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Create an email campaign

Email campaigns, also called newsletters, are emails sent to a group of recipients to promote products and services or share useful content to build and maintain good relationships with your contacts. With Brevo, create engaging and effective email campaigns thanks to an easy and visual email campaign setup flow where you can choose your recipients, subject line, and create your email design. 

Before you start

  • Ensure you have imported the contacts you want to send your email campaign to into Brevo. 
  • Read our Best practices guide for email campaigns to ensure you know all the necessary steps to take before sending out your first email campaigns. 
  • It is strictly prohibited to send via Brevo passwords in a readable format or to use any methods allowing the recipients of your emails to read or to have access to password-protected content or any content requiring authentication such as an auto-login link for example.

✍️ Create an email campaign

To create an email campaign: 

  1. Go to Campaigns > Email
  2. Click Create an email campaign
  3. Choose the type of email campaign you want to create. In this case, we want to create a Regular email campaign. 
    💡 Good to know
    Choose A/B Test email campaign to test two different versions of your email campaign on a test group of recipients. To learn more, check our dedicated article Create an A/B Test campaign.
  4. Name your email campaign to easily find it in the list of your email campaigns. This name will only be visible to you. 
  5. Click Create campaign

The email campaign setup page opens to choose the sender, recipients, subject line, and design for your email campaign ⬇️.

configure-campaign_EN-US.png

🗣️ From: choose a sender

The sender is the email address and name that will appear in your recipients' mailbox when they receive your campaign. The From step is usually automatically filled with the default Campaign sender you defined, or the name and email address used to create your Brevo account.

However, if the From step is not automatically filled or if you want to use a different sender for this specific campaign you can ⬇️:

🖊️ Choose or edit the sender
  1. Click Add from or Edit from
  2. In the Email address drop-down, choose a sender from your existing ones or create a new one. We may apply priority rules if you define a list custom sender. To learn more, check our dedicated article Choose the sender for your email campaigns
  3. By default, the sender name is the one linked to the sender email address you chose above. You can override it by entering another name in the Name field and customize it with contact attributes. For example, if your company assigns an account manager to each contact, you can insert their name as the sender of the email instead of your company's name. 
  4. Optional: Click Advanced options to modify the Reply-To Email address and the 'To' field visible in your recipient's mailbox. To learn more, check our dedicated section in the article Customize your email campaign to and reply-to fields
  5. Click Save
    from-configure_EN-US.png

👥 To: select recipients

Choose who you want to send your email campaign to: 

  1. Click Add recipients
  2. From the Send to drop-down, select in the different tabs the lists and segments containing the contacts you want to send your email campaign to. You can select multiple lists and segments.
    campaigns_select-lists-segments_EN-US.gif
    To learn more about lists and segments, check our dedicated article Understanding the difference between lists and segments.
  3. Optional: Click Don't send to unengaged contacts to exclude recipients who show a lack of interest in your content. You can specify your own unengagement criteria in your Contacts settings.
  4. Optional: Click Advanced options to choose lists or segments to exclude from your recipients and add conditions to filter your recipients. To learn more, check our dedicated article Exclude and filter recipients from your email campaigns
  5. Click Save

📣 Subject: add a subject line

Add a subject to your email campaign to allow your recipients to quickly know what your email is about: 

  1. Click Add subject
  2. In the Subject line field, enter a description of your email content in a few words. The subject line is the first content that your recipients will see in their inboxes. Use our Brevo AI assistant to help you generate a catchy subject line in a few seconds. 
  3. Optional: In the Preview text field, enter a short and attractive text that gives an overview of your email content. It will be displayed below the subject line in your recipients' inbox and is supported by most email clients. A preview of what your recipients will receive in their inbox is displayed on the right. 
    💡 Good to know
    Customize your Subject line and Preview text with contact attributes. You can also customize them with emojis by copying and pasting them in the text fields.
  4. Once done, click Save
    subject-configure_EN-US.png

🧑‍🎨 Design: design your email content

After setting up your email campaign settings, you can now design its content. This step requires the most work and creativity but has the biggest payoff! 

Click Start designing and search for the email template design you need in the different tabs. Hover your mouse over each template and click Preview to see what they look like. You can either choose to:

  • Use the Drag & Drop Editor to customize:
    • Prebuilt email templates in Layouts and Template gallery
    • Your own email templates in My templates, or
    • Templates from your previous email campaigns in Campaigns.
  • Code your own email using:
    • Rich text editor for basic text-only emails, or
    • Pasting your code to upload an HTML file created by a design professional.

