Automated email campaigns are planned series of emails with a start date, an end date and one commercial goal, such as filling an event, launching a new service or bringing back lapsed clients, that run on a schedule once you have built them. They let a small marketing team run a month-long push without sending anything by hand. This article answers how to plan and build a time-bound campaign on the levelpartner.ai platform, and how to tell afterwards whether it worked.
What makes a campaign different from a sequence
A sequence is personal timing: each contact starts when they do something, and moves through at their own pace. A campaign is shared timing: everyone on the list receives email one on the same day, email two on the same day, and so on, towards a fixed deadline.
That shared timing is what makes campaigns right for anything with a date attached. A webinar on 14 November, an offer that ends at the close of the quarter, a new service launching on a set day. If there is no date, you probably want a sequence instead.
Planning before building
Write the campaign on one page before you open the platform. It needs a goal you can count, an audience, a deadline and a list of emails with their send dates and their single job.
A typical four-email campaign looks like this:
- Email one announces the thing and why it matters to this audience.
- Email two answers the most common objection or question.
- Email three shares an example or a story.
- Email four is a reminder close to the deadline.
Before you start
- A verified sending domain and a defined audience as a smart list in Contacts.
- A landing page or booking calendar where the campaign sends people.
- A way to count the goal: a form submission, a booking or an opportunity created.
- All emails written and approved before the first one goes out.
How to set it up
- Go to Contacts and click + Add smart list.
- Apply filters for your tags or fields, then click Create.
- Go to Marketing, open Emails and select Campaigns.
- Click New and choose your campaign template.
- Add the content, images and links for email one.
- Click Preview and Test Email to check desktop and mobile.
- Click Send or Schedule, then set the Date and Time.
- Complete Sender Name, Sender Email and Subject Line.
- Add the smart list under Recipients and click Schedule.
- Repeat for each remaining email in the campaign.
- In Automation, build a Form Submitted workflow that tags responders.
- Open the smart list, click Advanced Filters and exclude that tag.
- Click the Save icon so later sends skip responders.
Excluding people who already said yes
The detail most campaign set-ups miss is step seven. Once someone has booked, registered or bought, every further campaign email they receive is noise. Worse, a reminder that "time is running out" sent to someone who already signed up suggests you are not paying attention.
The tag-and-exclude pattern fixes this. Every response adds a tag, and every later email excludes that tag.
Imagine the firm invites 3,000 contacts to a breakfast briefing with four emails over three weeks. If 60 people register after email one, they are tagged, and emails two to four go only to the remaining 2,940. Say the total reaches 140 by the deadline: none of those 140 would get a reminder after registering, because the exclusion filter removes them. All of these numbers are hypothetical.
What it replaces
It replaces the campaign that runs on goodwill: one email goes out, then the second is late because the person writing it was pulled onto a client project, and the reminder never happens. Building and scheduling everything in advance makes the campaign run on time whatever else is happening that month.
The time it takes each week
Most of the work happens before launch: a day or two to write and build a four-email campaign. During the campaign, budget thirty minutes after each send to check results and replies. After it ends, spend an hour writing down what worked, so the next one starts from evidence.
The mistake most people make
Measuring opens instead of the goal. Open figures are unreliable because some email clients load images automatically. The campaign worked if it produced the registrations, bookings or opportunities you set out to get. Count those, and use the platform's reporting to see which email each response followed.
When not to run one
Do not run a campaign without a deadline or a specific goal. "Raising awareness" campaigns rarely produce anything measurable and train your list to ignore you. And do not run campaigns back to back. Leave a gap so your regular newsletter and individual follow ups are not drowned out.
For seasonal campaign ideas and wording, see Black Friday email templates for service firms. For real campaigns broken down by what made them work, read these email campaign examples. And for the ongoing, behaviour-based side of email, see how automated email sequences work.
Troubleshooting
Someone received the reminder after registering. The exclusion tag was not applied, usually because the form in the workflow trigger is not the form on the landing page. Check they match.
Emails sent on the wrong day. The schedule uses the account's time zone. Check the time zone in Settings, especially if you send to contacts in more than one country.
Low response across all emails. The offer or audience is wrong, not the emails. Check the list is people who would plausibly want this, and the landing page makes it easy to say yes.
High unsubscribes after email one. The list included people who had not heard from you in a long time. Next time, run campaigns only to contacts engaged in the last year.
Frequently asked questions
How many emails should a campaign have?
Three to five for most purposes. Fewer than three gives people little chance to notice; more than five starts to cost unsubscribes.
Can I change an email after the campaign has started?
Yes, any email that has not yet sent can be edited. Do not change the offer or deadline mid-campaign, as early recipients will have seen the original.
Should campaigns go out from a person or the company?
From a person, usually the most senior relevant name. People respond to people, and the reply-to should go to someone who will answer.
How do I run the same campaign in several countries?
Build two smart lists by country and schedule each email for a sensible local time. Adjust spelling and any market-specific references in each version.