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

# Campaigns

> Send marketing emails to your audience as one-time bulk sends, then track delivery and engagement after the campaign goes out

A campaign is a one-time bulk email send to a group of contacts from your [audience](/learn/audience/introduction). You build the content, pick who receives it, send (or schedule it for later), and track engagement after the send.

Campaigns are different from transactional emails in two important ways:

|                | Campaign                                       | Transactional email                                    |
| -------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Triggered by   | You, sending from the dashboard                | A user action or system event, sent through the API    |
| Recipient list | A pre-built audience (lists or segments)       | Specified per request, usually one or a few recipients |
| Use case       | Newsletters, product announcements, promotions | Password resets, order confirmations, account alerts   |

If you've used a traditional newsletter tool, the campaign concept will be familiar. Pick a slice of your audience, write the email, hit send, and watch the metrics roll in.

## What a Campaign Is (and Isn't)

A campaign in Lettr is **one email** going out to **one batch of recipients** at **one point in time**. Campaigns are not drip sequences, automations, or RSS-triggered sends. If you want to follow up to opens or non-opens, schedule a second campaign manually — there is no built-in series feature today.

Beyond that, the model is intentionally simple:

* One **content** (HTML body, subject, sender details)
* One **audience selection** (lists, segments, or all contacts)
* One **schedule** (send now, or pick a future date/time)
* One **report** (engagement metrics after the send)

## Prerequisites

Before you send your first campaign, make sure you have:

1. A [verified sending domain](/learn/domains/sending-domains) for the address you'll send from
2. At least a handful of `subscribed` [contacts](/learn/audience/contacts) in your audience — or a [list](/learn/audience/lists) or [segment](/learn/audience/segments) you want to target
3. Either a [template](/learn/templates/introduction) you want to base the campaign on, or content you'll build directly in the campaign editor

<Note>
  Campaigns are part of Lettr's marketing plan. The free tier includes 500 contacts; larger audiences require a paid marketing tier. See [Billing](/learn/settings/billing#marketing-plans) for tiers and pricing. If your audience exceeds your plan's contact limit, you cannot send new campaigns until you upgrade or remove contacts.
</Note>

## How a Campaign Moves Through Its Lifecycle

Every campaign goes through the same states from the moment you create it to the moment it's sent and reporting.

```
Draft → (schedule) → Scheduled → Preparing → Sending → Sent
   └─── (send now) ─────────────────┘
```

| Status        | What it means                                                                                                                                  |
| ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Draft**     | You're still editing. No emails have been queued or sent.                                                                                      |
| **Scheduled** | You set a future send time. The campaign is waiting; you can unschedule it back to Draft any time before it starts.                            |
| **Preparing** | Recipients are being built and the campaign is being validated. Brief but real — typically a few seconds to a few minutes for large audiences. |
| **Sending**   | Emails are being delivered in batches. Live metrics are updating as they come in.                                                              |
| **Sent**      | Every recipient has been processed. The campaign is now read-only; analytics keep updating as recipients open and click.                       |
| **In review** | An automated content check flagged the campaign, and a Lettr admin is reviewing it before sending continues. Rare in practice.                 |
| **Failed**    | The campaign couldn't be sent (typically because no recipients matched the audience or an unexpected error occurred).                          |

Two things to know up front:

* Once a campaign enters **Preparing**, it cannot be cancelled. Only a `Scheduled` campaign can be moved back to `Draft`.
* Once a campaign reaches **Sent**, its content is frozen. You cannot edit a sent campaign — duplicate it instead.

The [Sending & Scheduling](/learn/campaigns/sending-and-scheduling) page covers each transition in detail.

## The Campaign Workflow

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="1. Create" icon="plus" href="/learn/campaigns/creating-a-campaign">
    Start from scratch, from a template, or duplicate an existing campaign
  </Card>

  <Card title="2. Build content" icon="paintbrush" href="/learn/campaigns/content-and-design">
    Design with the visual editor, write raw HTML, or use AI assistance
  </Card>

  <Card title="3. Choose your audience" icon="bullseye" href="/learn/campaigns/audience-selection">
    Pick all contacts, specific lists, segments, or a combination
  </Card>

  <Card title="4. Send or schedule" icon="paper-plane" href="/learn/campaigns/sending-and-scheduling">
    Send now or pick a future date and time
  </Card>

  <Card title="5. Review results" icon="chart-line" href="/learn/campaigns/analytics-and-reporting">
    Track opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Quick Start

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Campaigns page">
    Click **Campaigns** in the sidebar. You'll see a list of past and in-progress campaigns.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create a new campaign">
    Click **New campaign**. You can describe what the campaign is about, and Lettr's AI will pre-fill the subject and pull sender defaults from a similar previous campaign if one exists.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Walk through the builder">
    The campaign builder is a four-step wizard:

    * **Compose** — subject, from address, content
    * **Audience** — who receives it
    * **Schedule** — send now or later
    * **Review** — a final check before sending
  </Step>

  <Step title="Test before sending">
    From the builder you can send a **test email** to yourself or your team to check rendering and merge tags before committing to the full send.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Send or schedule">
    From the Review step, **Send now** dispatches immediately or **Schedule** picks a future time.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Watch the results">
    Open the campaign's **Show** page to see live progress while it sends, and engagement metrics afterwards. Stats keep updating for the full window after the send.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Where Campaigns Live

Campaigns are authored in the Lettr dashboard. You build content, choose your audience, and review the send from the web app. If you need programmatic email sending for application events, use the [transactional email API](/learn/sending/introduction) instead — the two systems serve different purposes and are intentionally separate.

<Tip>
  While campaigns are authored in the dashboard, their lifecycle actions and engagement data are available programmatically. The [Campaigns API](/api-reference/campaigns/list-campaigns) lets you list campaigns, send or schedule them, unschedule a scheduled campaign, and pull per-recipient engagement events.
</Tip>

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Build your audience" icon="users" href="/learn/audience/introduction">
    Add contacts, lists, and segments before sending
  </Card>

  <Card title="Create your first campaign" icon="plus" href="/learn/campaigns/creating-a-campaign">
    Walk through the 4-step campaign builder
  </Card>
</CardGroup>