigns automatically from the content of a reply, and labels, which you add by hand for anything the AI cannot know — deal stage, territory, priority, product line. Understanding which one to use keeps your inbox and your analytics clean.

Categories vs labels

Rule of thumb: if the tag describes what the lead said, it is a category. If it describes what you want to do about it, it is a label.

Steps: create a label

1. In the left nav, click Inbox.
2. In the folder list on the left, next to Labels, click + (or open Settings → Labels and click New label).
3. Enter a Name (keep it under 20 characters so it fits the conversation row) and pick a Colour.
4. Click Save. The label appears under Labels in the folder list for everyone in the workspace.

Steps: apply a label to a conversation

1. Open the conversation in the Unified Inbox.
2. Click Label in the toolbar (the tag icon) and tick one or more labels. Untick to remove.
3. The labels show as coloured chips on the conversation row and in the lead panel.
4. To label several conversations at once, tick their checkboxes in the list and use the bulk Label action.

Steps: correct an AI category

1. Open the conversation. The current category is shown as a badge at the top of the thread.
2. Click the badge and choose the right category from the list.
3. The change is saved immediately and is reflected in campaign analytics (for example, moving a reply from Not Interested to Interested adds an opportunity).

Tips

• Create custom reply categories only for things the AI can detect from the text of the reply, such as "Asked for pricing" or "Referred to colleague". Everything else should be a label.
• Keep the label set small — 6 to 10 labels. Beyond that people stop applying them consistently.
• Agree one owner for the label list. Duplicate labels (Hot, hot lead, HOT) make filtering useless.
• Labels are workspace-wide and follow the lead across campaigns; a lead labelled Enterprise in one campaign keeps the label if uploaded to another.
• Combine both: filter Category = Interested and Label = Enterprise to find the conversations an AE should take over.
• Correcting categories improves your reporting; it does not retrain the AI. If a category is consistently wrong, tighten its description under Reply Categorization.

Troubleshooting

• A lead shows the wrong category and I cannot change it. You need edit rights on the campaign. Ask a workspace admin.
• Label disappeared from the list. It was deleted under Settings → Labels. Deleting a label removes it from every conversation; there is no undo, so archive unused labels by renaming them (for example zz-old-Hot) instead.
• Custom category never gets assigned. Its description is too vague or overlaps a default category. Rewrite the description with concrete phrases the lead would use.

Related articles

• Set AI reply categorization to organize campaign responses
• Unified Inbox overview: every reply from every mailbox and channel in one place
• Filters, folders and assigning conversations to teammates
• Opportunities and pipeline view: manage interested leads
• How to check lead statuses and replies