About Campaign Manager

Mailchimp's Campaign Manager helps 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.

• Campaign Manager is available to users with a Standard Marketing plan or above, as well as to users on the legacy Monthly plan with the Mailchimp Pro add-on. To change your plan type, visit the plans page in your account.

• Some touchpoints are limited by plan type. For example, Multivariate tests are available for Premium plans only.

• 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.

• To add an SMS touchpoint, you’ll first need to set up your SMS Marketing program.

• Marketing emails created with Campaign Manager can be accessed within Campaign Manager, under the List View of the All campaigns page, and under the Campaigns tab of 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.
• Task
  Anything that needs to be done to achieve success with your campaign. Name your task, select a date and time, and include notes. Update the task status as needed to not started, in progress, or complete.
• Event
  Any marketing event such as a webinar, sale, or product launch. Name your event, select the event type, add the date and time, and include notes.
• Email
  A message designed for a specific marketing campaign. Send emails to your entire audience, or target your tagged or segmented subscribers.
• A/B or Multivariate test
  Both A/B and multivariate tests let you send different versions of an email to your subscribed contacts in order to compare results and gauge interaction. A/B tests are limited to 4 variations, while multivariate tests allow up to 8 variations. You can test 4 variable types: Subject line, From name, Content, and Send time. Each version of the email you create with a different variable is called a variation.
• Social post
  A short-form message or content published to 1 or more social media platforms. Social posts aren’t associated with a campaign.
• Webhook
  A tool that syncs Mailchimp activity with a third-party app. Webhooks let Mailchimp request an external app to take a specific action. Webhook touchpoints must be associated with a campaign.
• SMS
  Short Message Service (SMS) is used to send text messages to mobile phones. SMS touchpoints aren’t associated with a campaign.

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 set up a campaign, add touchpoints such as emails, multivariate tests, tasks, events, or webhooks to connect multiple channels to a single objective. Other touchpoints, such as SMS or social posts can't be associated with a campaign and can only be set up on the Campaign Manager calendar. The interactive calendar view makes it easy to plot your touchpoints where you need them, either within a campaign or on the Campaign Manager calendar.

Before the start date, a campaign has a ready status. During the duration of a campaign, it’ll have an active status. After the end date passes, a campaign has a concluded status. Touchpoints have a variety of statuses like draft, upcoming, or not started depending on type and progress.

For active and concluded campaigns, you can view and manage the multi-channel reporting based on overall campaign performance. Advanced analytics provide valuable engagement insights, and they can help steer your next marketing moves.

Create a campaign

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

1. Click Campaigns, then click Campaign Manager.
   

2. On the Campaign Manager overview page, 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. Keep in mind, all fields are required.

4. Click Create campaign.

After you create your campaign, you’ll see an overview on the Manage campaign page. From here, you can edit your campaign settings, add touchpoints, enable Send Day Optimization, and view your to do list.

On the Manage campaign page, you can also view your campaign in the default calendar view or the agenda view. In the calendar view, use the drop-down to set the display to Day, Month, or Week. In the agenda view, select what touchpoints to review with the Touchpoint type drop-down. You won’t see SMS or social posts touchpoints in this drop-down since they can’t be associated with a campaign.

Replicate a campaign

If you want to repeat a successful campaign, replicate it to create a copy. A replicated campaign uses the original campaign’s Audience, marketing Goal, Start date and End date, and your selected email tracking settings. The original campaign’s touchpoints aren’t 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 your active or concluded campaign, or find it on the list.

4. For an 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 replicated campaign.

Add a touchpoint

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 overview page, click the active 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.

   From the calendar view on the Manage campaign page, you can also click a date within your campaign timeframe to add a touchpoint. The Add touchpoint pop-up appears, and you can select the type of touchpoint you want to add.
   

3. Complete the required information for your touchpoint. When you’re ready, click Schedule email, Submit, Schedule test, or Schedule webhook to add the touchpoint to your campaign.

Add a touchpoint to your Campaign Manager calendar

SMS and social post touchpoints can’t be associated with a campaign. However, they can be added to the calendar on the Campaign Manager overview page.

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

1. On the Campaign Manager overview page, click the date that you want to add a touchpoint to.
2. If you click a date within a campaign, click Continue in the pop-up modal. 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. When you’re ready, click Send, 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 overview 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 arrow drop-down, then click Replicate.
4. The steps to replicate a touchpoint vary based on the type of touchpoint you’re working with.
   • If you’re replicating an email touchpoint, select the campaign you want to add a replicated email to from the Campaign for replicated email drop-down, then click Continue. Complete all required fields on the Email overview page, then click Schedule email.
   • If you’re replicating a multivariate test touchpoint, select the campaign you want to add a replicated multivariate test to from the Campaign for replicated multivariate test drop-down, then click Continue. Complete all required fields on the Multivariate test overview page, then click Schedule test.
   • If you’re replicating a task touchpoint, complete all required fields in the Replicate task pop-up modal, then click Save.
   • If you’re replicating an event touchpoint, complete all required fields in the Replicate event pop-up modal, then click Save.
   • If you’re replicating a webhook touchpoint, select the campaign you want to add a replicated webhook to from the Campaign for replicated webhook drop-down, then click Continue. Complete all required fields in the Replicate webhook pop-up modal, then click Schedule webhook.

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, toggle the Enable SDO slider on.

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 on 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 where each item is plotted 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, set its status to Complete, and 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.

Tracking and reporting

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

Here are the 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 subscribers will appear in your audience's inbox.
• Auto-convert video
  This feature scans your email content for embedded videos (which don’t always 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, capture order information, and pass that information back to Mailchimp. This lets you view purchase details, conversions, and total sales within your campaign report. You can also set up segments based on your subscribers’ purchase activity.
• 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.

Here are the data points you can highlight in your campaign 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 revenue from each order made from your campaign.

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 your active or concluded campaign, or find it on the list.

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

5. For a concluded campaign, click View report.

Highlight specific data points

To highlight specific data points for an active or concluded campaign, follow these steps.

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

2. In the Email performance section, click Edit.
   

3. Select the data points you want to view for your campaign, then click Save. You can view up to 4 data points at a time.