How do you create an email campaign?

Pick who gets it, choose the content, set the sender, subject and preview text, send yourself a test, then send it or schedule it. In ElasticFunnels those are the four steps of a new email broadcast under Campaigns.

What is an email campaign?

One email, or a short set of them, sent to a chosen group at a chosen time for one goal, such as a sale, a launch or a newsletter. A broadcast goes to everyone in the group at once; an automation sends when someone does something.

What is an example of an email campaign?

A spring sale email to your best buyers: a subject with their first name, one offer, one button, scheduled for a weekday morning, with a second subject tested on a fifth of the list.

How do I email 100 people at once?

Put them in one group (a segment, a CRM list or a pasted list of addresses) and send a broadcast. Each person gets their own copy with their own unsubscribe link, so nobody sees the other addresses.

How many emails can I send per day?

That is set by your sending account. ElasticFunnels sends campaigns at a steady rate per account (300 a minute for Mailgun or SendGrid by default, lower for SMTP and Mailrelay), and your provider's own daily limit still applies.

What is A/B testing for emails?

Sending two or more versions of an email, usually two subjects, to a small part of the list, then sending the one that did better to everyone else. In ElasticFunnels you set the test group size, how long to wait and whether clicks or opens decide.

How does ElasticFunnels pick the A/B test winner?

By score: the click rate (or open rate) of each version minus three times its unsubscribe and complaint rate. Ties go to version A. It is a rule, not a significance test, so a small test group can crown a lucky version.

Who gets my email campaign?

Everyone in the audience you pick, except people who unticked the email opt-in box at checkout, unsubscribed, bounced or complained. The audience card shows each of those counts before you send.

Does every campaign email have an unsubscribe link?

Yes. Every campaign email gets an unsubscribe link in the footer next to your postal address, plus the one-click unsubscribe header that Gmail and Yahoo look for. Anyone who unsubscribes is left out of the next send.

How much does an email campaign cost?

Campaigns are part of every ElasticFunnels plan; plans start at $97 a month with a 14-day free trial. The emails and texts themselves go out through your own provider, which bills you for them.

How effective is SMS marketing?

It depends on the list and the offer, so measure it per campaign. The SMS report shows orders and revenue from people who clicked, what the texts cost and the return on that cost.

What are the different types of SMS?

Marketing texts (sales, launches, win-backs) and transactional texts (order and shipping updates). Marketing texts need the person's consent and an easy way to opt out. SMS campaigns in ElasticFunnels are marketing texts: each one is checked for consent, and in strict mode a text without it is skipped.

Can I schedule texts so nobody gets one at night?

Yes. Quiet hours are on by default: texts outside 8am to 8pm in the person's local time wait until the window opens, with tighter hours in states such as Pennsylvania.

Will a text go to someone who never agreed to texts?

Not in Strict mode, which skips anyone whose SMS consent is not on record. In Warn mode, the default, the text still goes out and the problem is logged, so pick Strict under Settings and SMS before a marketing send. Marketing texts also wait until you accept the consent statement on that screen.

Which SMS providers can I use?

Twilio, Plivo or Telnyx, with your own account and number, connected under Settings and SMS. The provider bills you for each text, and the report shows that cost per campaign.

How to Create an Email Campaign (and SMS), Step by Step

What you'll build

A Spring sale email to the VIP buyers customer segment, built from a saved template, with a first-name subject line and a second subject to A/B test, scheduled for Tuesday morning. Then a text for the same sale to two segments, minus recent refunders, with the riskiest US states skipped, and the reports for both: opens and clicks for the email, orders and revenue for the text.

New to email campaigns? Read the full guide first: the seven types of email marketing campaigns, the three to build first and what Gmail requires of bulk senders. For texts, SMS marketing best practices covers consent, timing and state rules.

You need your own sending account connected to the brand: Mailgun, SendGrid, Amazon SES, Postmark, Brevo, Resend, Mailrelay or an SMTP server for email, and Twilio, Plivo or Telnyx for texts. Setup steps are in the docs: Email Campaigns and SMS Campaigns. The clips use a demo brand, so every count in them is example data.

1Start a new email campaign

Open Campaigns in the sidebar and click New campaign.

Pick Email broadcast (the other choice, SMS broadcast, is steps 7 to 9).
Name it at the top (here Spring sale). The draft saves as you go.
Four steps follow: Audience, Content, Settings, Review and send.

The Campaigns list with sent, scheduled and draft campaigns; New campaign opens a choice of Email broadcast or SMS broadcast; Email broadcast opens the four-step composer and the name Spring sale is typed — The tabs above the list filter campaigns by status: drafts, scheduled, sending, paused, sent and failed.

2Pick who gets it

All customers: everyone who bought from this brand.
An audience: one of your saved customer segments, as of its last refresh.
A collection or CRM list: leads from a form collection or a CRM entity.
A list of addresses: paste them yourself.

The card on the right counts who gets it: 1,268 of the 1,297 VIP buyers. The other 29 said no to emails at checkout (17) or unsubscribed, bounced or complained (12).

The Audience step: All customers shows 4,812 recipients; An audience is chosen and VIP buyers picked from the list, and the card drops to 1,268, with 17 who said no to emails and 12 unsubscribed or bounced left out — Everyone is included unless they unticked the email opt-in box at checkout, unsubscribed, bounced or complained.

3Choose the content

Start from one of three places:

A template: a copy of one of your saved email templates.
An earlier campaign: reuse what you sent before.
The default layout: heading, text, button and footer, ready to edit in the builder.

The preview shows the email as it will arrive, at Desktop or Mobile width. Edit design opens the drag-and-drop builder, Edit HTML the code, and Replace content starts over.

