Send an email campaign to my audience

This is the final path for a one-off announcement. For the wider difference between campaigns and automatic journeys, start with How do email campaigns work?.

1. Write and save the draft

Open Community → Email campaigns → New campaign to write the subject and body yourself. Saving creates or updates a draft; it does not send.

The message box is a simple editor, so there is no HTML to learn. The row of buttons above it gives you a heading, a subheading, ordinary text, bold, italic, a link, bulleted and numbered lists, a picture by web address and a divider. Their name drops in the reader's first name or full name; it shows as a small tag while you write and becomes the real name when the email goes out. Leave the unsubscribe link alone: Bernard adds it to every campaign, and it is not yours to remove.

You can paste into it. Words come in as words, formatting the simple editor understands comes in as formatting, and a whole designed email pasted into an empty message is kept exactly as it is, with the HTML view opened so nothing about it is guessed at. Web addresses need to start with https://, and Bernard says so rather than making a link that goes nowhere.

If you would rather see the code, Advanced: edit HTML shows the HTML behind what you have written, and Back to the simple editor returns. A design that is richer than the simple editor can show, such as one built from a table or with its own styling, opens straight into the HTML view with a line saying so, and nothing about it is changed by opening it. Whichever view you use, saving runs the same checks: if anything in the message is not allowed, Bernard says what and why in plain words and the draft is not saved. A message with no words in it, or one too long to send, is refused before it is saved rather than quietly cut short.

You can also work with Bernard. AI drafting is available on Medium and Large plans. Writing, saving and sending your own campaign in Community are not restricted to those plans. If the shape repeats, start from a Send the same kind of email without rebuilding it instead.

If you have sent something like it before, press Duplicate on that campaign in the ledger. Bernard copies its exact subject, words and audience into a new draft and opens it, so you start from what worked rather than a blank page. Duplicating sends nothing and changes nothing about the original, which stays in your history untouched. The copy is an ordinary draft: edit it freely, then preview and approve it like any other. If the original was built from a Send the same kind of email without rebuilding it, the copy keeps the words as they were actually sent rather than rebuilding them from a template that may have changed since.

2. Choose a lawful audience

Community shows only the groups the site can prove, with current eligible counts. Buyers and students still need the relevant marketing permission; confirmed form signups can enter the matching form audience. Suppressed recipients remain outside. Read Who will receive my email campaign? if the number differs from Contacts.

3. Preview the exact saved version

Choose Preview exact email. The saved preview uses the same rendering path as delivery, including the unsubscribe link and the greeting fallback for someone with no first name. It has a version and digest, which together identify the content you saw.

Editing the draft changes that identity. Bernard will not let an old preview approve new words. Preview and test my email campaign before I send it also explains the optional private test email, which goes to one current account member only after you approve its exact destination, version and digest.

4. Read the final quote

Press Review and send on the draft in Community → Email campaigns, or ask Bernard in the Workshop. Both give you the same quote, in the same words. It names:

• the subject as it will arrive;
• the version fingerprint, which identifies the exact words you are approving;
• how many people will receive it;
• when it goes out, now or a time you choose;
• how long the stop window lasts.

Anything standing in the way is listed above the button, one sentence each, and the button stays off until it is cleared. Why can't I send my email campaign? explains each one. Only an account owner can press send; other members see the quote and that sentence in place of the button.

This is the one approval for the real audience send. Yes, send it freezes those facts. If the words, the eligible people or the timing change while you decide, Bernard refuses the old approval and quotes it again.

5. Send now or choose a time

In the quote, Now starts the stop window immediately. At a time I choose takes a date and time, which has to be in the future, and the campaign waits until then. A scheduled campaign can be stopped at any point before it goes.

6. Use the stop window

An immediate send waits out the stop window (five minutes unless yours is set differently) before any batch can leave. Press Stop on the campaign row while it says Held or Scheduled, or tell Bernard to stop it. The row counts the window down so you know how long you have.

Stop is safe to press twice. If some messages have already been handed over, Bernard says how many were stopped and does not describe the rest as unsent.

Campaigns use the verified customer-email identity for that exact site and never fall back to Bernard's platform address. If Why can't I send my email campaign? shows a blocker, you can keep the draft and preview while the send stays safely closed.

Afterwards, Community keeps the finished campaign as read-only history. The current status and counts are explained in What happened after I sent my email campaign?. Every campaign also includes the site-scoped protection described in How does unsubscribing from my emails work?.