Schedule emails

You can schedule emails to be sent at a specific date and time. Emails that are scheduled appear in the Scheduled and sent view. When you schedule an email for sending, Campaign takes a snapshot of the email at that time. If you need to make changes at any point after scheduling, you need to cancel the original send and reschedule it with the updated template.

In this view, the following calculations are used:

• Opens % is calculated as the # of Unique Opens % / # of Delivered x 100.
• Clicks % is calculated as the # of Unique Clicks / # of Delivered x 100.

To view a summary of the sent email details and preview the content, click the email name to open the details page. The email details include a subject line, contact source, and email size. Additional details include the mailing ID, address information, and more. In the Preview window, you can view the content of the email and the images used. You can also replace an image on the Images tab. Keep in mind that the new image should be the same size as the image that is being replaced.

If an email's status is scheduled, you can unschedule it. When an email is unscheduled, its status is changed to canceled and it cannot be rescheduled.

Manage scheduled emails

To save a scheduled email so it can be used again, complete the following steps:

1. Select an email and click the menu icon at the end of the row. Choose Save copy.
2. In the dialog box, enter a new name and folder location.
3. Optional: Select Maintain contact source association to associate the copied email to the selected contact source.
4. Click Save.

Unschedule an email

1. Go to the Scheduled and sent tab.
2. Select the email that shows as Scheduled.
3. The Delete button will be disabled.
4. On the Actions menu of the email select Unschedule.
5. Confirm your Unschedule selection.
6. You can now see the status of this email as Cancelled under the Scheduled and sent tab.
7. If you unscheduled an email, the Delete option is enabled and you're able to delete it.

To schedule the email again, open the email from the Email campaigns view and click Review and send.

Changing the reply-to address and from the address in a user's default settings does not change the reply-to address and from address in scheduled emails. You must unschedule the email and reschedule it with the new reply to the address and from the address.

Tip: Campaign provides options for time zones that use Daylight Saving Time. For example, certain areas in the Eastern Standard Time zone in North America do not use DST, while other areas do. In this case, you select the option for Eastern Standard Time (GMT -05:00) with daylight savings.

Send an email on a recurring schedule

There are two ways to send regularly scheduled emails.

• Create a recurring automated message.
• Add the email to a program and use the following steps:
  • Use relative wait time settings to send after waiting 1 month.
  • Allow contacts to re-enter a program every 30 days.

Troubleshooting

Here are some tips to help you resolve issues and errors that can occur with scheduled mailings.

Why did a contact who opted out receive a mailing?

To ensure accurate mailing records for recipients who have opted out, it is important to compare:

• The opt-out date and time of the recipient.
• The date and time when the mailing was sent.
• If pre-processing was applied to the scheduled mailing.

Pro-tip: The preprocessing setting can make a big difference if recipients complain about receiving mailings after opting out.

Our ScheduleMailingAPI gives the best definition of what this setting does.

PRE_PROCESSING_HOURS - Specifies if Acoustic Campaign should pre-process the contact source before sending time. Must be an integer between 1 and 24. If this is not included, the contact source will be evaluated for eligible recipients at the mailing’s scheduled send time.

Schedule send with Processing options example

Finalize and schedule the email.

Processing options

• 1 Hour
• 2 Hours
• 4 Hours
• 8 Hours
• 1 day (24 Hours)

When a scheduled mailing has a pre-processing time set, the recipients intended for the mailing will be evaluated during the pre-processing period set.

This is identified as the "Blocking" time for Acoustic’s email servers.

Example scenario

• A mailing is scheduled for 5 PM EDT with a preprocessing setting of 4 hours. The contacts will be evaluated at 1 PM EDT.
• A recipient in the contact source for the mailing opt-outs is added to the master suppression list, or their query criteria change at 3 PM EDT, suggesting they shouldn’t receive the 5 PM mailing.
• The recipient will still receive the mailing because of their status at 1 PM when the contact source was evaluated.

Review the following article Information to include with email support cases, if more troubleshooting is needed.

Why are my emails displayed on the Scheduled tab?

If you see normal and test sends on the Scheduled tab, it doesn't mean that these emails are scheduled. The emails appear on this tab temporarily. Messages usually appear directly in the Sent tab.

This issue happens when the system is busy processing messages but it has no impact on live send emails. These emails will be moved to the sent tab within a few minutes.

Why doesn't a scheduled email show the current query count?

Although scheduled emails show a (0) count in the Scheduled and sent view, this value does not mean that the email will be sent to zero contacts. Scheduled emails with a query as the contact source recalculated the query during the blocking phase of the sending process. After the email is sent, the true number of contacts that the email was sent to is displayed on the email details page.

Why was the scheduled email sent to too many or too few contacts?

The primarily occurs when you add and or update data in your database after you set up and run your query but before the sent date and time. Your data changed due to the import and either the field data that the query is looking at changed or you have more contacts who meet the criteria.

You can use the contact list as the contact source for your scheduled email without worrying about any changes in data to the contacts.

It also could occur if you are using queries as your contact source and someone edits the query between scheduling and the send time. The same is also true if you have queries within queries and someone edits one of the sub-queries. You need to ensure that any member of your team who works with queries checks if it is being used by another member to send an email. It might be best to make a copy of the query and edit the copy instead.

Why does the contact source in the Scheduled and sent view show zero?

The contact source shows as zero until the email is sent. After it is sent, this number updates to reflect the number of intended recipients. If the contact source is a query, the query calculates at send time, and the 0 updates to the new number of intended recipients to the query.

Error: The send date and time may not be earlier than the current date

Check the date and time of your local computer to see if it's correct. Campaign compares the date and time that you use when scheduling your send to the current date and time of your local machine. If the scheduled time is older than the time of your local machine, you'll see this error.