4Set the sender, subject and A/B test

Pick the sending account, then write the subject.

Send through: any account you connected. Each one says whether opens, clicks and bounces are tracked.
Subject: the Insert buttons add First name, Full name or Brand name as a tag, here {{ customer.first_name }}, our spring sale ends Sunday.
Preview text: the grey line after the subject in most inboxes.
A/B test: Add version B with another subject (up to four extra versions). Set the test group (5 to 50 percent, 20 by default), how long to wait (1 to 24 hours, 4 by default) and whether the winner is picked by clicks or opens.

The Settings step: Mailgun is picked as the sending account, the First name tag starts the subject, the preview text is typed, Add version B gets the subject Your sleep stack, 20% off until Sunday, and the test group, wait and Pick the winner by fields are shown — The postal address at the bottom of the step goes in every email's footer, next to the unsubscribe link.

5Send a test, then send or schedule

The Summary lists the audience, subject, content, sender and postal address, each with an Edit link.

Send a test to your own inbox. It uses your name in the tags and is marked as a test, so unsubscribing from it changes nothing.
Under When, choose Send now or Schedule for later with a date and time in the brand's time zone.
The button names the count: Schedule for 1,268 people.

The Review and send step: Send a test opens a dialog, alex@example.com is typed and the test is sent; Schedule for later is picked, Tuesday 27 October at 09:00 is set, and the button reads Schedule for 1,268 people — The summary shows the subject with its tag in braces; the real email swaps in each person's first name.

6Read the email report

Open a sent campaign to see recipients, sent and delivered, opened, clicked, bounced (with spam complaints) and unsubscribed, plus who was left out at send time.

With an A/B test, the table shows each version on the test group and marks the winner, which then went to everyone else. The links people clicked most and the full recipient list, filterable by opened, clicked, bounced or unsubscribed, are below.

A sent campaign's report: 4,812 recipients, 4,745 delivered, 1,955 opened, 299 clicked, 43 bounced with 2 spam complaints, 14 unsubscribed; the A/B table shows version B as the winner with a 7.9% click rate against 4.6%, then the most clicked links — Example data: on 481 people per version, B's 7.9% against A's 4.6% is likely a real lead, but a lift this size needs about 830 per version to measure with confidence.

7Pick who gets the text

For a text, choose SMS broadcast in step 1 and connect a sender. On Audience:

Send to one or more segments (here VIP buyers and One-time buyers).
Leave out a segment that should never get it (Refunded in the last 90 days).
Skip states by risk level: Very high risk skips the 5 states with the strictest texting laws, or pick states one by one.

The card counts who will get the text and who is left out: no phone number, no SMS consent, on the suppression list, in a skipped state or the same number twice. No SMS consent is left out only in Strict mode (Settings, then SMS); in the default Warn mode those people count as reachable and the card flags them.

The SMS Audience step: VIP buyers and One-time buyers are added, Refunded in the last 90 days is left out, and the count is 1,874; the Very high risk preset skips Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington and the count drops to 1,044 — Skipping a state is for this campaign only; nothing is excluded by default.

8Write the text

Type the message and watch the counter: one part holds 160 standard characters.

{first_name|there} puts in the first name, or there when there is none.
Links are shortened on your link domain, so clicks are counted per campaign.
Add opt-out line appends Reply STOP to opt out. A reply of STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL and similar words opts the person out.
Add a variant to test another wording on a test group, and pick the winner after 30 minutes to 8 hours.

On Schedule, quiet hours hold texts outside 8am to 8pm in each person's local time (tighter in a few states, such as Pennsylvania).

The SMS Message step: the text with {first_name|there} and a link is typed, the counter shows 127 characters in 1 part, the phone preview shows Hi Alex with a short link and Reply STOP to opt out, and a second variant is added with a 20% test group — The preview shows the text the way a phone gets it: name filled in, link shortened, opt-out line added.

9See the orders a text brought in

The SMS report shows recipients, sent, delivered, failed, clicked and revenue, then who was skipped and why. The Revenue tab splits it in two:

From clicks: orders by people who clicked the text's link in the 7 days before buying.
After the send: orders within 24 hours by people who did not click. Other channels may have reached them, so it is shown apart and never added in.

Cost is what your provider charged for the texts, and Return is click revenue divided by that cost, the text's ROAS (return on ad spend).

The SMS report: 1,874 recipients, 1,838 delivered, 36 failed, 203 clicked and $2,486.50 revenue from 37 orders; the Revenue tab shows $2,486.50 from clicks, $611.00 after the send, a cost of $29.98 and a return of 82.9x — Example data from the demo brand. Revenue is net of refunds.

Common mistakes when you create an email campaign

Sending without a test. A tag typed by hand is easy to misspell. Add tags with the Insert buttons, then send a test and read it on your phone.
Calling an A/B winner on a small group. The app picks the version with the best click or open rate, less three times its unsubscribe and complaint rate; it does not run a significance test. Check the sample size before you reuse the winning subject everywhere.
Expecting stats from every sender. Opens, clicks and bounces come from the provider's webhook. Mailgun and SendGrid need the webhook key pasted in campaign settings; Amazon SES, Postmark, Brevo and Resend set it up on their own.
Texting everyone at once. Leave out recent refunders and skip the states you are not ready for. Quiet hours hold the rest until morning, which spreads a big send over the day.
Adding up the two SMS revenue numbers. Orders after the send without a click may have come from your email or ads. Judge the text on click revenue.

Keep going

The seven types of email and what to send first: email marketing campaigns. Consent, timing and state rules for texts: SMS marketing best practices. Build the segments you send to: how to segment customers. Setup in the docs: Email Campaigns and SMS Campaigns. All tutorials: the Academy.

How to create an email campaign