Configuring the sending options for your campaign is the fourth step of the campaign creation process, Contacts.
1. Choose an audience
First, you need to select which of your contacts you want to send your campaign to from your lists, segments and marketing preferences.
Lists, segments, and marketing preferences
Lists are a static collection of contacts.
A segment is a dynamic list of contacts who meet particular criteria, such as age, location or click activity on your campaigns.
Marketing preferences are groups containing contacts who've expressed a desire to hear from you about a particular subject or area of interest.
Learn more
You also have the option to select Test list to perform a live send of the campaign to your test contacts. This can be helpful if you want to check inbox placement, which cannot be determined using test sends.
Campaigns can be sent to a combination of one or more lists, segments, and marketing preferences.
To choose which to send to:
Select the relevant tab from Lists, Segments or Marketing preferences.
Select the checkbox for the sets of contacts you want to send to.
Exclude contacts from a send
In addition to choosing which lists, segments, or marketing preferences you want to include in your sends, you can also select which of these you want to exclude from the send.
Exclusions take precedence over inclusions, so, if a contact appears in both an included list, segment, or preference, and an excluded one, they are not sent the campaign.
For example, you might want to send out a campaign, but ensure that you don’t send it to any contact who has already been sent a campaign very recently. You could therefore create a segment to identify contacts sent a campaign in the last one day, and exclude this segment from your send.
To exclude a list, segment, or marketing preference:
Select the Exclude lists, segments or marketing preferences checkbox.
Select the relevant tab from Lists, Segments or Marketing preferences.
Select the checkbox for the sets of contacts you want to exclude from the send.
2. Choose a send time
For send time, choose from:
Immediately
Your campaign is sent straightaway once you complete the final step of reviewing and confirming your campaign. You need to confirm the sending speed by selecting one of the following options:Use default sending speed - select this option to send your campaign to all of your selected contacts as soon as possible.
Spread my campaign send - select this option then expand the time drop-down menu and choose a timeframe to spread the send across.
Scheduled
Set a date and time in the future for your campaign send.
To do this, select the date picker and choose the date of send, then expand the drop-down menus and select the time of send.
If you’re sending to any segments, you can choose to automatically refresh those segments just before the time of send, to make sure that the segment rules are pulling in contacts based on your most recent data. To do this, select the Refresh segments before sending checkbox.
Send throttling
For an immediate or scheduled send, if the feature is active on your account, you have the option to throttle the send. This means to spread the send out over a longer period than our standard send speed.
To do this, select the Spread my campaign send over at least radio button and then expand the drop-down menu to choose the length of time to spread the send over.
Learn more in Throttle the sending of an email campaign.
Optimised
Your campaign starts sending immediately after you review and confirm it, but we optimise the time of individual sends to each contact to maximise engagement based on your contacts' historical behaviour. This times emails to reach inboxes when they're most likely to be read.
You can choose to set an optimised send to start immediately once the campaign is confirmed, or schedule a start time in the future. To do this, select the radio button for Immediate start or Scheduled start. For a scheduled start, use the date and time picker to set the timing for your campaign send to start, and choose whether to refresh any segments you are sending to before the send begins.
Learn more in Use send time optimisation.
Account time zone
To make sure that your scheduled campaigns send when you intend them to, you must check that your account is set to the right time zone in the Account settings section.
Learn how in Manage your account settings.
3. Set up ReMail
Optionally, you can also choose to ReMail your campaign. This creates a copy of the campaign and sends it a few days later to any contact who is not tracked as having either opened or clicked (depending on your account settings) the original campaign.
To do this, for Turn on ReMail, select the Yes checkbox. Enter the number of days after the original send that you want the ReMail to be sent, and, if you want to, enter a new subject line for the ReMail campaign.
Learn more in Use ReMail to resend a campaign to non-engaging subscribers.
Add an auto responder
The final option you have in this campaign step is to choose whether to set up an auto responder for the campaign. An auto responder is an email which is sent to any contact who replies to your campaign. To set up an auto responder, you need to have the campaign you want to use created as a triggered campaign.
Learn how in Create a triggered campaign.
To set up an auto responder:
Select ADD AN AUTO RESPONDER TO THIS CAMPAIGN.
Expand the drop-down menu and select the automated campaign you want to send to any contact who replies to your campaign.
Select SAVE.
Once you’re happy with your send settings, select SAVE & CONTINUE.
Next steps