A campaign sends one of your saved emails to many customers at once: a customer group such as At-Risk, customers who haven’t bought in a while, or everyone who bought a certain product or from a certain category. You pick the email and who gets it, send it now or schedule it, and afterwards check whether the people who got it ordered more.
You will learn #
- What to set up before your first campaign
- How to choose the email and the people who get it
- How to send a campaign now or schedule it
- How long a big campaign takes to go out
- How to cancel a campaign, and how to check whether it worked
Before you begin #
- Save an email. A campaign sends one of your saved emails. If you haven’t saved one yet, Email templates has ready-made emails: open one, change what you want, and click Save template.
- Run an analysis. Your customer groups come from your last analysis. When you click Start campaign, Tendlio checks that this analysis is current. If you’ve changed a setting since then, or an analysis is running right now, Tendlio doesn’t start the campaign and says why. Start it again once a new analysis has finished.
- Fill in your store address in WooCommerce, under WooCommerce → Settings → General. Every email prints it in the footer, and Tendlio won’t start a campaign while it’s empty.
- Set up sending. Campaign emails go out only while sending is Live on the Email sending page. You can start a campaign while sending is Off: its emails wait until you switch sending to Live.
Open the Campaigns page #
- In your WordPress admin, open Tendlio → Customers.
- Click Campaigns.
You can also start from somewhere else. Email this segment on the Segments page opens Campaigns with that group already chosen. Send on a saved email in Email templates opens Campaigns with that email chosen.
Confirm who you can email (first campaign only) #
Until you’ve confirmed, a box called Before your first campaign sits above the form. It asks you to confirm, once, that you may send marketing email to your customers.
- Read the box. Its link opens a summary of the rules, Who you can email.
- Tick I have a lawful basis to email these customers, and my privacy policy mentions email.
- Click Confirm.
The box doesn’t come back after that. Until you confirm, no campaign can start, and an email you send to one customer with Send to this customer waits.
Step 1: Choose the email #
- Under Choose the email, pick the email to send. If some of your saved emails were written for a customer group, the list shows them under Written for a segment, and the others under Your emails.
- Check the small preview under the list. To see the whole email, click Edit / preview this email. It opens the email in the editor, in a new tab.
When the email was written for a particular group, Suggested audience: names that group, and Tendlio ticks it for you in the next step. It does that only while you haven’t ticked anything yourself. For an email written for Dormant or Lost, choose By how long since they last bought and tick the group yourself.
Tip: Campaigns doesn’t create discount codes. If your email carries a code, create the coupon in WooCommerce first, then paste the code into the email.
Step 2: Choose who gets it #
Pick one of five ways to choose people:
- By customer group: tick one or more of New, Promising, Champions, Loyal, At-Risk, Hibernating and One-time. Each group shows how many customers it has, and hovering over it tells you who’s in it. All customers reaches everyone.
- By how long since they last bought: Active, Dormant or Lost. These look only at how long ago the customer’s last order was. Every customer is in one of these and in one customer group at the same time, which is why they’re separate choices: pick the one that fits your email.
- By a category they bought from: everyone who bought a product in that category or in its sub-categories. Under They bought within:, choose how far back to look. It starts at The last 12 months.
- By a product they bought: start typing the product’s name, click it in the results, and choose how far back to look.
- By how often they buy: customers who placed at least a number of orders in a period you choose. Pick 2 to 5 orders under Bought at least:, and 3, 6 or 12 months or 2 years under In:.
The last three read your orders through WooCommerce Analytics, so they need it switched on in WooCommerce.
For customer groups, and for the groups by how long since they last bought, the line above Start campaign says how many people the campaign reaches, and how many days your daily sending limit spreads it over. The other three ways don’t show that line.
If you send to a category with more than 5,000 products, the campaign reaches the customers who bought its first 5,000 products, and a message after you start says so. To reach the customers of its other products, send campaigns to its sub-categories too. Some customers then get the email twice, because the first campaign already reached them.
Tip: If you’re sending a discount code, the page suggests aiming it at the customers who have been gone longest, such as the Hibernating group, or Lost under By how long since they last bought, rather than At-Risk. At-Risk customers ordered regularly until recently, so some of them may come back without a code, and a code they didn’t need gives away margin.
Step 3: Choose when to send #
Keep Start sending now, or choose Schedule for: and set a date and time. The time is in your store’s timezone, which the page names next to the field. If the time you set has already passed when you click Start campaign, the campaign starts right away.
