If you are a Click customer, you may have debated whether using an Email Send or a Campaign Automation would be best for a particular marketing initiative. While both methods will get an email to your recipient, there are also some distinguishing features and use cases that can make one choice or the other more effective.
Goals
- Learn which email scenarios are best handled via Email Send
- Learn which email scenarios are best handled via Campaign Automation emails
When to Use Email Sends
Email Sends require manual set up and are generally used to email groups of recipients. These traits make them a better choice than Campaign Automation emails if you need:
More content flexibility
Whereas Campaign Automation emails must be completed built out prior to adding them to the Campaign Automation, Email Sends allow users to modify their selected Email Template within the Email Send record to cater it to the needs of that specific Email Send.
More ways to add recipients
Email Sends support both static and dynamic marketing lists for adding recipients. Dynamic lists are low-maintenance because they automatically query a list of recipients who meet the criteria of the list at the time of send. Dynamic marketing lists are useful when you want the list to automatically update based on advanced find criteria you can set, so you can often cast a wider net and gather more recipients for your send. Campaign Automation, on the other hand, can only leverage static marketing lists.
NOTE: Dynamic lists are not supported by Campaign Automations due to how they query recipients. Campaign Automations run constantly once activated, and since dynamic lists only query recipients when it is time to use the list, the list query would have to be run constantly to ensure new list members are added to the Campaign Automation at the right time, which could detrimentally impact users' environment performance.
More reporting options
Since Email Sends are generally sent to groups of recipients rather than individuals, it is easier to report on their overall performance. You can get a summary of the statistics for an Email Send with the email statistics report. This report includes an overview where you see the graphical statistics of the Email Send, click reports, recipients, a click heat map and even information on social shares.
When to use Campaign Automations
Campaign Automation emails are automated and sent to individual recipients. These traits make them a better choice than an Email Send in scenarios like:
Nurturing individuals
Campaign Automation are a great tool to use when you need to nurture Contacts or Accounts. You can assign specific actions to occur based on common customer interactions. These emails can also be personalized through FreeMarker. Campaign Automation emails are generally designed to be more evergreen and optimize common business processes like welcome emails, form confirmations and gated content.
Sending internal notifications
Campaign Automation emails can be used in conjunction with the Notify User action in the Campaign Automation builder to make sure internal users stay informed regarding correspondences sent to Contacts they manage. For example, your organization is hosting an open house event and is monitoring RSVPs. Once an attendee registers, a notification is then sent out to the event organizer letting them know about this registration.
Sending reminders and confirmations
Campaign Automation builder's timers allow for a high degree of flexibility and control for scheduling email correspondences like reminders or notifications. Date Timers can be used to postpone an email until a specific day or only allow recipients to receive emails within a certain date range. Example use cases for the Date Timer would be scenarios like sending event registrants a pre-email reminder 2 days prior to the event regardless of when they initially registered or only sending Campaign Automation participants a notification about a sale during the week in which the sale is taking place.
Wait timers, which wait a specified amount of time, such as 2 hours or 3 days, can be a great asset in a use case such as sending health check emails to an account 30, 90, and 180 days after they sign on with your company, regardless of when they signed on.