About Campaign Manager

Use Mailchimp's Campaign Manager to help you plan, execute, and analyze your marketing efforts. Create an end-to-end campaign that connects multiple marketing touchpoints to a single objective. Then, use the insights from your campaign report to help guide your next steps.

In this article, you’ll learn about Campaign Manager.

Things to know

Here are some things to know.

• This feature is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• To add an SMS touchpoint, you’ll first need to set up your SMS Marketing program.
• Webhook touchpoints must be associated with a campaign.
• SMS touchpoints and social post touchpoints can’t be associated with a campaign and can only be set up on the Campaign Manager calendar.
• Access emails and SMS touchpoints created with Campaign Manager on the List view tab on the All campaigns page, or on the Reports page.

Definitions

Here are some terms you’ll come across as you work within Campaign Manager.

• Touchpoint
  A scheduled activity within your Campaign Manager calendar. Touchpoints include tasks, events, emails, multivariate tests, social posts, and webhooks.
• Email
  A message designed for a specific marketing campaign. Send emails to your entire audience, or target your tagged or segmented subscribed contacts.
• Multivariate tests lets you send different versions of an email to your subscribed contacts in order to compare results and gauge interaction. Multivariate tests allow up to 8 variations. You can test 4 variables: Subject line, From name, Content, and Send time. Each version of the email you create with a different variable is called a combination.
• SMS
  Short Message Service (SMS) is used to send text messages to mobile phones. SMS touchpoints can't be associated with a campaign.
• Social post
  A short message or content published to 1 or more social media platforms. Social posts can’t be associated with a campaign.
• Webhook
  A tool that syncs Mailchimp activity with a third-party app. Webhooks request an external app to take a specific action. Webhook touchpoints must be associated with a campaign.
• Task
  Anything that needs to be done to achieve success with your campaign. Name your task, add a start date and end date. Update the task status as needed.
• Event
  Any marketing event such as a webinar, sale, or product launch. Name your event, add a start date and end date, select the event type, and include notes.

How it works

Campaign Manager is a powerful end-to-end marketing tool with advanced scheduling capabilities. Think of Campaign Manager as your brand’s single source of truth where you can plan, execute, analyze, and optimize your marketing goals.

After you create a campaign, you can add touchpoints such as emails, multivariate tests, tasks, events, or webhooks to connect multiple channels to a single objective. The interactive calendar view helps you plot your touchpoints within a campaign or on the Campaign Manager calendar. Use the calendar to add touchpoints that can’t be added to a campaign, such as SMS or a social post.

Before the start date, a campaign will be in a ready status. During at campaign, the status changes to active. After the end date, a campaign has a concluded status. Touchpoints have a variety of statuses like draft, upcoming, or not started, depending on the type and progress.

View and manage multi-channel reporting for active and concluded campaigns. Advanced analytics provide valuable engagement insights, and they can help steer your next marketing moves. For example, you can track text messages or email performance for the last 30 days.

Create a campaign

To create a campaign in Campaign Manager, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns, then click Campaign Manager.

2. Click Create campaign.

3. On the Campaign settings page, enter a Campaign name, select an Audience, choose a marketing Goal, set a Start date and End date, and check the desired boxes in the Set email tracking settings section.

4. Click Create campaign.

After you create your campaign, the Manage campaign page displays. From here, you can edit your campaign settings, add touchpoints, turn on Send Day Optimization, and view your to do list.

On the Manage campaign page, view your campaign in the calendar view or the click the agenda tab to see a list. In the calendar view, use the drop-down to set the display to Day, Month, or Week. In the agenda view, use the Touchpoint type drop-down to select touchpoints to view. Click the right arrow of a touchpoint to view the details and to edit, replicate, or delete. You won’t see SMS or social posts touchpoints in this drop-down because they can’t be associated with a campaign.

