Campaigns

A campaign is one message sent to a list of people, with the results tracked afterwards.

A campaign moves through states you can see on the list: draft while you write it, scheduled once it is queued, sending while it goes out, and sent when it is done. A campaign in flight can be paused, and a scheduled one can be canceled.

Before it schedules, a campaign is checked. That check tells you:

• How many recipients it will actually reach.
• Your credit balance, and whether it is enough for the send. Not enough credits means it will not schedule.
• Which merge tags your content uses, and how many recipients have no value for each. A tag with a default fills in; one without leaves a gap where a name should be, which is the classic embarrassing send.
• Whether an unsubscribe link is present. Without one, it will not schedule. This is enforced, not advised.

Recipients on your suppression list are skipped, and the campaign's own figures count them separately from failures — so a smaller send than you expected has a visible reason.

Afterwards, the campaign carries its own numbers: delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, unsubscribed, and how many were skipped.

1. Get approved first, and get your contacts and suppressions in place — see Marketing overview.
2. Go to Campaigns and start a new one.
3. Give it a name only you will see, then write the subject line. The subject decides whether the rest gets read.
4. Choose the sender. It must be a verified sender — see Senders and SMTP credentials.
5. Write the content, or start from a template. Include an unsubscribe link; the campaign will not schedule without one.
6. Choose the lists it goes to.
7. Read the pre-send check properly. Fix any merge tag with a large number of missing values before continuing — that number is how many people get a gap where their name should be.
8. Send yourself a test first. Read it on a phone.
9. Schedule it. Consider a time your audience is awake rather than the moment you finished writing.
10. Come back afterwards and read the results.

It will not schedule. Three usual causes: no unsubscribe link, not enough credits, or an unverified sender. The check names which.

Fewer recipients than expected. Suppressed and unsubscribed people are skipped by design, and the figures show how many. That is the list protecting you.

Names are missing in the delivered mail. A merge tag had no value for those contacts. The pre-send check counts them; a default value on the field prevents it next time.

Bounces are high. Stop sending to that list and read Deliverability. Continuing will damage delivery for your ordinary mail too.

It is sending and you need it to stop. Pause it. Anything not yet sent stays unsent.

Opens look low. Blocked images undercount opens everywhere. Compare with your own previous campaigns, not with a published benchmark.

• Contacts and lists — who it goes to
• Email templates — reusable content
• Go to Campaigns