Once you have found the email template design you need for your campaign, click Use template. The chosen email template design opens in the Drag & Drop editor where you can drag and drop the desired blocks into your design, such as text, images, or buttons.

To learn more on how to use the Drag & Drop Editor, check our dedicated section in the Help Center. 

🕹️ Advanced Settings (Optional)

Advanced Settings are at the very bottom of your campaign setup page and allow you to bring your email campaign design to another level. For example, you can add an attachment to your campaign, embed images, or customize the mirror link. 

Click Edit settings to show the three advanced settings categories and set them up: 

📧 Newsletter settings ✅ Subscription settings 🧑‍🎨 Design settings
Activate Google Analytics Tracking
Activate Google Analytics tracking to identify and monitor the email campaigns that refer traffic to your website. By default, the UTM Campaign value is the campaign name that you defined earlier but you can override it to Customize UTM Campaign Value if needed. To learn more, check our dedicated article Integrating Google Analytics with your Brevo account.
Embed images in the email
Check this box only if you need to insert your images as attachments rather than directly within the email content. 
❗️ Important
We do not recommend checking this box if you have several images in your campaign design as this may not be supported by some email clients and may increase the size of your email beyond the 5MB limit. If your email exceeds the limit of 5MB it cannot be scheduled.
Add an attachment
Check this box and click Select a file to add an attachment to your email. You can only add one attachment of less than 4 MB.
💡 Good to know
Accepted file types: ics, xlsx, xls, ods, docx, doc, csv, pdf, txt, gif, jpg, jpeg, png, tif, tiff, rtf, msg, pub, mobi, ppt, pptx, eps.
Add a Tag
Add a descriptive Tag to your campaign to enable quick searches on your email campaigns list.
Ignore list custom settings
Check this box to ignore the list custom settings you defined and instead use the settings you defined in this campaign set up. To learn more on priority rules for senders, check our dedicated article Choose the sender for your email campaigns.

🧪 Preview & Test

We highly recommend you Preview & Test your campaign before scheduling it. Preview your campaign directly in Brevo or receive it in your inbox or the ones of your colleagues. This will allow you to review your email campaign and have an idea of what it will look like in your recipients' inboxes and spot possible errors before sending it. To learn more, check our dedicated article Preview and send a test email.

🗓️ Schedule

Once you have reviewed your campaign details one last time and are ready to send it, you can click Schedule
There are four schedule options:

🚀 Send now
send-now_EN-US.png


If your campaign is ready and you don't want to wait, choose the Send now option and click Send Now

 

📅 Schedule for later
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Schedule your campaign at a precise date and time. Choose the Schedule option and select from the drop-down lists an appropriate Date and Time to send your campaign. Click Schedule to queue your campaign.

🤖 Send at best time
This option is only available from the Business plan
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Choose the Best time option and select a date from the drop-down list. Brevo will use data science to determine when your contacts are most likely to engage and will send your emails at that time. Click Send at the best time to queue your campaign. 
For more information on how to send your campaign at the best time, see Send Time Optimization.

👯 Send in batches
This option is only available from the BrevoPlus plan. The Send in batches option cannot be used to warm up your dedicated IP.  

The Send in batches option allows you to send your email campaign in multiple batches and at a specific interval of time. By pacing the delivery of your email campaigns, you can strategically control traffic spikes and prevent potential overload on your website.

❗️ Important
Once your campaign is scheduled with the Send in batches option, its settings are frozen. A campaign sent in batches can only be suspended or requeued. Only contacts who enter the recipient lists or segments selected before the first batch is sent will receive it. 

To send your campaign in batches:

  1. Select the Send in batches option and select a date from the drop-down list.
  2. Choose a Time at which you want to send the first batch of email campaigns. 
  3. From the Send in drop-down list, choose in how many batches you want to send your email campaign. You can send a maximum of 10 batches. 
  4. From the Time between two batches drop-down list, select the desired time interval between the sending of each email campaign batch. You can set a maximum of 2 hours of interval between each batch. Your campaign will be paused during this interval. 
    ➡️  For example
    If you schedule your email campaign tomorrow at 2 p.m. and choose to send in 3 batches every 2 hours, the last batch will be sent tomorrow at 6 p.m. All your selected segments and lists of recipients will have received your campaign. 

Congratulations! 🎉 You have successfully created and sent your email campaign!

⏭️ What's next?

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.

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