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Guides & Tutorials Getting Started with Campaigns
Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform that helps you share emails, ads, and other messages with your audience. We call these these messages "campaigns." When you create a campaign in Mailchimp, we give you lots of flexible settings and design options, as well as builder tools that walk you through every step of the process.
In this article, you'll learn the basics of campaigns in Mailchimp.
Things to Know
- Before you can create a campaign in Mailchimp, you'll need a list. To learn more about list creation, read Getting Started With Lists.
- If you don't have any contacts yet, create and share a signup form to build your list.
- Connect an online store to sync products and customer data, to tailor your campaigns to the right people and sell more stuff. To learn more, read How to use Mailchimp with E-Commerce.
- If you need help creating and designing a certain type of campaign, you can search this Knowledge Base for additional resources.
Definitions
Campaign
Any distributed content, that's created and measured in Mailchimp, including regular emails, automations, landing pages, and ads.
List
A place for you to collect and manage your contacts in Mailchimp.
Contact
Someone whose email is stored in your list. A contact's email marketing status determines what kind of content you can share with them. Statuses include subscribed, unsubscribed, non-subscribed, and cleaned.
Choose a Campaign Type
We've got campaigns for all of your business goals. You'll find options to send an email to all of the subscribed contacts on your list, target repeat customers, find new people on Facebook, and more.
Here are the different types of campaigns you can create in Mailchimp.
Email campaigns
There are four main types of email campaigns in Mailchimp.
Regular
This is the most common type of campaign. Design and customize your content, and choose whether to send immediately or schedule your campaign for later.Plain-text
The simplest form of mass email you can send. These campaigns contain only text and have no formatting options.- A/B testing
Send more than one version of the same campaign and see which one comes out on top. Test subject lines, From names, content, and send times. If you're a Mailchimp Pro user, you'll have the option to test up to eight different versions with a Multivariate campaign. - Automation
An email or series of emails sent to a contact based on a specific trigger.
Best Practices for Email Marketing
Create an A/B Testing Campaign
Automation
Automation, also known as automated email, is a targeted email or series of emails that send when triggered by a specific date, event, or contact's activity. You can create a custom automation from scratch, or use one of our many pre-built automation campaigns.
Ad campaigns
We can help you buy and run an ad on Facebook to target your Mailchimp contacts, people similar to your Mailchimp contacts, or Facebook users whose interests align with your services or products.
Getting Started with Facebook Ad Campaigns
Landing Pages
Create standalone webpages to collect email address or promote a product or service. Design a landing page in your account, then share the URL on the web or in another Mailchimp campaign.
Create a Campaign
The way you build your campaign depends on which type of campaign you choose. Each campaign type has a specific set of steps you'll follow to target your audience, add tracking options, design your content, and make other changes.
Create a Regular Email Campaign
Design a Campaign in Mailchimp
About Campaign Templates
Templates are the HTML files that serve as the starting point for any email campaign. The template you use determines the layout of your images and text.
We have a lot of predesigned templates for you to choose from, so if you aren't an HTML whiz, you'll still be able to create and send great-looking email campaigns. Drag-and-drop templates make the process even easier.
If you are an experienced coder, you can also edit our templates, code your own, or create an editable template with our Template Language.
View Campaign Reports
After you send an email campaign, start an automation, or publish an ad campaign, you'll be able to monitor its performance in your campaign report. Email campaign reports include data on clicks, opens, social activity, and more. If you connect your store, you'll also be able to view your revenue and order history. Ad campaign reports feature other details like reach, impressions, and your average daily budget.