mailpitcher

Create a campaign, step by step

Send one email and its follow-ups to a list of people from your own mailboxes: add recipients, write the emails, check the preview, pick mailboxes and start.

Updated · 6 min read · 10 steps

A campaign sends the same email, personalised, to a list of people. Each person gets your first email, then follow-ups, all from your own mailboxes. Follow-ups stop for anyone who replies.

  1. Name itAnd pick a project, if you like.
  2. Add recipientsPaste from a sheet or upload a CSV.
  3. Write the emailsA first email and follow-ups.
  4. Check the previewOne recipient at a time.
  5. Mailboxes and scheduleWho sends, and when.
  6. Save & startOr just Save: nothing is sent.
A campaign, start to finish. Everything happens in one window, top to bottom.

Before you start

  • A paid plan, two-step sign-in, and at least one connected mailbox. New to this? Practise with the demo mailbox first.
  • Your list in a spreadsheet, with a header row. An email column is all you need. first_name and website columns help with personalising.

Set it up

Open a new campaign

Click New campaign in the sidebar. The New campaign window opens. You fill it in from top to bottom.

Name it, and pick a project if you like

  • Name: only you see it, for example “Fintech blogs, October”.
  • Project (optional): pick a client’s project, or New project…. Everyone on the list then shows up on that project’s board. See Projects.

Add your recipients

In your spreadsheet, select the rows with the header row and copy them. Paste into Paste from a spreadsheet. Or click Upload CSV to pick a file. One email per line works too.

Mailpitcher counts them and removes duplicates. Under Columns found you see the extra columns, which become merge tags. Click Add one by hand to type someone in.

The top of the New campaign window.
  1. Name: only you see it
  2. Project (optional)
  3. Paste rows with the header row, or one email per line
  4. Or upload a CSV file

Anyone on your do-not-contact list is skipped automatically when it’s their turn.

Write the emails

Write the first email

Under Emails, fill in the Subject and Message of the First email. Click a merge tag under Insert at cursor to personalise, for example {{first_name|there}}. Use Insert template… to start from a saved template. See Templates and merge tags.

Set up the follow-ups

A new campaign comes with one follow-up. For each:

  • Wait … days after the previous email, if no reply. 3 is a good start.
  • Subject is optional. Leave it empty and it goes as “Re: your first subject”, in the same thread.
  • Click Add follow-up for more (up to 4), or Remove follow-up.

Add an unsubscribe link is ticked. Leave it on. See Unsubscribe links.

The Emails section with a first email and one follow-up.
  1. Subject of the first email
  2. The message
  3. Days to wait before the follow-up
  4. Add follow-up
  5. Unsubscribe link (on by default)

Test subject lines (optional)

Under an email’s subject, click Add subject variant to try two or more subjects. Each variant has a number of recipients, for example A 40, B 40, C 20. Under the list you see how many are assigned, for example “100 of 296 assigned · 196 left”.

  • Remaining go to: who gets the people beyond the counts. Spread evenly across variants (the default), or one variant.
  • A variant set to 0 is paused: nobody new gets it.
  • Which variant someone gets is fixed once their email is queued or sent. Changing the counts later only affects people not assigned yet. People added later fill counts that aren’t full yet first.
  • A follow-up without its own subject replies under the subject that person got.

Results are on the campaign’s Overview tab, under Subject A/B results: sent, replied, reply rate and bounce rate for each variant. Mailpitcher doesn’t track opens, so variants are compared on replies. A variant is only called Likely better once each one has at least 30 sends and the difference is unlikely to be chance (p < 0.05). Until then it says Not enough data yet.

When you have a winner, click Send the rest with this one next to it: every count is frozen at the people already assigned, and everyone else, plus anyone you add later, gets that subject. Duplicate with this subject makes a new draft that uses only that subject.

Check the preview

Scroll to Preview. Choose a few people in Preview as and read their emails. Fix any tag it says is empty.

Choose who sends and when

Pick the mailboxes

Under Send from, tick one or more mailboxes. If you have more than one, none is ticked for you, so you always choose which address the outreach comes from. Each sends at most its own daily cap: 100 a day, or 50 for a mailbox in its first 3 days. More mailboxes means more emails a day.

Send from: tick one or more mailboxes. Each sends at most its own daily cap.
  1. Tick the mailboxes to send from
  2. Their caps added up

Set the schedule

  • From and Until: the hours emails may go out. 09:00 to 17:00 is the default.
  • Time zone: use your recipients’ time zone, for example America/New_York.
  • Weekdays only is ticked: no emails on Saturdays and Sundays.
  • First emails go out: In the next sending window, or From a date.
  • Sending pace: Steady sends back-to-back from the start of the window. Calm (at least 60 seconds apart) and Spread out (at least 30 seconds apart) plan each day when you click Save & start: everyone due gets a random time inside the window, and the box under the paces tells you if anyone won’t fit.

More on this, and the Sending pace, in Mailbox pools, daily caps and pacing.

Schedule: the hours emails may go out, in the time zone you choose.
  1. Sending window
  2. Time zone of your recipients
  3. Any day, or only on dates you pick
  4. Weekdays only
  5. Start in the next window, or from a date

Start

Save, or save & start

At the bottom, click Save to keep everything without sending: the campaign, its emails and recipients, which also go into the project as prospects. When you’re ready, click Save & start. This sends the sequence to everyone on the list, inside the sending window.

If a merge tag would go out empty, you see Check before sending. Click Fix first to go back, or Send anyway.

Add more people later

Open the campaign, then the Recipients tab, then Add recipients. Adding people never sends anything. New people show as Not contacted. When you’re ready:

  1. Tick the people to email.
  2. Click Send sequence to (the number you ticked).
  3. Read the summary and click Send to to confirm.

People who already got the email are skipped.

Recipients tab of a running campaign. People you add later are never emailed until you choose them.
  1. Tick the people to email
  2. Send sequence
  3. Confirm

Good to know

  • The Overview tab shows who was contacted, replies, bounces, a 14-day chart, and results by step and by mailbox. Export CSV downloads it all.
  • You can change the wording any time, even while it runs: Sequence, then Edit emails. Changes apply to emails not sent yet.
  • To reuse a campaign, click Duplicate on its page (or ⋯ then Duplicate… on the Campaigns list). The copy is a draft with the same emails, subject variants, schedule, pace, project and mailboxes, never the results. Tick Also copy the recipients to add the same people as new recipients; nobody is emailed until you start the copy.
  • To send first emails one by one yourself, use Review & send. See Review and send first emails one by one.
  • Replies arrive in your normal inbox. See Replies, bounces and do-not-contact.