When your orders show a clear busiest time of the week, the page names it under the field, for example “Your customers order most on Monday, between 10:00 and 13:00”. A button under it, such as Use Monday 09:00, fills in the next such day at the hour before that stretch starts, and switches to Schedule for:. You see the suggestion once your store has at least 200 orders in the last 12 months in WooCommerce Analytics, and one stretch of the week clearly stands out from the rest.
When you’re ready, click Start campaign, and click OK when your browser asks you to confirm.
What happens after you click Start campaign #
- The recipients are fixed. Tendlio makes the list of recipients the moment you click. Customers who join the group later don’t get the campaign, and a new analysis doesn’t change the list. Addresses that appear twice, or that can’t receive email, drop out at that point.
- The email is fixed too. Each customer gets the email as it was saved when you clicked, so editing the email afterwards doesn’t change this campaign. Product blocks show the names and prices from the last time you saved the email. To bring them up to date, open the email and click Save template before you start.
- Each copy is personal. Tendlio prepares the emails in batches while the campaign goes out. Each customer’s email gets their own details, such as their first name, when Tendlio prepares it, and Tendlio skips anyone who has unsubscribed by the time their email goes out.
- The emails go out gradually. While you have a daily sending limit, a campaign uses up to 70% of each day’s limit, so cart reminders, review requests and welcome emails still get through. Without a limit, Tendlio doesn’t hold the campaign back, and your email provider’s own daily ceiling can slow it down.
- One campaign at a time. While a campaign is scheduled, or Tendlio is still adding its recipients to your waiting emails, you can’t click Start campaign, and a note above the form says how many of its recipients are ready.
Check your campaigns #
Under Past campaigns, each campaign has a row:
- Audience: who you sent it to, for example a group, or “Bought from” a category.
- Recipients: how many people Tendlio has added to your waiting emails so far, out of everyone the campaign is for.
- Status: preparing, waiting to send, sending, finished, canceled or stopped by an error. A scheduled campaign shows scheduled for and its date.
- Started: when you clicked Start campaign.
Finished means every recipient’s email is in your waiting emails. The emails go out from there while sending is Live. The table lists your 25 most recent campaigns.
Cancel a campaign #
Click Cancel in the campaign’s row, and confirm. The button is there while a campaign is scheduled, preparing, waiting to send or sending, and on a finished campaign whose emails are still waiting. Canceling stops the emails that haven’t gone out yet.
See whether it worked #
Did it work?, under the table, looks at your latest campaign that has started sending and that you didn’t cancel. It compares how many orders per day the people who received it placed before the campaign and since, and also shows what they spent per day in both periods. The sales figures need WooCommerce Analytics.
Judge a campaign by the orders that follow, not by how many people opened it.
Why campaigns work this way #
The recipients are fixed when you click Start campaign #
A big campaign can take days to go out. Tendlio fixes the list when you click, so the campaign reaches the people you chose, even if some of them move to another group while it’s going out. Did it work? then measures those same people.
The email doesn’t change while it’s going out #
If a campaign followed your edits, customers who got it on the first day and customers who got it a week later would receive different emails. Because Tendlio fixes the email at the start, everyone in the campaign gets the same one.
Tendlio won’t start a campaign when your analysis isn’t current #
Your customer groups come from your last analysis, and the campaign keeps the list it makes at the start for the whole send. If you’ve changed a setting since the analysis, the groups may no longer match your settings, and while an analysis is running, Tendlio is rewriting them. A list made from groups like that would stay wrong until the last email went out.
Additional resources #
- How to build an email in the email editor: write the email a campaign sends.
- How to act on a customer segment: choose a group to email, and reward your best customers.
- Who you can email (consent, in plain words): the rules behind the confirmation.
- How sending works: waiting emails, the daily limit and email analytics: the order emails go out in, and how the daily limit is shared.
- How to set up email sending and switch it to Live
Frequently asked questions #
Can I send a test of the campaign to myself? #
Yes, from the email editor: Save & send test sends the email to your test addresses, with sample details in place of a customer's.
Can I send a campaign while sending is Off? #
Yes. The campaign prepares its recipients, and their emails wait until you switch sending to Live on the Email sending page.
Why did my campaign reach fewer people than the group has? #
Addresses that appear twice or can't receive email drop out when you click Start campaign, and Tendlio skips anyone who has unsubscribed by the time their email goes out.
Can I run two campaigns at the same time? #
No. You can start the next one once the first has finished, which means all its emails are in your waiting emails, and they can still be going out. To start a new one sooner, cancel the one that's scheduled.
Does Tendlio create the discount code for my campaign? #
No. Create the coupon in WooCommerce and paste the code into the email.