Creating a Campaign

Creating a campaign in SendBeam is a straightforward process. The builder walks you through four steps — Details, Audience, Email and Review — and the campaign is saved as a draft as you go, from the moment it has a name.

Starting a New Campaign

To create a campaign, navigate to the Campaigns section in the main navigation and click the New Campaign button in the top-right corner of the page.

1. Go to Campaigns in the sidebar.
2. Click New Campaign.
3. The Campaign Details step opens. Fill in the fields as described below.
4. Click Next to move through Audience, Email and Review. You can go Back at any point to change something.

Campaign Settings

The campaign form collects the following information:

• Campaign name — An internal label used to identify the campaign in your dashboard. Subscribers never see this name. Keep it descriptive, for example May Newsletter 2026 or Black Friday Promo — Segment: High Spenders.
• Subject line — The email subject that appears in the recipient's inbox. This is one of the most important factors in open rates. You can use merge tags here, such as {'Hey {{first_name}}, your exclusive offer is here'}.
• From name — The display name shown as the sender, for example Sarah from Acme or just your brand name.
• From email — The sending address. This must be on a domain this workspace has verified under Settings → Email & Domains, or the workspace's own shared platform address. Both fields are pre-filled from your workspace's sender details, and every send uses the sender details saved there, re-checked at send time. Replies go to the from address.

The email body may hold up to 500,000 characters of HTML and 200,000 characters of plain text; larger content is refused when the campaign is saved.

Subject-Line Suggestions

Under the subject field, Suggest subject lines writes five alternatives from your current subject and the email you have drafted so far — one direct, one curiosity-led, one benefit-led, one that names the reader's situation and one short one. Click Use to take one (or Use as B when a subject-line A/B test is on). Suggestions are written by an AI model from the email's own text; nothing about your contacts is sent, and nothing is stored. There is a daily allowance per workspace.

A/B Tests

Tick Run an A/B test under the subject to try up to five versions of one thing on the same audience: the subject line, the from name, the email content itself, or the send time. Version A is always the campaign as written; add B (and C, D, E) beside it — for a content test, on the Email step with Add a version, where each version starts as a copy of the one on screen and is edited in the builder like any other email; for a send-time test, each later version is the same email sent one hour to a day after A. Choose how much of the audience to test on (10–50%), how long to wait before picking a winner (30 minutes to 24 hours) and whether opens, clicks or — where your store sends SendBeam its orders — revenue per recipient decides. On send, the test sample is split evenly between the versions and goes out at once; everyone else waits. When the wait is up, the version with the better rate goes to the remaining recipients — automatically, or earlier if you press Pick the winner now (or choose a version yourself) on the campaign page. A tie goes to the earlier letter, so to A.

• Only the tested thing differs; everything else, including the audience, is the same for every version.
• Every version needs at least two test recipients, so a test needs an audience of at least twice the number of versions (four for two, ten for five). Smaller audiences are sent with version A and the campaign page says so.
• The campaign stays Sending until the winner has gone to everyone, and its statistics cover all recipients.
• Test sends and the contact preview always render version A.
• A send-time test waits until the last time has gone out, then compares opens and clicks over the same length of time after each version's release — so the earliest time does not win just for having been out longest. The remaining recipients go out at the winning time of day the next time it comes round, so the campaign can stay Sending into the next day. Pick a version yourself to release them sooner.
• From the API, pass ab_test with test_on and variants when creating or updating a draft (a two-version subject test can still be set with subject_b alone), and use POST /api/v1/campaigns/{id}/ab-test to end a test early.

Draft from a brief

Where the assistants are switched on for your workspace, the Details step offers Draft from a brief: describe the campaign and it fills in the name, the subject line and the email as ordinary blocks for you to edit, and nothing is sent until you send it. Each plan includes a daily allowance of drafts.

Language versions

Tick Send in more than one language under the subject to carry translations with the campaign. Say which language the email is written in, then add a language: each one gets its own subject line here and its own body on the Email step, where a language switcher above the editor moves between versions (a new language starts as a copy of the original, so a translator edits in place). On send, a contact whose language matches a version receives it; everyone else — including contacts with no language — receives the campaign's own version. The web version and test sends follow the same rule.

• Up to five languages besides the original. Every version needs a subject and a body.
• A campaign carries either language versions or an A/B test, not both.
• From the API, pass language (the original's code) and languages, an object keyed by two-letter code with subject, html_content and optional text_content and blocks. Send a test in one language with POST /api/v1/campaigns/{id}/test and language.
• Once the campaign has gone out, a Languages panel on its page shows sent, opened and clicked for each version that went out, and GET /api/v1/campaigns/{id} carries the same under stats.by_language. The web version shows a reader the language they were actually sent.

Choosing Recipients

The Choose Audience step controls which contacts receive the campaign. Pick the option that best matches your goal:

• All Contacts — Sends to every subscribed contact in the workspace. Unsubscribed, bounced and complained contacts are always excluded automatically.
• Specific list — Restricts the send to members of one of your lists. A dropdown lets you choose which list to use. Only subscribed members of that list receive the email.
• Segment — Sends to contacts matching a saved segment. The segment is re-evaluated at send time, so the exact recipient count may differ from what you see during setup.

The builder's Review step shows the recipient count; the campaign's own page shows N recipients right now under Audience: the subscribed contacts the campaign would reach if sent at that moment, worked out by the same rules the send uses (subscribed only, confirmed members only on a double opt-in list, confirmed contacts only on the Free plan). The Send Now confirmation repeats that number. Through the API, GET /api/v1/campaigns/{id}/audience returns the same count together with whether a send would be accepted. The list's contact count on the Lists page and the segment's preview count are broader — they include unconfirmed and unsubscribed contacts — so they can be higher than what is actually mailed.

Saving as a Draft

All campaigns start in Draft status, and the builder saves as you go. Nothing is created for an untouched builder; as soon as you type a name (or a subject), a draft exists, and every change after that is saved a moment after you stop typing. The bar under the step numbers says where things stand — Unsaved changes, Saving…, Draft saved — and links to the draft's own page. The address bar changes to the draft's edit link, so a reload reopens the same draft rather than starting another. The email design is saved with the draft too: a campaign built in the visual builder reopens in the visual builder.

If the same draft is open in two tabs, or is changed through the API while you are editing, the tab that falls behind stops saving and asks you to reload rather than overwriting the other copy's work. Nothing typed in the stale tab is saved over it.

A draft costs nothing: it does not count towards any plan limit, and the scheduler never sends one. Drafts are not deleted automatically — delete one from its page when you no longer want it.

To resume a draft campaign:

1. Go to Campaigns in the sidebar.
2. Find the draft campaign in the list — it will show a Draft status badge.
3. Click the campaign name to open it, then click Edit.
4. The builder reopens with your details, audience and email. Continue where you left off.