What is the Create a Campaign process?

DESCRIPTION

The Create a Campaign Workflow was designed to be an efficient, streamlined process that includes the set up, design, audience, testing, and scheduling of a campaign.  What does that mean for you? More time!

Note: If you would like to use a template you built in Assets > Email Templates, make sure you've marked that template as "Complete" before building the campaign. 
 

INITIATING THE WORKFLOW

You can initiate the Create a Campaign Workflow from the Campaigns module. This can be done by editing an existing Draft campaign 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. 

CREATE A CAMPAIGN WORKFLOW

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.

Let's walk through each of these steps for a Regular campaign. 

*Note: some processes will change depending on the campaign type. For example, triggered automation will need additional scheduling settings. A/B tests will require multiple versions of email design content 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, choose Populate from My Template to choose your template and import your subject line, etc.

Once you have all of the required items filled out you may select "Save and Next".
Once you've done this first save, you can hit "Exit" 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 your campaign!

Your design should auto-save, depending on if you have that feature enabled in your administrator record (Settings > User Management > Administrators).

Once you've completed your design Click Save or Save and Next.

3. Contacts

The Contacts step in the workflow allows you to select your category or segment 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).

List administrators may be set as the default segment on your account. 

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

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. Contact success@delivra.com to learn more.

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.

Your test history will show under "Test History" noting who tested the mailing and when.

Team Collaboration is an enabled Professional License feature and allows you to send to anyone (not just account admins) who can simply reply to the email to have the feedback show on this page. 

You are required to test your campaign before moving on to the next step. 

6. Schedule

The final step is scheduling your campaign. In this section:

• 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.
• Enterprise License: Send to the local time zone of the recipient.
• Enterprise License: 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".
• Enterprise License: Assign additional lead score points based on recipient actions toward this campaign like opens and clicks. 
• Enterprise License: Assign additional advanced engagement score points based on recipient actions towards this campaign like opens and clicks.

Once you have your scheduling set, hit Save!

Questions? Getting stuck? Reach out to support@delivra.com for assistance.