Once you have finished creating a new campaign, you’re ready to review it, make your final decisions, and schedule or send it. Here, we’ll go over all the steps between the moment you finish editing your campaign and the moment you schedule or send it.
Always be sure to send a test of your campaign before sending it out to the intended audience.
How to create a new campaign
The rest of the instructions in this article are for post-campaign creation, but if you haven’t already created one, follow these instructions to get started.
- Navigate to your Campaigns tab.
- Click on the Emails section in the panel on the left, if you’re not there already.
- Click on the Create new campaign button on the right.
- In the pop-up window that appears, select Regular email and give your campaign a name.
- Click on the Continue button.
- Select a template or click on the Start from scratch button.
- If you chose to start from scratch, select Drag & drop in the pop-up window that appears and click on the Continue button.
Parts of the Review page
When you’re happy with your campaign, click on the Review button at the top right. This will bring you to the Review page, where you can choose your audience, subject line, preheader text, and more.
The Send time, Audience, Subject, and From sections are all required. Once you’ve filled out a required section, a green checkmark will appear next to the section heading.
If you’re working in the legacy* editor, you’ll need to click on the Review & send button instead. This will bring you to the legacy Review page.
Send time
You can choose to send your campaign now or schedule it for later. Click on the Send time dropdown arrow to select an option. If you select Schedule for later, click on the date and use the calendar to select the desired send date and time. The send time is based on the time zone set in your account. (If the time is incorrect it’s a quick fix, just click on the gear icon at the top right, then select Account. This will open on the Basics tab where you can change the time zone. Parents and Managers of tiered accounts will need to click on the gear icon, scroll down to Subaccount settings, and then select Account from the dropdown menu.)
After you have scheduled a campaign for a future date or time, you can still make edits before the send time arrives. However, it is not possible to stop, recall, or edit a sent email after it has left our servers.
You can also enter one or more email addresses that will be notified when the scheduled email sends. When a scheduled mailing begins sending, those email addresses will receive a head’s up email, which is just a preview image of the campaign that’s about to start sending and not the email itself.
The image shown in the head’s up email is just a preview of the campaign, not the actual mailing. As a result, the links shown in the preview image will not work when clicked.
Audience
Click on the Audience dropdown arrow to select the desired groups, segments, or subscriptions. You can also type in an individual email address as a recipient. The chosen groups, segments, and subscriptions are refreshed at the time of sending to ensure your campaign is sent to the current audience.
You also have the option to exclude select contacts in your audience. To select exclusion segments, click on the Excluding anyone in dropdown menu and choose the desired segments.
After the campaign has been sent, you can refer to your Response page to see which segments were not included by selecting the Excluded tab.
Subject line
Type in your subject line or click on the Switch to split test button. Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is a way of working out which of two options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens and is something we always suggest trying. You can also use an emoji library, such as Emojipedia to add an emoji to your subject line, if desired.
To add personalization to your subject line, click on the Personalize button, select the desired field, enter a default value, and click on the Save button.
Be sure to keep your character count in mind as subject lines have limited space and are considered to be one of the most important aspects of any email.
Preheader text is a brief description of what’s in your email. It’s not displayed in the email itself, but appears in the email preview of most inboxes, following the subject line. While preheader text is not required, if you don’t write anything, inboxes that show this text will pull it from the first line of text in the plain-text version of your mailing, which isn’t always a good look.
From
In this area, the name and email address that you have listed as the sender details for your account will populate in the fields for the sender name and sender email. You can keep what’s there or click on the dropdown arrow to enter in new details that may be pertinent to this campaign. You can also add a unique reply-to address by checking the Set a separate reply-to email address box. Additionally, it gives you the option to overwrite these default sender details for your account and set the updated information as the new default, so be sure if you make this selection that it is what you want for all of your campaigns moving forward.
Advanced
Click on the dropdown arrow in the Advanced section to view the Format, Signup form, and Google Analytics settings.
The Format section lets you choose between sending an HTML campaign and a plaintext only campaign. We always recommend choosing the HTML format, as our system will send the plaintext version as a last resort if the HTML version cannot be delivered.
If you have more than one signup form, you will see them as options when you click the dropdown menu under Signup form. You can keep the default form or you can choose a different one from the dropdown menu. The signup form that you select will be what’s included in the footer of your campaign.
If you would like to add Google Analytics to your campaign, simply click on the Add Google Analytics button and follow the prompts. Connecting Google Analytics is not required and is completely voluntary.