Replicate a campaign

Replicate a successful campaign to create a copy and use it again. A replicated campaign uses the original campaign’s audience, marketing goal, start date and end date, and email tracking settings. The original campaign’s touchpoints won't be included in the replicated campaign.

To replicate a campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns, then click Campaign Manager.

2. Click the Campaigns list tab.
   

3. Search for the name of your campaign, or find it on the list. Filter your list by audience or campaign status. You can also sort your campaigns by the updated date or start date.

4. For a ready or active campaign, click the Manage campaign drop-down, then click Replicate.

5. For a concluded campaign, click the View report drop-down, then click Replicate.

6. Make any changes you need, then click Save.

Nice! Next, add or replicate touchpoints to your campaign.

Add a touchpoint

Add a touchpoint to a campaign or to your calendar.

Add a touchpoint to your campaign

To add an email, multivariate test, event, task, or webhook touchpoint to your campaign, follow these steps.

1. On the Campaign Manager page, click the active or ready campaign you want to work with, then click Manage campaign.

2. Click the Add touchpoint drop-down, then click Email, Multivariate Test, Task, Event, or Webhook.

3. Complete the required information for your touchpoint. Click Schedule, Schedule test, Schedule webhook, or Save to add the touchpoint to your campaign.

Excellent! You’ve added a touchpoint. Add as many touchpoints as you need to achieve your objective.

Add an SMS or social post touchpoint to your calendar

SMS and social post touchpoints can’t be associated with a campaign. However, you can add them to the calendar on the Campaign Manager page.

To add an SMS or social post touchpoint to the Campaign Manager calendar, follow these steps.

1. On the Campaign Manager page, click the date that you want to add a touchpoint to.
2. If you click a date within a campaign, the Do not associate with a campaign option is selected by default.
3. In the Add touchpoint pop-up modal, click SMS or Social post. To add an SMS touchpoint, you’ll first need to set up your SMS Marketing program.
4. Complete the required information for your touchpoint.
5. Click Send or Schedule, or Publish Now to add the touchpoint to your Campaign Manager calendar.

Excellent! You’ve added a touchpoint. Add as many touchpoints as you need to achieve your objective.

Replicate a touchpoint

To replicate a touchpoint in a single campaign or across multiple campaigns, follow these steps. You can replicate email, multivariate test, task, event, and webhook touchpoints.

1. On the Campaign Manager page, click the touchpoint you want to replicate.
2. For an email or multivariate test touchpoint, click Replicate.
3. For a task or event touchpoint, click the drop-down arrow, then click Replicate.
4. The steps to replicate a touchpoint vary based on the type of touchpoint you’re working with.
   
   
   • Email
     Use the Campaign for replicated email drop-down to add the email to a campaign or calendar, then click Continue. Complete all the required fields on the email checklist, then click Send.
   • Multivariate test
     Use the Campaign for replicated multivariate test drop-down to add the test to a campaign, then click Continue. Complete all the required fields on the multivariate test overview page, then click Schedule test.
   • Task
     Complete all the required fields in the Replicate task pop-up modal, then click Save.
   • Event
     Complete all the required fields in the Replicate event pop-up modal, then click Save.
   • Webhook
     Use the Campaign for replicated webhook drop-down to add it to a campaign, then click Continue. Complete all the required fields in the Replicate webhook pop-up modal, then click Schedule webhook.

Webhooks are advanced capabilities of Campaign Manager. To learn more, check out About Webhooks.

Send Day Optimization

Send Day Optimization determines the best day to send an email based on your industry. To enable this feature, select a campaign. Then, slide the toggle to the checkmark.

Send Day Optimization looks at historic, year-to-year click rate trends and predicts engagement for emails sent within your campaign's timeframe. When enabled, you can view the good, better, and best days to send an email to your audience. These predictions are based on the industry you selected in your account settings.

