Manage campaign participants

As you create and run a campaign, Campaign Designer has two methods by which you can manage who is in the campaign. You can:

• exclude contacts so that they are not initially included in the campaign.
• remove contacts (i.e., campaign participants) from an active campaign.

NOTE: These methods take effect at different times in the life of the campaign, so you can use both to manage a campaign's participants.

The information in Exclude contacts and Remove contacts, below, details the functionality of the two "exclusion" methods.

Contact-selection options, below, describes the two options for selecting contacts, both of which are available with both methods.

Exclude method details

When the system "looks for" contacts to add to the campaign, the contacts who match the exclusion criteria that have been set are not added to the campaign.

• If, when the campaign is running, a contact no longer matches the exclusion criteria, that contact will be added to the campaign within five minutes of the discovery of the change.

Use case

This method is time-saving and useful if your intended Target Group is broad and you know that you do not want to include in the campaign some of the Target Group's contacts. You can simply select the preferred Target Group for the campaign and then exclude the unwanted contacts by Target Group or by email address.

EXAMPLE: Assume that your "activation" Target Group is ALL-MEMBERS_TG (i.e., all of your members) and that you want to exclude members in the northeast. You could exclude the NE-MEMBERS_TG Target Group to very easily exclude those members from the campaign.

Remove method details

This method is set by editing an active campaign. When you configure this method, current campaign participants who match the exclusion criteria that you set are immediately and permanently removed from the campaign.

• Contacts who are removed from a campaign will not be re-added to the campaign, even if they no longer match the exclusion criteria.

TIP: The "remove" method is applicable only after the campaign is active. You can use it after the campaign is running in order to get the benefit of both exclusion methods.

Use case

This method is useful if one or more of the original campaign participants were, for example, added to the campaign by mistake or the campaign's content is no longer applicable or relevant to them. This "on the fly" removal option makes it easy for you to remove those contacts (by Target Group or by email address) from the campaign with the least disruption to the campaign.

Contact-selection options

The "exclude" and "remove" methods have the same two options for selecting contacts. The exclusion criteria can be based on:

• a contact being in a Target Group and/or
• a contact's email address.

TIP: These options are not mutually exclusive. You can use both of these criteria to manage a campaign's contacts.

Exclude contacts

You can exclude contacts from a campaign by choosing the Do not include in campaign method. The system will not add to the campaign the contacts who:

• are associated to one or more of the selected Target Groups.
• are listed by their individual email addresses.

TIP: You can set either or both of the above as your exclude criteria.

NOTE: This exclusion could be temporary. If, while the campaign is active and running, a contact no longer matches the exclusion criteria that is/are set, that contact is added to the campaign within five minutes of them no longer matching the exclusion criteria.

Remove contacts

You can edit a campaign and choose the Remove from campaign method in order to remove contacts (i.e., immediately move them to the campaign's Stop step). The system will remove from the campaign the current campaign participants who:

• are associated to one or more of the selected Target Groups.
• are listed by their individual email addresses.

TIP: You can set either or both of the above as your remove criteria.

NOTE: This removal is permanent. Contacts who are permanently removed will not be re-added to the campaign, even if they no longer match the exclusion criteria.

Remove method notes

The "remove" method is applicable only to campaigns that are currently running.

• These campaigns are listed on the Active tab of the Campaigns > List page.
• On the Active tab, the campaign has to be deactivated via its left-column hover menu. The campaign "moves" to the In Progress tab where it can be edited.

Manage contacts in a campaign

This section describes the steps to exclude or remove contacts from a campaign.

NOTE: The configuration steps are identical for both methods; however, the "remove" method is applicable to active campaigns which have to be deactivated and then edited via their hover menu on the In Progress list, as described in the previous section.

1. Navigate to Campaigns > List.
2. On the In Progress list of the Campaigns list page, hover on the left-column menu of the campaign that you want to manage and click Edit.

3. In Campaign Designer, click the Activate tab.

• • If you are creating a campaign, choose an "add contacts" setting; then proceed to step 4.
  • If you are editing a campaign, "add contacts" should already be set; continue with step 4.

4. Click Edit next to the Exclude field.

The dropdown at the top of the Exclude Subscribers dialog is where you choose the exclusion method: "exclude" or "remove":

TIP: A description of the selected method displays below the dropdown. You can review both descriptions to make sure that you're selecting the appropriate one.

5. Make a selection and then check one or both checkboxes to choose contacts for exclusion or removal.

• Target Groups - click the Folder and Target dropdowns and select one or more Target Groups for exclusion or removal. Click Add to List and Remove from List to manage them.

• Email addresses - in the field, specify (type or paste) the email addresses of up to 15 (one per line) contacts to exclude or remove from the campaign.

6. Click Update.

The campaign will exclude and/or remove contacts based on your settings.

Exclude and remove indicators

The Exclude field on the Activate tab indicates how contacts have been excluded/removed:

• Opt-Out Group displays if the Target Groups option was configured.
• Opt-Out Emails displays if the email addresses option was configured.
• Both indicators display if both options were configured:

Related articles

• If you haven't already done so, learn how to create a campaign.
• Learn how to manage your campaigns on the Campaigns list page.
• Have you explored the convenience of our Campaign Starter Kits?