Sending / scheduling
Once you’ve made your selections, click on the Review & send button at the top right. In the pop-up window that appears, review all the information to confirm that it’s correct, then click on the Send campaign button or the Schedule campaign button. To make changes before sending, click on the Cancel button.
Legacy Review page
Recipients
You can select to send to groups, segments, subscriptions, or individuals. The chosen groups, segments, and subscriptions are refreshed at the time of sending to ensure your campaign is sent to the current audience. To add some, either start typing a name into the field, or click the person icon on the right to display your full list of each option.
Exclude a segment
You also have the option to exclude select contacts in your audience by checking the Exclude an audience segment box. Click on the dropdown menu that appears to select a segment. You can only select one exclusion segment, so if you need to select multiple, we recommend creating a new segment that combines the criteria of the existing segments that you’d like to use.
After the campaign has been sent, you can refer to your Response page to see which segment was not included by selecting the Excluded tab.
Subject line
Type in your subject line or click on the Switch to split test button. Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is a way of working out which of two options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens and is something we always suggest trying. You can also add an emoji to your subject line, if desired.
Be sure to keep your character count in mind as subject lines have limited space and are considered to be one of the most important aspects of any email.
Preheader text
Preheader text is a brief description of what’s in your email. It’s not displayed in the email itself, but appears in the email preview of most inboxes, following the subject line. While preheader text is not required, if you don’t write anything, inboxes that show this text will pull it from the first line of text in the plain-text version of your mailing, which isn’t always a good look.
Sender and reply-to details
In this area, the name and email address that you have listed as the sender details for your account will populate in the fields for the sender name and sender email. You can keep what’s there or enter in new details that may be pertinent to this campaign, or you can also add a unique reply-to address. Additionally, it gives you the option to overwrite these default sender details for your account and set the updated information as the new default, so be sure if you make this selection that it is what you want for all of your campaigns moving forward.
Select a signup form
If you have more than one signup form, you will see them as options when you click the dropdown menu under Signup form. You can keep the default form or you can choose a different one from the dropdown menu. The signup form that you select will be what’s included in the footer of your campaign.
Google Analytics
If you would like to add Google Analytics to your campaign, simply click on the Add Google Analytics button and follow the prompts. Connecting Google Analytics is not required and is completely voluntary.
Send now or schedule
You can choose to send your campaign right away by clicking the Send now button, or select Schedule for later to choose a send time in the future. The send time is based on the time zone set in your account. (If the time is incorrect it’s a quick fix, just click on the gear icon at the top right, then select Account. This will open on the Basics tab where you can change the time zone. Parents and Managers of tiered accounts will need to click on the gear icon, scroll down to Subaccount settings, and then select Account from the dropdown menu.)
After you have scheduled a campaign for a future date or time, you can still make edits before the send time arrives. However, it is not possible to stop, recall, or edit a sent email after it has left our servers.
Scheduling notifications
When scheduling your campaign, you will be given the option to receive a notification email once it starts. You can add multiple emails if your team members need to be notified as well. Make your selections and then click the Schedule it button. When a scheduled mailing begins sending, you will receive a head’s up email, which is just a preview image of the campaign that’s about to start sending and not the email itself.
The image shown in the head’s up email is just a preview of the campaign, not the actual mailing. As a result, the links shown in the preview image will not work when clicked.
Preparing to send screen
After you send a mailing, you’ll be directed to the Preparing to send screen. This screen confirms that your audience will being to receive the mailing within roughly 30 minutes. It will also list any new contacts who were added to your audience as part of this mailing and give you the opportunity to add them to a group.
The “new contacts” message will appear even if you did not add any new contacts to your audience during the sending process. The function of this is just to give you an opportunity to add all these contacts to the same group. If you see this message, but didn’t add any new contacts, there’s no need to be alarmed – this is expected.
How to edit a scheduled campaign
When you schedule a mailing to send later, you can still make changes to it before it sends but you will need to cancel the send time first.
- Navigate to your Campaigns tab.
- Click on the Emails section in the panel on the left, if you’re not there already.
- Click on the Scheduled tab.
- Click on the dropdown arrow that corresponds to the mailing in question and choose Cancel send from the list.
- Click on the Drafts tab and click on the name of the campaign that you just canceled.
- Make the desired changes and when you’re ready, follow the steps to review and schedule the mailing again.
* In April 2022, our legacy editor was replaced with a new drag and drop editor. Accounts that existed prior to this change still have access to the legacy editor through their previously saved templates and campaigns, however new, from-scratch campaigns can only be created in the new drag and drop editor. Accounts that were created after this change only have access to the new drag and drop editor. Please refer to our new editor FAQ article for more information.