To do list

Use your Campaign Manager to do list to keep track of incomplete tasks and draft emails. Click the campaign you want to work with, click Manage campaign, then view your planned items in the To do section. Each campaign has its own list and displays the days remaining to complete your task or send your email, based on the date each item appears on the calendar.

As you progress with your campaign tasks, edit them to update the status. Tasks with a status of Not started or In progress appear on your to do list. After you complete a task and set its status to Complete, it'll disappear from the list.

Emails with a Draft status also appear on your to do list. After you schedule an email, it’ll disappear from the list.

Completed tasks and scheduled emails remain on the calendar for reference.

Campaign Manager’s To do list is campaign-specific. However, you can manually schedule items from 1 campaign in another campaign.

Tracking and reporting

When you create an email for a campaign, choose email tracking settings to help measure success. These tracking settings are consistent throughout all emails, and they stay in place once your campaign is active. You can view reports for active and concluded campaigns, and highlight specific metrics.

Here are the email tracking and reporting settings available with Campaign Manager.

• Use Inbox to manage replies
  When enabled, we’ll use your Inbox reply-to address for your marketing email. We’ll automatically filter “out of office” replies, and replies from your subscribed contacts will appear in your audience's inbox.
• Auto-convert video
  This feature scans your email content for embedded videos, which may not render properly in email apps, then auto-converts them to use our email-friendly video merge tags instead.
• Track opens
  Discover who opens your email by tracking the number of times an invisible web beacon embedded in the email is downloaded. To learn more, check out Use Open Tracking in Emails.
• Track clicks
  Discover which email links were clicked, who clicked them, and how many times they were clicked. To learn more, check out Use Click Tracking in Emails.
• Track plain-text clicks
  Track clicks in the plain-text version of your email by replacing all links with tracking URLs. To learn more, check out Use Click Tracking in Emails.
• E-commerce link tracking
  Track visitors to your online store from your marketing email, get order information, and pass that information back to Mailchimp. View purchase details, conversions, and total sales within your campaign report. Set up segments based on your subscribed contacts' purchase activity to effectively target your marketing efforts.
• Google Analytics link tracking
  Add Google Analytics tracking to your marketing emails to pass link tracking data back to your reports. To learn more, check out Integrate Google Analytics with Mailchimp.

View campaign reports

To view a campaign report for an active or concluded campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns, then click Campaign Manager.

2. Click the Campaigns list tab.
   

3. Search for the name of your active or concluded campaign, or find it on the list. Use the drop-downs to filter your list by audiences or campaign status.

4. For an active campaign, click the Manage campaign drop-down, then click View report.

5. For a concluded campaign, click View report.

To view an individual email report, click View report next to the email title in the Sent section of a campaign report. You can also click Export to download an individual email report.

Here are the metrics shown in your email report.

• Emails sent
  The total number of emails sent throughout your campaign.
• Opened
  The number of recipients who opened any email in your campaign any number of times.
• Total opens
  The total number of times the emails in your campaign were opened by recipients. This count includes multiple opens from individual recipients.
• Clicked
  The number of recipients who clicked any tracked link any number of times in any email.
• Unsubscribed
  The number of recipients who opted out using the unsubscribe link in any email within your campaign.
• Unsubscribe rate
  The percentage of recipients who opted out of your emails using the unsubscribe link in any email within your campaign.
• Open rate
  The percentage of successfully delivered emails that registered as an open.
• Click rate
  The percentage of successfully delivered emails that registered a click.
• Clicks per unique opens
  The percentage of recipients who registered an open and also clicked a link in any email.
• Revenue
  The total amount of revenue earned from your campaign.
• Orders
  The number of orders made from all emails in your campaign.
• Average order revenue
  The average amount of money from each order made from your campaign.

Highlight specific metrics

To highlight specific metrics for an active or concluded email campaign, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the report for the campaign you want to work with.

2. In the Monitor performance section for emails or text messages, click Edit.
   

3. Select the metrics you want to view for your campaign, then click Save. View up to 4 metrics at a time.