> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hiveku.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Campaigns

> One-off broadcast emails with scheduling, test sends, and A/B testing

A campaign is a single, one-off broadcast — a newsletter, a launch announcement, a holiday promo. Each campaign targets one audience, uses one template (or raw HTML), and goes out once.

Find campaigns at `/dashboard/marketing/email/campaigns`.

For automated multi-step flows, see [Sequences](/email-marketing/sequences). For 1-on-1 sales outreach, see [Outbound](/marketing/outbound-email).

## Statuses

A campaign moves through these statuses, visible as a colored chip in the list:

* **Draft** — Saved but not scheduled. Editable freely.
* **Scheduled** — Locked for a future send time. You can still cancel, but content edits require unscheduling first.
* **Sending** — In flight. Recipients are being materialized and dispatched in batches.
* **Sent** — Delivery dispatched to SES. Per-recipient outcomes (delivered, opened, bounced, etc.) keep streaming in for days afterward.

Cancelled and failed campaigns appear under the **Archived** filter.

## Composing a campaign

<Steps>
  <Step title="New campaign">
    Click **New campaign** from `/dashboard/marketing/email/campaigns`. Give it an internal name — recipients never see this.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pick a template">
    Choose from the [template gallery](/email-marketing/templates), start blank with raw HTML, or ask the coach to draft one. Personalization variables resolve at send time.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pick an audience">
    Select any saved [audience](/email-marketing/audiences) or build one inline. The picker shows the live estimated size next to each option, plus how many would be filtered out by suppressions.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set subject and preheader">
    The subject is shown in the inbox row. The preheader is the snippet next to or under the subject — most clients render up to \~150 characters.

    The coach lints your subject as you type:

    * Warning at >60 characters (likely truncated on mobile).
    * Block at >998 characters (RFC 5322 hard limit).
    * Flag preheaders longer than 150 characters.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Optional — A/B test subjects">
    Toggle **A/B test subjects** to enter two subject lines. The audience splits 50/50, both versions send at the same time, and a winner is auto-identified after 48 hours based on open rate.

    See [A/B Test Subject Lines](/how-tos/ab-test-subject-lines) for the full flow.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Schedule or send">
    Three options:

    * **Send now** — dispatches immediately.
    * **Schedule** — pick a date/time in the recipient's timezone or a fixed timezone.
    * **Save draft** — keep editing later.

    The coach suggests an optimal send time based on past open rates for the selected audience. If your account has a recent bounce or complaint spike, scheduling is blocked until you address it (see [Deliverability](/email-marketing/deliverability)).
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Test sends

Before scheduling, use **Test send** to fire a single message to your own address (or any seed list you've configured). Test sends:

* Resolve personalization variables against a sample contact (you pick which one).
* Render in your real inbox so you see exactly what the recipient sees.
* Don't count against your audience or per-campaign metrics.

<Tip>
  Always test send. The five seconds it takes to refresh Gmail catches mistakes that would otherwise reach 10,000 people.
</Tip>

## Scheduling and cancelling

A scheduled campaign locks its template, subject, and audience filter at scheduling time, but the **recipient list is materialized at send time**. So if you schedule on Monday for a Friday send, the audience picks up everyone who matches the dynamic filter on Friday morning.

To cancel: open the campaign and click **Cancel send**. If the campaign is `scheduled`, this is instant. If it's already `sending`, Hiveku stops dispatching new recipients but can't recall what's already gone — bigger sends fan out in seconds, so cancellation usually catches a partial set.

## Per-campaign metrics

After send, the campaign report tracks:

* **Sent** — total messages dispatched.
* **Delivered** — accepted by the recipient mail server.
* **Bounced** — hard bounces (address invalid) and soft bounces (temporary, e.g. mailbox full) are split out.
* **Complained** — recipient hit "report spam".
* **Opened** — open pixel fired (Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates this somewhat — see below).
* **Clicked** — at least one link click.
* **Unsubscribed** — clicked the footer or one-click unsubscribe.

Each metric has a count and a percentage of `Sent`. You can drill into any metric to see the recipient list — useful for "re-send to non-openers" and debugging delivery issues.

<Info>
  Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches images, including open pixels, which inflates open rate roughly 20-40% for audiences with heavy iOS use. Click rate stays accurate.
</Info>

## Re-using a sent campaign

From a sent campaign, click **Duplicate** to spin up a draft with the same template, subject, and audience filter. Useful for recurring monthly newsletters — duplicate last month's, swap the body, schedule.

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Schedule button is disabled">
    Most common reasons:

    * Sending domain not verified — see [Email > Domains](/email/domains).
    * Bounce rate above 5% or complaint rate above 0.1% — Hiveku blocks new sends until the deliverability dashboard recovers.
    * Audience preview returned zero sendable contacts.

    The coach surfaces the specific blocker inline.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Test send arrived but real campaign didn't">
    Check the campaign log under the report tab. Most likely:

    * Recipient address was on the suppression list.
    * Domain-level reputation issue caused SES to defer.
    * Recipient mail server is greylisting — wait 30-60 minutes.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A/B test never picked a winner">
    Auto-winner needs both variants to have a meaningful sample (\~500+ delivered each). Smaller campaigns finish A/B testing in "no significant difference" — pick whichever subject you preferred.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Open rate is suspiciously high or low">
    High: Apple Mail Privacy Protection (see Info above). Low: the sending IP's reputation may be flagged, or your subject is hitting spam folders. Check [Deliverability](/email-marketing/deliverability).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Related

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Send your first campaign" icon="rocket" href="/how-tos/send-first-email-campaign">
    End-to-end walkthrough from CSV import to scheduled send.
  </Card>

  <Card title="A/B test subject lines" icon="flask" href="/how-tos/ab-test-subject-lines">
    The full A/B test flow with statistical caveats.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Templates" icon="palette" href="/email-marketing/templates">
    Reusable HTML designs for repeat campaigns.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Deliverability" icon="shield-check" href="/email-marketing/deliverability">
    Keep bounce and complaint rates safe.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>