How to Publish an Auto Send Campaign

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Create an Auto Send Campaign
• Optional Bulk Send Settings
• Editing a Running Auto Send Campaign
• Changing Your Template After Publishing
• Campaign States
• Common Questions

Overview

Auto Send campaigns send an email automatically when someone meets a trigger you define — like visiting a specific page, making a donation, having a person field change, or reaching a date milestone. You can also add optional bulk sends to reach people who met your trigger before launch, or everyone in your target audience who never met it by the time the campaign ends.

Note: Smart Send is being retired. Auto Send now supports inclusion Groups and a Final Bulk Send, which covers everything Smart Send was built to do. Live Smart Send campaigns will keep running as-is for now and will later be moved over to Auto Send automatically, with matching settings. You don't need to do anything. Once that happens, those campaigns will show up as Auto Send campaigns in your account, and they'll keep working exactly the same way.

Create an Auto Send Campaign

Step 1: Click +Add Campaign from the Campaign table or from a Flight.

Step 2: Select Auto Send campaign.

Step 3: Give the campaign a descriptive Name.

Step 4: Choose a Design by clicking a row in the Templates table. This template is the content of the email you're sending. The most recently edited templates appear at the top of the list. You can edit your chosen template at this point. When you're happy with the design, click Next at the bottom of the screen.

Tip: Get your content right before you publish. Once the campaign is live, you can't edit the template it's sending. You can swap in a different one, though. See Changing Your Template After Publishing.

Step 5: Add a verified Email Address to send from. If your email address hasn't been verified yet, follow the prompts or refer to this article. Complete the Sender Information, which is automatically added to the bottom of each email.

Step 6: Add an Email Subject line. You can also add preview text, which many email clients show next to the subject line. You can use Merge Tags in your subject line too. This article has more on Merge Tags.

Your subject line, preview text, and merge field defaults are saved with the template. Like the template itself, they can't be changed while the campaign is running.

Step 7: Select from the Auto Send Trigger Types and define your Trigger(s). The trigger type you choose affects how your audience is defined.

Activity happened triggers define an audience member by what they do on your web pages or with the emails you send them. There are lots of activity triggers to pick from. Two common ones are visiting a specific URL and donating to your organization. To learn how to track donations accurately, see our article on conversion tracking.

Field changed triggers define an audience member by a change to their Person Attribute data in Feathr. This includes native Feathr fields and custom fields you've created. When one of these fields is updated on a person record, the change can trigger the email for that person. Field Changed triggers only fire on changes made after the campaign is published and active.

Date Triggered events define an audience member using a Date field on their person record. This includes native Feathr fields and custom fields you've created. For example, you could have the trigger fire 90 days after someone's "Last Donation Date," so they get a timely donation ask.

Email trigger filters work differently than Group filters. When you combine triggers in an email campaign, Feathr only looks within a single breadcrumb, not the whole person record. A breadcrumb is one piece of data, shown as a single grey box in a person's Activity Feed. A person record is everything known about that visitor. Because more than one meaningful trigger rarely shows up in the same breadcrumb, we recommend using "any" logic for email triggers.

You can send the email only the first time someone performs the trigger activity, or every time they do. If you choose Send every time, there's a required minimum "cooldown" of one hour, meaning no additional emails go out during that period. This keeps someone's normal browsing from filling their inbox with repeat emails.

Step 8 (Optional): Add Inclusions to limit the campaign to specific Groups. When you add one or more inclusion Groups, only people in those Groups who meet your trigger will get the email. Leave this blank to include anyone who meets the trigger.

If you plan to turn on the Final Bulk Send in Step 10, you'll need at least one inclusion Group.

Step 9: Define the campaign Exclusions: anyone who shouldn't receive this email, even if they perform the trigger activity. A common example is visitors in regions with explicit email opt-in rules.

Any email address that has already bounced or unsubscribed from Feathr emails in this Project or account is excluded automatically. Learn more about unsubscribe options in Feathr here.

