What is the Create a Campaign process?

The Create a Campaign Workflow was designed to be an efficient, streamlined process that includes all components needed to send an email: setup, email design, choosing an audience, testing, and scheduling. 

Note: Before you start the campaign workflow, make sure that the email template you intend to use has been marked as "Complete". If you need instructions on how-to complete this step, please see this article.

Where to create a campaign

You can initiate the Create a Campaign Workflow from the Campaigns module. This can be done by editing an existing campaign in the draft status or creating a new campaign. 

• For existing drafts: If you need to stop and come back to your campaign to edit later, you can! Your campaign will be saved as Draft and you can hover over it and hit "Edit".
• For new campaigns: Navigate to the Campaigns dashboard and click "Create Campaign" at the top left. This will start you into the workflow. 
  
  
  

Workflow Steps

The Create a Campaign Workflow consists of 6 steps for most campaign types. These include:

1. Setup - enter the name, choose the campaign type, choose your sender name and reply-to, create your subject line and pre-header, and choose your footer. 
2. Design -  design your campaign content.
3. Contacts -  choose your audience segment or create a new segment.
4. Preview - preview your inbox rendering.
5. Test -  test your campaign.
6. Schedule - schedule your campaign.

Below we will walk through each of these steps for a Regular campaign. 

Note: some processes will change depending on the campaign type. For example, a triggered campaign will need additional scheduling settings and A/B tests will require multiple versions of the email design or subject lines, etc.

1. Setup

Setup is your first step. On this page you will:

• Name your campaign. This is purely for your own records and cannot be seen by recipients.
• Choose your campaign type (choosing automated email gives you multiple sub-type options)
• Select your Sender Name (set up in Settings > Account Management > Sender Addresses). You will see markings to note the status of your SPF and DKIM authentication. If you see red errors please ensure you did not change the domain of your sender address from your original settings. 
• Choose a reply-to address if it is different from your sender address
• Create your subject line. You can add merge tags like %%firstname_%% using the "Add Merge" button to the right.
• Create your pre-header. You can add merge tags like %%firstname_%% using the "Add Merge" button to the right.
• Select your footer. Footers are required and may be set up in Settings > Account Management > Footers.
• Populate from My Template: If you've created these setup factors in your template already, click "Populate from My Template" to choose a template from your library that will import your subject line and other details, etc.

Once you have all of the required items filled out click the "Save and Next" button.

Note: Once you've done this first save, you can exit the workflow at any time without losing previously saved work.

2. Design

The first page you will encounter in the Design step requests you choose how you want to start your design. These options include:

• Start from Blank - this will open a blank template in the drag-and-drop editor.
• Start from Paste - this will open a window to allow you to paste previously created HTML. This option bypasses the drag-and-drop editor.
• Start from Upload - this will open a window that allows you to upload a HTML file from an outside program like Dreamweaver. This option bypasses the drag-and-drop editor.
• Start from Template - this will open an additional window where you can choose a stock template, a "completed" template from your Assets dashboard, or potentially completed templates shared from your customer template repository. This is the most common choice.

Once you've selected your start option, the editor will open and you can edit the design using our drag-and-drop email editor:

Your design should auto-save, depending on if you have that feature enabled for your administrator record. To check the settings enabled on your administrator record (exit the campaign workflow) then go to Settings > select "User Management" > then select "Account Administrators". Hover over your record and click the Edit button that appears.

Once you've completed your design click the "Save" or "Save and Next" button.

3. Contacts

The Contacts step in the workflow allows you to select your the audience (category or segment or both) to send your campaign to. If you have not already created a segment in the Contacts dashboard, you can click the "Create a Segment" button right within the workflow.

Additionally, you can:

• Set a maximum number of random recipients from the selected groups. (Rare)
• Exclude recipients from previous campaigns -- simply choose which campaign you want to make sure the recipients did not already receive.
• Exclude based on a suppression list (suppression lists can be uploaded in Contacts > Suppression Lists).

Note: Typically the default audience selected in the workflow will show as "List administrators". This is a default segment created in all accounts that includes contact records that have administrator access to Delivra. 

Once you've selected the appropriate segment, click the "Save & Next" button.

4. Preview

The Preview step allows you to preview how your design will render in recipient inboxes. On the left hand side is the general rendering. If you have dynamic content (Who See's This) you can use a drop-down to flip between versions.

You can also preview the email using a specific email to quick check your merge tags and other in-email personalization.

To view on online version of the email design, click the "View Online Version" button in the top-right of the email content section.

The "How It Renders" section is a paid feature that allows you to purchase credits to show rendering for specific email clients. If you'd like to learn more about our Email Rendering feature, contact Client Success.

5. Test

The Test step has you test your campaign to yourself or any test collaboration group you've previously set up. If you have not done so already, you can create a collaboration team right on the page.

Choose how many copies to send, if you would like to include HTML or just text, and if you would like to receive a complimentary spam analysis report.

Test details for the campaign will show under "View Test Send History", noting who tested the mailing and when, should you need that information.

Team Collaboration is an enabled feature at the Professional license or above. It allows you to send to anyone (not just account administrators) who can simply reply to the email to have the feedback show on this page. 

Note: You are required to test your campaign before moving on to the next step. After the campaign has been tested once, you can freely move between all steps of the workflow.

6. Schedule

The final step is scheduling your campaign. In this section you will find the following options:

• Send Now will send the email immediately.
• You can keep your campaign unscheduled and come back later to schedule.
• Schedule for a specific date and time.
  • Send at the local time zone of the recipient.
  • Optimize the send time within 24 hours of the scheduled send start based around when the recipient typically opens and clicks.
• Post your campaign to connected social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
• Add a report group. Report groups help you group like mailings with each other like "Newsletters" or "20XX Product X Promotion".
• Assign additional lead score points based on recipient actions toward this campaign like opens and clicks. 
• Assign additional advanced engagement score points based on recipient actions towards this campaign like opens and clicks.

Once you have your scheduling set, click the "Save" button!

Resources

See additional resources from our e-learning hub for campaign features covered in this article.