Sending a campaign

A campaign is an email you write once and send to a segment of your customers: new products, a seasonal menu, "we're closed next Monday". You'll find them under Marketing → Campaigns.

Before your first campaign

A campaign goes out from your marketing sender, so the things it needs are the ones on Marketing → Sender: a confirmed reply-to address and your business's postal address (see Your marketing sender). It also needs a segment to send to (see Grouping customers with segments).

If something is missing, the campaign says so in a yellow note at the top, and Schedule and Send now explain why they can't go ahead.

Writing it

1. Go to Marketing → Campaigns and press New campaign.

2. Give it a Name. Only your team sees it.

3. Under Send to, pick a segment. Below it you'll see how many people can be emailed right now.

4. Write a Subject and, if you like, Preview text: the short line most inboxes show next to the subject.

5. Pick a Template and an Accent colour:

   • Classic: your logo above a white card with a thin line in your colour.
   • Banner: your logo on a band in your colour.
   • Letter: no card, just your logo and the words, like a personal note.

   The logo and business name come from your business profile in Settings. With no logo, your business name is shown instead.

6. Write the Message. The toolbar has paragraphs, a heading and a subheading, bold, italic, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, a quote, a divider and links.

7. Press Save.

The Preview on the right shows the email as it will look, with a sample footer. Switch to Plain text to see the text version.

What the editor keeps

To keep every message clean and safe to deliver, Iraca keeps only the formatting the toolbar makes. When you paste from a web page or a document, only the words come in. Links must start with https://, http:// or mailto:. Images aren't supported yet.

Linking to your menu

If you sell from menus, the toolbar has Insert menu link. Choose This week's menu (always current) for the link that always opens the meal-prep cycle taking orders, so the email still works after this week closes. Or choose a specific menu or cycle. Select some words first to turn them into the link; otherwise the link text is filled in for you and you can change it. Clicks on it are counted in the report like any other link. More in Menu cycles.

What's added for you

Every campaign gets a footer with your business's name and postal address and a link to stop your marketing emails, and the unsubscribe button that Gmail, Yahoo and Apple Mail show next to your name. You don't write any of that, and you can't remove it: the law requires it.

Every campaign is also sent with a plain-text version next to the designed one, written from your message. Some people read email that way, and mailbox providers treat email without one as suspicious.

Sending yourself a test

Press Send a test, tick who should get it, and press Send test. Tests go only to people on your team (up to 5 at a time), never to customers or anyone else. They don't count toward your sending limits.

Sending it

Now

Press Send now. Iraca tells you how many people it's about to go to; confirm to start.

Later

Press Schedule, pick a date and time, and press Schedule. The time is in your business's time zone, shown in the dialog. Until it goes out you can change the time (Change time), edit the campaign, or press Unschedule to turn it back into a draft.

Who receives it

Who receives a campaign is worked out when it goes out, not when you schedule it. A customer who joins the segment in the meantime gets it; one who unsubscribes, withdraws consent or bounces in the meantime doesn't.

Each person is checked again just before their email is sent. If someone unsubscribed a minute earlier, they're skipped, and the campaign shows them under Why some weren't sent.

While it's going out

The campaign page shows how many have been sent, how many are waiting, and how many weren't sent and why. Emails go out one at a time, so a large campaign takes a while.

Pausing

Press Pause to stop it. Nobody who hasn't been sent to yet gets it until you press Resume. Resuming carries on with the same people: it doesn't look at the segment again.

A campaign can also pause by itself. The page says why:

• Today's sending limit was reached: during your first week, or while your limit is growing (see How much you can send). It carries on by itself the next day.
• This month's included emails are used up: add a payment method to keep sending.
• Marketing email for your business is paused: Iraca paused your sending because too many people marked your emails as spam or too many addresses bounced. Every campaign that was going out stops, and none can resume until Iraca resumes your sending.
• The email service had a problem: press Resume to try again.

Nobody is ever sent the same campaign twice, however many times it's paused and resumed.

Once it's sent

A sent campaign can't be changed or deleted: it's kept as a record of what went to whom. To send something similar, press the copy button to make a new draft from it.

Once messages start going out, the campaign shows its Report: delivered, bounced, marked as spam, clicked, unsubscribed, and the orders and revenue that came from it. See Campaign reports.

A last-chance reminder before a cycle closes

If you run weekly meal prep, a campaign can promote a menu cycle and send a second, shorter email shortly before that cycle's cutoff.

1. In the campaign, choose the cycle under Menu cycle and save. For a campaign that has already gone out, you choose the cycle in the reminder card instead.
2. In Last-chance reminder, enter how many hours before the cutoff it should go (1 to 72), and a subject if you want a different one. The default is "Last chance:" in front of the campaign's subject.
3. Select Add reminder. The reminder appears as its own campaign in your list. Open it with Edit reminder to change its message.

Who receives it is worked out when it goes out: the people the original campaign reached, minus anyone who has ordered in the cycle by then. Nobody the original campaign didn't reach ever gets the reminder, and anyone who has unsubscribed or been suppressed since is skipped, the same as for any campaign. Bounced messages aren't followed up.

The reminder follows the cycle:

• If you move the cutoff, the reminder moves with it.
• If you close the cycle early, or delete it, the reminder is cancelled. Reopening the cycle doesn't bring it back; add a new one.
• A time that has already passed is refused, rather than sent straight away. Choose fewer hours.
• It waits for the original campaign to finish sending. If the original never sends, the reminder is cancelled.
• If everyone has already ordered, nothing is sent and the reminder says so.

A reminder counts toward your daily and monthly sending limits like any campaign, and has its own report. There is no automatic reminder for cycles without a campaign.

Who can do what

Everyone on your team can see campaigns. Only owners and admins can write, test, schedule, send, pause or resume them.