Setting up email campaigns: a guide to common scenarios and key considerations

This guide covers the most common scenarios you may encounter when setting up your email campaigns, along with best practices to ensure your automations run smoothly.

1. Email sending order

The order of emails in a campaign follows a top-to-bottom logic: the email at the top is the first one sent. However, please note how new emails behave before they are activated.

When you add a new email to a campaign, it appears at the top of the list as long as it is inactive (indicated by a gray dot). Because it lacks a specific "send after" instruction, it is not integrated into the campaign's chronological sequence.

2. Adding a new email to an active sequence

If you add a new email to the beginning or middle of a sequence, only contacts who have not yet reached that step will receive it.

Contacts who have already passed that point in the sequence will not receive the new email retroactively.

Example Scenario:

Consider the following sequence logic:

• "Email 1" was sent first to 9 contacts.
• You then insert a "New Email" in the second position.
• "Email 2" remains in the third position and has already been sent to 12 contacts.

Key Takeaways:

• Contacts currently at the previous step will receive the "New Email" next.
• Contacts who have already progressed further (and already received "Email 2") will not receive the inserted email.

In short, an inserted email is only delivered to contacts who have not yet reached that specific stage of the campaign.

3. Adding an email to the final step of a campaign

When you add an email as the very last step, it will be sent to all contacts who are still subscribed to the campaign.

Note: Even after a contact receives the last email in a sequence, they remain "subscribed" to that campaign unless they are specifically removed. Therefore, adding a new final step will trigger an enrollment for those existing contacts.

4. How delays work for newly added emails

When adding an email to the middle or end of a sequence, it is vital to understand how the system calculates delays between emails.

Example:

Your campaign currently has 2 emails:

• Email 1: Sent 5 minutes after subscription.
• Email 2: Sent 24 hours after the first email.

A contact signs up on 01/01/2025 at 10:00 AM.

• They receive Email 1 at 10:05 AM.
• They receive Email 2 on January 2, 2025, at 10:05 AM.

On 01/15/2025, you add Email 3, set to send 24 hours after the previous email.

In this case, for contacts who already received Email 2, Email 3 will be sent immediately.

Why? Because the 24-hour delay is calculated from the date the last email was received (January 2nd), not from the date you added the new email to the system (January 15th). Since more than 24 hours have passed since January 2nd, the condition is met instantly.

Always remember that delivery delays depend on the actual progression of the contact through the sequence, not the moment the email was created.

5. Email sending conditions and scheduling

All configured conditions must be met before sending a campaign email. If a condition is not met immediately, the email send will be delayed until the next available window.

You can configure up to three specific parameters:

Scheduling Options:

1. Set a Delay

   Choose the time interval between emails in the sequence (Days, Hours, or Minutes).

2. Select a Specific Time

   Specify the exact hour of the day the email should be sent.

3. Choose Sending Days

   Select which days of the week the email is allowed to go out.

Example:

You schedule Email 2 with these conditions:

• Sent 2 days after Email 1
• At 10:00 AM
• Monday through Friday only

If Email 1 was sent on a Thursday at 3:00 PM:

• The 2-day delay pushes the scheduled send to Saturday at 3:00 PM.
• However, since the email is restricted to weekdays and a 10:00 AM time slot, it will be delayed until the following Monday at 10:00 AM.

6. Modifying conditions in an active campaign

It is important to understand how changing settings affects contacts who are already enrolled in a sequence.

• Scenario: Contacts are currently enrolled and have received some emails.
• Action: You modify the sending conditions for future emails in that sequence.

The Result:

• New conditions apply only to new contacts who subscribe to the campaign after the changes are saved.
• Existing contacts already in the sequence will continue to receive emails based on the original conditions that were in place when they first subscribed.

Pro tip: Think of a campaign like a train on a track. Each "car" (contact) follows the track layout that existed when it started its journey. Changing the layout mid-trip won't redirect the cars already on the track; only new cars will follow the new path.

Comparison Example:

Initial Campaign:

Applying a Change:

You changed Email 3 from Friday to Saturday at 3:00 PM.

Impact:

• Existing Contacts: The 200 contacts already in the campaign will not be affected. They will still receive Email 3 on Friday at 3:00 PM.
• New Contacts: Any contact who subscribes after the change will receive Email 3 on Saturday at 3:00 PM.

7. Deactivating and reactivating emails

Use caution when reactivating campaign emails

If you deactivate all emails in a campaign while contacts are still enrolled, reactivating those emails will cause them to be resent to all currently enrolled contacts, even if they have received them before.

To avoid sending duplicate emails, which can damage your sender reputation and lead to spam complaints, we recommend creating a new campaign instead of reactivating old emails for existing contacts.

Best Practices:

• Only deactivate an email if you are certain it should never be sent again.
• If you need to make significant changes to an active sequence, it is safer to build a new campaign with the updated content.

8. Contacts who are unsubscribed but still enrolled

When a contact unsubscribes from marketing emails (Newsletters, Campaigns, etc.) or becomes unreachable (due to a bounce), systeme.io does not automatically remove them from the campaign.

This means:

• The contact remains enrolled in the campaign.
• They continue to progress through the sequence steps according to the set delays and conditions.
• They simply do not receive the emails while their status is "Unsubscribed" or "Bounced."

If the contact's status changes back to "Subscribed" later:

• They will resume receiving emails starting at whatever step they have reached in the timeline.

In summary: A campaign sequence never pauses, even if the contact is temporarily unable to receive the messages.

Final Tip for Better Deliverability:

Email elements like complex HTML, excessive fonts, heavy images, and too many emojis can increase the "weight" of your email. Large or overly complex emails are more likely to be flagged by spam filters or rejected by receiving servers.

To maximize your reach, keep your emails clean, lightweight, and focused on clear, relevant content. This ensures the best chance of landing directly in your subscribers' inboxes.