--- title: Add / Edit a Campaign slug: add-edit-campaign description: Create or edit email campaigns, choose an audience, configure content, and schedule or send when ready. productSlug: cedros productLabel: Cedros sectionKey: email-marketing sectionLabel: Email Marketing docType: subpage parentSlug: campaigns adminPaths: /admin/email/campaign/new --- # Add / Edit a Campaign This page covers how to create a new campaign and how to edit one that's still a draft or scheduled. Once a campaign has sent, the same row opens the results view instead — covered at the bottom. ## Creating a new campaign Click **New Campaign** from the [Campaigns](campaigns.md) section. The builder asks three questions — what to send, who gets it, when it goes — and shows a running **Preview** beside them with the rendered email, the recipient count, and the send time. Everything rarer sits in a labeled row below, each one reporting its own state so you can read it without opening it. If you have no templates yet, the builder shows that first and nothing else: a campaign can't exist without an email to send. Use **Create template** to jump to [Templates](templates.md). ### Email Your active templates appear as choice tiles with their subject lines; pick one. Arrow keys move between tiles. Above six templates the tiles become a dropdown. If exactly one active template exists it's already selected — there's nothing to choose. The **Preview** card on the right renders the template's subject, preheader, and body as recipients will see it. Editing a campaign whose template was later archived still shows that template in the list, so the campaign stays openable. ### Audience Pick the email list that receives the campaign. Each option shows its recipient count, and the count for the selected list repeats under the field and in the preview. If exactly one list exists it's used automatically and simply reported. With no lists at all, the card offers **Create list** instead of an empty dropdown. You can save an audience-free draft, but you must choose a list before scheduling. ### Schedule Two choices: - **Send at a set time** — Date and time in your local timezone; defaults to 9:00 AM tomorrow. The picker won't accept a moment that has already passed, and saving re-checks it in case the page sat open overnight. For sequences this is when the opening email goes out. - **Keep as a draft** — Nothing sends until you come back and schedule it. The **Preview** card restates the send time with its timezone ("Aug 11, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT · tomorrow") so there's no ambiguity about which 9:00 is meant. Scheduling requires campaign send permission. Without it the schedule option is unavailable, the reason is stated, and the campaign saves as a draft. ### Public campaign page Closed by default; the row reports whether a public page is on. Turn on **Publish a web version after sending** to create a shareable page in the site's newsletter archive when delivery finishes. Publishing the first campaign page enables the site's public newsletter archive. New pages stay out of search results by default. **Measure opens and link clicks** controls engagement tracking in recipient emails. Public previews and campaign pages are never tracked. ### Follow-up steps Closed by default; the row reports what it holds ("Off — sends one email", "2 follow-ups over 5 days"). Open it to turn the campaign into a sequence — a campaign *is* a sequence exactly when it has follow-up steps, so there's no separate type to pick. - **Add step** — Adds a single follow-up. - **Add branch** — Adds two parallel follow-ups: one for recipients who clicked the prior step, one for recipients who didn't. This keeps branch sends mutually exclusive by default. **A follow-up's clock starts when the step it branches from finishes sending** — not when the campaign was scheduled. The panel states this once, along with the timezone the step times run in. That timezone is recorded when the sequence is first saved (yours), and a sequence saved earlier keeps the zone its steps were planned in, so existing schedules never shift under you. For each follow-up: - **Email** — Which template this step sends; its subject shows under the field. - **Send to** — Who in the audience receives this step: - **All selected recipients** — Everyone in the audience. - **Opened selected prior email** — Only people who opened the previous step. - **Clicked selected prior email** — Only people who clicked a link. - **Did not open selected prior email** / **Did not click selected prior email** — Re-engagement targeting. - **Opened but did not click** — People who read but didn't engage. - **Wait days** — How long after the source step finishes. `0` means the same day. - **Send at** — Time of day, in the sequence's timezone. - **Measured from** — Which earlier step this one waits on. Defaults to the first send. Use **Remove** to delete a step. Steps are numbered automatically. If two branch audiences can overlap, a warning names how many recipients are affected. ### Social posts Closed by default and only shown when creating a campaign. Open it and turn on **Draft posts around this send** to have the AI assistant write supporting social posts for your calendar, then adjust: - **Posts** — How many to draft (within the allowed range). - **Platforms** — Which networks to write for (X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok). Click each pill to toggle. - **Angle** — Optional: a hook, audience, or tone for the AI to lean on. You review every post before anything reaches the calendar. ### Internal name Closed by default; the row shows the name the campaign will get. Campaigns are named after their email ("Welcome Email Campaign") unless you open this and type something else. Only you see this name. ### Save and send The button at the bottom right names what it's about to do — **Schedule campaign**, **Schedule sequence**, **Save draft**, **Save sequence draft**, or **Save changes** when editing. It stays clickable: if something required is missing, it says which field, moves focus there, and opens the **Follow-up steps** panel when the problem is inside it — rather than sitting greyed out with no explanation. Without campaign write permission the button is disabled and says why. While editing, **Unsaved changes** appears next to the button. Leaving with unsaved work — **Back to Campaigns**, or closing the tab — asks first. After saving you land back on the list, or move into the social post review (next section) if you turned that on. If scheduling fails after the draft is created, the builder opens that saved draft and explains what still needs attention, so retrying doesn't create a duplicate campaign. ## Reviewing social posts If the