Telerivet's Campaigns page makes it easy to manage your organization's outbound messaging campaigns.
In Telerivet, a "campaign" refers to something that your organization sends to a group of contacts on a particular schedule. Telerivet supports several different types of campaigns depending on what is sent and when the campaign is sent to each contact in the group:
Message Broadcast
A Message Broadcast is the simplest and most common type of campaign, where you can send a message to a group of contacts, either immediately or at a scheduled time. In a Message Broadcast, all messages will be sent out at the same time to every contact in the group. This could be used for holidays or immediate announcements.
Service Broadcast
When you need to do more than send a simple message to each contact, the Service Broadcast campaign can be used to trigger an automated service for each contact in a group. Any active Contact Action service can be triggered in a campaign. For example, a campaign could send a Poll service to ask one or more questions and automatically handle responses from each contact.
Relative Campaign
In a relative campaign, messages will be scheduled relative to a date stored as a custom field for each contact in the selected group. To send messages after a contact subscribes, the date can be set automatically when the contact is added to the group. Otherwise, you can set the date when importing contacts. A relative campaign can either send a simple message or trigger an automated service. A relative campaign that sends a series of scheduled messages could be used to implement a drip marketing campaign.
Birthday / Anniversary Campaign
A birthday / anniversary campaign will schedule messages relative to the next anniversary of a date stored as a custom field for each contact in the selected group. For example, if the field stores the contact's birthdate, the message can be sent on or before their next birthday. A birthday / anniversary campaign can also either send a simple message or trigger an automated service.
Creating and Editing Campaigns
To start using the new Campaign Manager, click “New Campaign” on the Campaigns tab. (If your Dashboard has a Campaigns card, you can also click New Campaign from the dashboard.)
First, select the type of campaign to create:
The settings for the Message Broadcast campaign type are shown below:
Several of the settings shown above are available in all types of campaigns, including Campaign Name, From, To, and Labels:
Campaign Name: Each campaign must have a name that identifies the campaign within Telerivet. The Campaign Name will not be visible to your contacts. The Campaign Name must be unique within the current project.
From: The route that will be used to send messages to contacts in this campaign. This could be a basic route or a custom route.
To: The group of contacts that the campaign will be sent to. Click "Select group" to open a dialog showing the list of groups in the project as well as the current number of contacts in each group. For projects with many groups, the dialog will only show some groups and you can search for a group by name. If the group does not exist already, click "Create New Group" within the dialog to create a new group.
After selecting a group, two additional buttons appear next to the group name:
Import contacts: If contacts haven't already been added to the group, you can import contacts while editing the campaign. When "Import contacts" is clicked, the campaign will be saved as a draft and you will be redirected a separate page where you can import contacts either by uploading a spreadsheet file or by copying and pasting contact information from a spreadsheet. After importing contacts, you will be redirected back to the campaign editor. If necessary, you could repeat this step multiple times to import several batches of contacts.
Add filter: By default, the campaign will be sent to all contacts in the selected group, except for contacts where sending messages has been blocked. In order to send messages only to a subset of these contacts, click "Add filter" to open a dialog showing the various filters that can be added.
The "Not in Group" filter allows excluding contacts that are in another group from receiving campaigns. For broadcast-based campaigns (Message Broadcast and Service Broadcast), it is also possible to filter by any custom contact field and several built-in fields.
After a filter is selected in the modal dialog, a text summary of the filter is displayed in the campaign editor. You can click Edit to open the dialog again to update the filters.
When a filter is selected, the number of contacts next to the group name will update to show the number of contacts currently matching the filter.
Labels: You can add labels to campaigns to organize your campaigns and messages. The labels apply to the campaign itself, as well as the broadcasts and messages created by the campaign. On the various pages in Telerivet that show lists of campaigns, broadcasts, and messages, you can select the Labels filter in the left sidebar to filter the items with that label.
The following settings are specific to particular types of campaigns:
Message: In Message Broadcast campaigns, this is the message that will be sent to each contact in the group. To personalize the message for each contact, click Variables to insert variables such as the contact's name or custom fields stored for the contacts. If the message content contains a URL, an option to shorten links and track clicks will be visible:
If supported by the route, you can also add attachments to the message via the Media link. Additional settings may be available for certain types of routes, e.g. quick replies and link buttons.
Service: In Service Broadcast campaigns, this is the service that will be triggered for each contact in the group. Any active service with the "Contact Action" trigger can be used in a campaign. You can also create a new service while editing a campaign. Campaigns are usually intended to trigger services that send messages to the current contact, although it is not required for the service to send messages.
Schedule: For broadcast campaigns, the Schedule setting allows either sending the campaign immediately or at a specific date and time in the future:
For relative campaigns (including birthday/anniversary campaigns), the Schedule section has several settings to configure when messages are sent. The schedule can contain up to 20 items, and each item can be either a simple message or an automated service.
First, click "Select date field", which opens a dialog that allows selecting a date or date/time field stored for each contact that the messages will be sent relative to. If a field does not already exist, click "New Date Field", and enter the name of a new date or date/time field.
When a date field is selected in a Relative Campaign, the Schedule section will also have a checkbox that allows automatically setting the date field when the contact is added to the group associated with the campaign:
If this checkbox is not selected, then the date field would need to be set in another way, such as when importing contacts or via an automated service.
For each item in the schedule, you can use the dropdowns to schedule the message a certain number of days, weeks, months, or years before or after the date field at a certain time of day in the selected timezone. If you are using a date/time field in a Relative Campaign, there is also an option to schedule the message a certain number of minutes before or after the date/time (in this case the date/time stored on each contact is always assumed to be in the project's default timezone).
At the bottom of the page when editing a campaign, the "Advanced settings" link shows additional optional settings.
