Scheduling and sending broadcast campaigns

Navigation

Go to: Campaigns > Broadcast campaigns > select your campaign > select the Send tab.

Your send options are:

• Send now
• Schedule
• Optimise send-time

Campaign generation

When you schedule a broadcast campaign, Ometria begins generating the emails approximately one hour before the scheduled send time.

Campaign generation is a necessary step which happens behind the scenes to make sure your campaign is sent to the right contacts with the right templates.

Depending on the volume of your broadcast sends this can take up to an hour, which is why it happens ahead of the scheduled time.

You can see which of your campaigns are Generating in the Scheduled screen:

Generation happens approximately an hour before the scheduled send time.

Once your campaign starts sending the status changes to Sending now:

Making changes during campaign generation

If you need to make changes to the campaign after generation has started, you'll need to either cancel or pause the campaign, depending on the changes you need to make.

For changes to the campaign content (i.e. the template, subject line, copy, etc.), the tracking parameters and email settings, you only need to pause the campaign.

If you need to cancel the campaign and duplicate it, e.g. for changes to the segmentation or send method, be aware that your campaign will need to start generating again, which can take up to an hour. 

This means that if you create a duplicate campaign and schedule it again less than one hour before the original scheduled send time, the campaign might begin sending later than expected.

Example:

Jane has a campaign scheduled to start sending at 8:00am. The campaign begins generating at 7:00am, meaning it has an hour's 'head start' and will send on time.

Jane needs to make some changes to her template, so she cancels the campaign and creates a duplicate, makes the changes and schedules for 8:00am.

If she finalises these changes at 7:30am and the campaign still needs one hour to generate, the campaign might not start sending until 8:30am. 

Send now

This generates the campaign straight away.

The timezone for this option is your timezone.

If you select Send now for a particular variant, all emails for that variant will generate as soon as you click the Save and Schedule button after reviewing all variant settings in the Review tab.

If you choose Send now instead of Schedule, campaign generation still needs to happen behind the scenes, and can take up to an hour before the campaign starts sending.

Schedule

To generate and send the campaign at a later time.

Campaign generation starts one hour before the scheduled send time, so if you schedule a campaign to send at 8:00am, it will begin generating at 7:00am. 

If the campaign finishes generating before the send time, e.g. at 7:40am, Ometria will wait until the scheduled time to begin sending. 

Optimise send-time

See: Optimise send-time

Batch sending

You can also choose to send the campaign in several batches (of roughly equal sizes) with a specified delay between each batch.

This is typically used to control the number of visitors from a campaign.

The Batch delivery settings are different when the campaign is scheduled, with different options:

Your options are:

Email settings

For each different variant of the same broadcast campaign you can select a different:

• From name
• From email address
• Reply to addresses

Tracking parameters

You can also add your tracking parameters for your broadcast campaign here.

See: Adding tracking parameters to broadcast campaigns

Review

Once you’ve set up your schedule/send, select the Review tab.

To review each variant in detail, click through the tabs.

If a tab has icon like this:  it means that variant has errors which may prevent it from sending.

Select the tab to review the error:

Close any errors and review each variant,  then select Schedule to start sending.

Scheduled

The Scheduled screen displays, showing all scheduled campaigns:

From here you can also navigate to draft campaigns and campaigns which have been sent.

Any variants you opted to Start sending now, your campaign starts generating straight away, while Scheduled and Optimised send-time variants send out in their time slots.

You can Pause your campaigns even after generation has started. 

See: Cancelling and pausing broadcast campaigns

When a campaign is paused, generation continues to run in the background; it can’t be stopped.

If you used optimise send-time for your campaign, the second date in the Scheduled field indicates the time your final variant will begin sending - not the time that sending will complete.