social boost was enabled, you'll see a **Review social posts** screen with one card per drafted post. For each: - Edit the title and copy directly in the fields. - Watch the character counter — going over the platform's limit turns it red. - Pick a different scheduled date/time. - Toggle which networks the post goes to. - **Regenerate** asks the AI for another draft. - **Remove** drops the post. Top of the page: - **Regenerate all** — Re-drafts every post in one pass. - **Skip** — Discard the social posts and just keep the campaign. - **Save N to calendar** — Save the posts to your calendar queue and finish. ## Editing a draft or scheduled campaign Each campaign row shows a colored status dot next to its title (its current state). Use the inline actions for **Open** (or press Enter on the row), **Duplicate** (copies an existing campaign into a new draft), and **Archive** (drafts only). For any campaign in **Draft** or **Scheduled** state, **Open** loads the same builder, pre-filled with the current settings. Make changes and click **Save Changes**. If the campaign is already sent or in the middle of sending, the row opens the results view (next section) instead. Switching a scheduled campaign to **Keep as a draft** and saving pulls it back out of the send queue. If the default list is empty, you'll see **No active campaigns** with an option to view all states. A status filter or search with no results shows **No campaigns match this view** and lets you clear the filters. ## Campaign results When a campaign has been sent (or is sending now), opening it shows the results view. For sequences, the parent campaign owns every launched step. The results view aggregates delivery and engagement across those step campaigns and shows each step's pending, active, completed, failed, or cancelled state. ### Header - **Title and status pill** — Campaign name with a live status badge. - **Subject**, **Sent at** (or "Scheduled for"), **Audience**, **Recipients**, **Sent via** — Summary chips. - **Pause sending / Cancel campaign** — Controls for live or scheduled campaigns. Only visible if you have campaign send permission. - **Resume sending** — Restarts a paused campaign. Only visible if you have campaign resume permission. - **Export recipients** — Queues a CSV export of the recipient list to your reports. Sequence exports include delivery attempts from every launched step. Only visible if you have campaign-recipient export permission. Live results refresh automatically while delivery is queued or sending. Pausing, resuming, or cancelling a sequence applies to its launched steps as well as the parent; cancelling also prevents pending steps from launching. ### Send progress If the campaign is queued, sending, or paused, a progress bar shows how far along delivery is. Sequences also show a **Sequence progress** panel with the state and queued/skipped counts for every step. ### KPI tiles Six cards covering delivery and engagement: - **Delivered** — How many emails reached inboxes, plus the rate against the full audience. - **Open rate** — Percentage of delivered emails opened; unique vs. total opens. - **Click rate** — Percentage of delivered emails clicked through. - **Click-to-open** — Of the people who opened, how many clicked. - **Bounce rate** — Soft and hard bounces combined. Hard bounces highlight in warning color. - **Unsubscribes** — How many recipients unsubscribed, plus the rate. ### Engagement funnel A horizontal bar chart showing how many recipients reached each stage: Recipients → Delivered → Opened → Clicked. Useful for spotting drop-offs. ### Top links A ranked list of which links in the email got the most clicks, with total clicks and unique clicks. ### Audience A breakdown of the lists the campaign was sent to (with member counts) and the kinds of recipients (subscribers, contacts, etc.). ### Recent activity A live feed of the most recent clicks recorded — who clicked what, when. Hidden if there's no activity yet. ### Delivery issues If anything went wrong — hard bounces, spam complaints, delivery failures, or provider warnings — they're listed here in a warning-colored card. Review before launching another campaign. ### Footer Shows the From address, Reply-to, provider, scheduled time, and a link to the public archive (if archiving is enabled). ## Tips - **Templates are required.** A campaign can't be created without an attached template — set one up in [Templates](templates.md) first if your list is empty. - **Lists are how you target recipients.** Build audience lists in the Lists section. A campaign sends to one list, but you can use list rules to refine who's included. - **Sequences pause naturally.** If a recipient never opens the first step, they're skipped from any "Opened" branch downstream — no manual cleanup needed. - **Pause if numbers look wrong.** A spike in hard bounces or spam complaints is a sign to pause sending and check the audience or content. Use **Pause sending** at the top of the results view. - **Permissions matter.** Editing needs the write permission; pausing or cancelling a live send needs the send permission. If those buttons are missing or disabled, ask an admin. ## Troubleshooting - **"Choose the email this campaign sends."** No template is selected. Every follow-up step needs one too. - **"No email templates yet"?** Active templates haven't been created yet (or they've all been archived). Open [Templates](templates.md) and create or restore one. - **"No audience lists yet"?** No lists exist on the site yet. Build a list in the Lists section first. - **"Choose an audience before scheduling"?** Pick a list in **Audience**, or choose **Keep as a draft** if the recipients are not ready yet. - **"That time has already passed."** The send time is in the past — most often a builder left open past its own default of 9:00 AM tomorrow. Pick a new time or switch to **Keep as a draft**. - **Button says "Save draft" when you wanted to schedule?** You either picked **Keep as a draft** or you lack campaign send permission — the Schedule card says which. - **Save button disabled?** You have read access but not campaign write permission. Hover it for the exact permission name. - **Follow-up went out at the wrong hour?** Check the timezone named in the **Follow-up steps** panel. Sequences saved before the builder recorded a zone run in `America/Los_Angeles`; re-create the sequence to move it to yours. - **Campaign scheduled but never sent?** Check the results view for a delivery issue, or confirm email is still configured. The campaign may have been auto-paused if the provider flagged it. - **Social post review screen looks empty?** All drafts were removed. Click **Regenerate all** to get a fresh set, or **Skip** to finish without scheduling posts.