Actions: Telerivet can automatically add contacts to another group when a contact replies to a message or clicks a shortened link in this campaign, allowing you to target or exclude these contacts in subsequent messages or campaigns:
If the contact sends a reply, the contact will only be added to the group if the most recent message sent to this contact was from this campaign and if the reply was received within 14 days of the last message sent. If the contact clicks a short link, the contact will only be added to the group if the link was shortened by Telerivet.
A common use case for Actions is within a Relative Campaign with a series of multiple scheduled messages, if it is necessary to stop sending messages to a contact if they reply. In this case, you could configure the "if contact replies" action to add the contact to a group, and also configure the "Not in Group" filter to exclude contacts in that group from receiving any more messages in the campaign.
If you want more control over what happens when a user replies or clicks a link in a campaign, you could create a Custom Actions service and handle replies or clicked links within custom actions, then trigger that service via a Service Broadcast or a relative campaign.
When editing a campaign, you can click "Save changes" at any time to save your progress. You can leave the editor and return later by finding the draft campaign on the Campaigns page.
Previewing and Sending the Campaign
When "Preview" is clicked, Telerivet shows a summary of the campaign that will be scheduled or sent, so you can double-check that everything looks correct.
For Message Broadcast campaigns, it will also show a preview of some messages that will be sent and some of the contacts that will receive the broadcast. Service Broadcast campaigns will also show a preview of some of the contacts that will receive the broadcast. When "Schedule" or "Send Now" is clicked on the Preview page, the Campaign will be scheduled or sent and you will be redirected to the Campaign Detail page.
Viewing Campaign Details and Statistics
For each campaign, the Campaign Detail page shows a summary of the campaign and relevant statistics. For campaigns that have already been sent, several statistics will also be displayed, including:
- Total message count
- Number of messages sent (excluding queued and failed messages)
- If sending multi-part SMS messages, the number of SMS parts sent
- Number and percentage of messages in each status (e.g. queued, sent, failed, delivered, not delivered), displayed in a pie chart
- If the campaign has short links, the number of clicks and the click-through rate, and a chart showing the number of clicks by time
- If contacts have replied to the campaign, the number of contacts who replied and the response rate
- Total amount of time and sending rate
- Total cost of messages sent in the campaign, if known
For relative campaigns that have multiple scheduled messages, statistics will be displayed for the campaign as a whole, as well as for each message within the campaign:
For broadcast campaigns that have been sent, the sidebar will have a Messages tab where you can see the individual messages sent in the campaign.
For relative campaigns, the sidebar will have a Scheduled tab that shows the scheduled messages for that campaign, and a Sent tab that shows a summary of the message status statistics for each scheduled item. Individual messages can be viewed by clicking into the corresponding item on the Sent tab, then clicking the Messages tab.
When viewing details for a campaign, the Edit Campaign button at the top-right opens the campaign editor. If a campaign is currently scheduled, all settings can still be edited and will be updated immediately when the campaign is saved, without needing to click "Schedule" on the Preview page again. After a campaign has been sent, only the campaign name, labels, and actions can be edited.
When viewing a campaign, the "More" dropdown menu at the top-right has the following actions:
- Preview campaign - Shows the campaign preview page.
- Unschedule campaign - for scheduled campaigns, cancels any scheduled messages and reverts the campaign to a draft. However, if triggered for a relative campaign that has already sent messages, the campaign's status will be changed to Sent.
- Clone campaign - Creates a new draft campaign that initially has the same settings as the current campaign. This speeds up the process of creating a new campaign that is similar to an existing campaign.
- Delete campaign - permanently delete the campaign (and any scheduled messages). This will remove the campaign from your Campaigns page, but any messages sent by the campaign would still be visible on the Messages page.
Managing Campaigns
The Campaigns page shows information about several campaigns at a glance.
By default, the List view displays campaigns in a table with the Campaign Name and several other columns:
- The Group column shows the name of the group that the campaign will be sent to, and any filters. For campaigns that are not already sent, it will show the current number of contacts in that group in parentheses (as long as the campaign is sent to a normal non-dynamic group with no filters).
- For campaigns with sent messages, the Message Count column shows the number of messages actually sent by that campaign. Note that relative campaigns may send multiple messages per contact in the group.
- For campaigns with sent messages, the Status column shows a miniature pie chart of the sent messages and the counts for each status. It also shows the number of clicked links and click-through rate and number of replies and response rate, if applicable.
- For broadcast campaigns, the Send Time column shows the date/time that the broadcast is scheduled or was sent. For relative campaigns, the Send Time column shows text summarizing the relative schedule.
- The Last Updated column shows the date/time that the campaign was last edited.
Additional columns can be displayed by clicking the "+" icon at top right, including Route, Type, Labels, Created By, and Time Created.
The tabs at left allow filtering the campaigns by status, and show the total number of messages with each status. You can also filter campaigns by Group, Label, Type, and Date via the checkboxes in the Filters section.
Clicking the Calendar tab on the top of the Campaigns page will show the campaigns in a calendar view.
The Calendar view will only show broadcast campaigns, and will not display relative campaigns which do not have a particular date/time.
When viewing the calendar, you can switch between month/week/day views and also use the tabs and checkboxes at left to filter the campaigns that appear on the calendar. Clicking on any item in the calendar will open the Campaign Detail page.
Campaigns Dashboard Card
Projects with the default dashboard have a Campaigns card which shows an overview of the current campaigns at a glance. The card provides a summary of up to 4 recent campaigns sent, up to 4 upcoming scheduled campaigns, and up to 10 ongoing relative campaigns. For each campaign, Telerivet shows the campaign name and message count or group size.
For sent/ongoing campaigns, the dashboard card shows the number of messages with each status and a miniature pie chart of statuses. Clicking on the campaign will show the Campaign Detail page.