Campaigns are a great way to map out and then automatically send a sequence of messages for your contacts. In addition to the benefits you get in the planning process, you create a more interactive experience for your contacts.

Campaigns are built on a collection of carefully placed steps. Steps direct the flow of email messages based on recipient actions and time intervals, and the various types of Campaign Steps work together to keep your contacts moving seamlessly through the campaign.

NOTE: Campaign creation is diverse and unique to the needs of each organization, so this article focuses less on the step-by-step process and more on familiarizing you with Campaign Designer tools.

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Create a campaign

To create a campaign:

1. Access the Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Campaigns > List.

3. To the right of the page title, click Create. The starter-kit selection dialog opens.

4. You can:

• scroll down to access more Campaign Starter Kits OR
• click the dropdown and select a Campaign Type to display only those Campaign Starter Kits (as shown below with the Event-type kits).

Higher Logic Thrive Platform customers have additional options as described in Thrive Platform-specific starter kits, below.

See Campaign Starter Kits & Importing Content for a complete description of the Starter Kit campaigns.

5. Click a Campaign Starter Kit to select it.

Thrive Platform-specific starter kits

Higher Logic Thrive Platform customers have additional, dedicated Campaign Starter Kits.

There is an additional Campaign Type, Community, with several starter kits that are designed specifically for online-community activities:

There is a Thrive Platform-specific starter kit in the Renewal type group:

Campaign Designer layout

You're now in Campaign Designer where you create your campaign. The designer features a grid on the right called the Canvas, with a list of Steps on the left. Drag Steps onto the Canvas and drop them into place, then connect them to create the flow, and configure them to meet your needs.

See Campaign Steps to learn more about each available campaign step.

Campaign Designer tabs

You create and manage campaigns across four tabs in the Designer.

• Design - This is where you do the bulk of your work, creating your campaign process flow by dragging-and-dropping Steps onto the Canvas.
• Mailings - Any messages associated to the campaign are listed here for easy reference.
• Test - This tab is available only if the campaign has no errors. Use this tab to send individuals or groups of testers through the campaign. See Test a Campaign to learn more.
• Activate - This tab is available only if the campaign has no errors. This is where you activate your campaign so it can begin processing contacts. You first have to define a few settings:

• the Target Group,
• when contacts are added to the campaign from the Target Group,
• the time period through which to add contacts, and
• whether you want to exclude or remove specific contacts (via one or more Target Groups or by listing up to 15 email addresses).

Campaign Designer tools

Sometimes, the design of a campaign requires a large number of Steps to create the flow and routing needed, but this can make it challenging to see the entire campaign on the Canvas. Let's take a look at some tools you can use to help you navigate the Canvas and manage your campaign more efficiently.

Panning

Click into the Canvas and drag your mouse cursor to pan (move horizontally) the entirety of your campaign. Just be sure to click an empty part of the grid; if you select an object, you'll move it instead.

With the Canvas selected (indicated by a light blue border), you can also use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Additional tools

At the top right of the Canvas are a few notable features (discussed from left to right):

• Zoom - This slider increases and decreases the size of the campaign on the Canvas. For campaigns with a lot of steps, decreasing the zoom level to around 0.5 makes it much easier to see more Steps at once.
• Print - Print the Canvas view of your campaign.
• Take a Tour - Provides a step-by-step on-screen tour of the Campaign Designer interface. This is particularly helpful for new users of Campaign Designer.
• Align - Reorganizes the Steps on the Canvas. The Steps remain in the same left-to-right order that they were placed on the Canvas, but the spacing is adjusted to be as equal as possible and the connecting lines are straightened as mush as possible. Keep in mind that any comments on the Canvas will be grouped together and placed in the lower-right corner of the Canvas. Note that this feature is more useful for some campaigns than others, and may not always provide a better view. To undo an alignment, press Ctrl Z (Windows) or command Z (Mac) on your keyboard.

Campaign settings

You'll configure several campaign details and settings when saving it for the first time, and then via the gear icon subsequently.

In the resulting dialog, you can configure several details and settings:

• A campaign's name
• Type
• The campaign folder in which to organize it
• The person who should receive the email notifications sent from Notify Steps,
• A description
• Under Goal Settings, whether the campaign has a Goal

See Campaign Goals to learn more.

• Under Report Sharing Settings, whether a report is generated each week while the campaign is active (you can choose the day and time), and to whom this report should be sent (you can add one or several people)
• Under Re-entry Settings, whether contacts are allowed to go through the campaign more than once, and if so, how long they have to wait, and how many additional times they can re-enter.

How campaigns differ from messages

Many customers begin using Campaign Designer after having sent numerous "one-off" messages from Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional or another email-marketing program. There are a few key differences in the campaign mindset:

• There is a little more planning involved to create a campaign, but this has inherent benefits.
• When a campaign is activated, it does not require any direct support by a staff member.
• Recipients in the campaign are sent the next planned message based on the flow of the campaign, so the need for a send date is diminished. It's intentionally variable in order to best respond to the contact's interaction patterns.
• While opens, clicks, and forwards are still important metrics, the most important metric is the conversion that a campaign is aiming for. Whether the conversion is registering, volunteering, purchasing, or participating - THAT'S what you ultimately want to measure and THAT'S what will determine the effectiveness and success of the campaign.

Campaign Designer a powerful marketing tool because it makes your team more efficient while providing a more contact-centric experience.