Building and Launching a Campaign
What it does: assembles list, copy, senders and timing into a campaign, checks it, and activates it.
Run it when: the list and the copy both exist and the shape is decided.
Time: 30 minutes, most of it checking rather than building.
Before you start
A lead list with leads in it, named after the ICP
Copy written for every message step
At least one healthy sender account, connected and inside its daily capacity
The sequence shape and timing decided
The steps
1. Create it as a draft from the lead list.
The campaign name inherits from the list name, which is why SOP 02 cared about naming. A draft sends nothing, so everything up to activation is safe to get wrong.
2. Attach the senders now.
Up to 10 accounts per campaign, except retargeting, which takes exactly one. A campaign with no healthy sender cannot activate, and a sender that quietly disconnected is the most common cause of a campaign that looks live and sends nothing.
3. Fill in every message step.
Every step that carries a message needs copy before activation is allowed. A blank follow-up step is not a skipped step, it is an incomplete campaign.
4. Know what is still editable while it is a draft.
Name, description, the lead list itself, sender accounts, InMail policy, and the message copy on standard sequences. Restructuring the sequence, which means adding, removing or reordering steps, is also possible now, and only now.
5. Know what is frozen after activation.
On a live campaign you can edit the name, the sender set, the reply agent's cap, and the text of steps that already exist. You cannot add, remove or reorder steps, swap the lead list, or change the campaign type. There is no way around this and no MCP path to it; the fix is always a new campaign. This is the reason the shape gets decided in SOP 13 rather than discovered during the run.
6. Read the sequence back before you activate.
Not the copy you wrote, the copy as stored. Read each step in order, check the branches go where you think, and confirm the follow-ups hang off the no-reply branches. Five minutes here prevents a campaign that sends message two to everyone who already replied.
7. Check the lead-magnet extras if that is the type.
A lead-magnet campaign additionally needs a keyword, an attached document and a linked hook post before it can activate, and the funnel only arms when the hook post actually publishes. SOP 20 covers the sequencing.
8. Activate deliberately.
Activation is two-step: a preview first, then a confirmation. It is the only irreversible action in the system, and it belongs to the person who owns the campaign, not to whoever happens to be in the builder. Nothing is activated on someone else's behalf without an explicit yes.
9. Watch the first day.
Check that sends are actually happening and landing in the working-hours window, and read the first few replies yourself. The first 50 sends tell you more about the copy than the next 500.
Do this / Not this
Do this | Not this |
|---|---|
Get the sequence shape right as a draft | Plan to fix the structure after launch |
Confirm every sender reads connected | Assume the sender from last month still works |
Read the stored sequence back | Trust what you meant to write |
Activate with an explicit decision | Activate to see what happens |
Check the first day's sends | Come back on Friday |
New campaign when the structure is wrong | Try to add a step to a live campaign |
Done when
Draft created from the correct list, named after the ICP
Senders attached, all connected, none at capacity
Every message step has copy
Sequence read back step by step and the branches verified
Timing knobs set per SOP 15
Lead-magnet requirements met, if applicable
Activated by the owner, with the confirmation step done knowingly
First-day sends checked