Step 10 (Optional): Choose your Bulk Send settings. You can turn on an Initial Bulk Send, a Final Bulk Send, both, or neither. See Optional Bulk Send Settings below for how each one works.

Step 11: Choose a Goal for the campaign. Read more about goals and conversion tracking here.

Step 12: Send a Test to make sure your email works and looks the way you expect, including any Merge Fields in your subject line or email body. The Example Contact you pick won't get an email during this test. Their data, like First Name, is only used to fill in your Merge Fields. The test email can take 5–10 minutes to arrive.

Step 13: Select a Send Window start and end date and time. The maximum length is one year, but you can renew the campaign. You can change the end time later without stopping the campaign.

Step 14: Verify that you're only emailing people who have agreed to hear from you, then Publish!

Only send emails to people who have consented to receive them. You'll type "AGREE" to confirm this. We recommend updating your privacy policy and making sure Auto Send campaigns are a good fit for your audience. If any campaign's hard bounce rate goes above 5%, your account automatically enters a review period. Learn ways to reduce your bounce rate in this article.

Publishing starts the campaign. If your send window starts in the future, the campaign shows as Scheduled until then. If you turned on an Initial Bulk Send, people who already met your trigger get the email when the campaign starts. After that, emails go out as people meet your trigger during the send window.

Optional Bulk Send Settings

Bulk sends let one Auto Send campaign reach people outside its trigger, both at launch and at the finish.

You can turn on both. For example, an early-access offer could:

1. Send to everyone who already visited your event page (Initial Bulk Send)
2. Send right away to anyone who visits the page during the campaign (trigger)
3. Send to the rest of your member list at the end of the campaign (Final Bulk Send)

Note: If you used Smart Send before, it's now an Auto Send with an inclusion Group and a Final Bulk Send turned on.

Editing a Running Auto Send Campaign

You can now change many campaign settings while the campaign is running, with no need to stop it or duplicate it.

Changes to live settings apply from the moment you save. They don't go back and change emails that were already sent.

Changing Your Template After Publishing

After a campaign is published, you change its template instead of editing it. You swap in a different template rather than editing the one that already went out. That way, recipients who open the "view in browser" version of an email they already got still see what was originally sent.

To update the content of a running Auto Send campaign:

1. Clone the template the campaign is using. This is the fastest way to make small changes like fixing a typo or updating a date.
2. Make your changes to the clone, including the subject line, preview text, or merge field defaults if needed.
3. Stop the campaign.
4. Swap in the updated template.
5. Republish the campaign.

Campaign States

Your campaign's status tells you where it is in its lifecycle:

Stopped and Complete campaigns can be restarted, so you don't have to rebuild a campaign to run it again.

Common Questions

Why is the Publish button grayed out or not able to be clicked?

If the Publish button is gray and you can't click it, part of your campaign draft is still unfinished. Hover over the Publish button to see a pop-up explaining what's left to set up before you can publish.

Can I edit my Auto Send campaign after it has been published?

Yes, for most settings. You can change trigger rules, inclusion and exclusion Groups, the campaign goal, and the end time while the campaign is running. See Editing a Running Auto Send Campaign.

Content changes, meaning the template, subject line, preview text, or merge field defaults, still require stopping the campaign, swapping in a different template, and republishing. See Changing Your Template After Publishing.

My Smart Send campaign now says Auto Send. Did something change?

Only the name. Smart Send has been retired, and live Smart Send campaigns are being moved to Auto Send with the same settings: your trigger, your inclusion Group, and a Final Bulk Send. The campaign keeps sending exactly as it did before, and you don't need to do anything.

Why can't I turn on the Final Bulk Send?

The Final Bulk Send needs at least one inclusion Group, because that's who it sends to. Add an inclusion Group in the Inclusions step, then turn it on.

Can I run a stopped or completed campaign again?

Yes. Stopped and Complete campaigns can be restarted from the campaign.