This article discusses the pros and cons of re-using a great campaign and different ways to approach it.
You have spent time crafting a really good newsletter and you are pleased with it and you want to use it again.
When should you copy a great email and when should you create a sub-template from it?
There are two answers to this question, depending on:
- whether you want to use the copy more than once and
- whether you want to re-use campaign variables such as Practice-Name and Edition-Number and re-use Triggers – if you have them.
For one-time use, a copy is fine as long as there are no forms associated with the campaign (e.g. no RSVP Forms). You will need to be aware that Campaign Variables and Triggers will not copy over to the new version. You will also need to delete any previous send folders (e.g. June 2019) that are now empty in the copied campaign. This will help to clean up your reporting in the copied campaign.
For any other circumstance, use your great email to create a sub-template. You can clear out unnecessary pages, pre-position images and links, copy pages in the campaign to set up confirmation emails or reminders, add instructions to forms to remind your users to link to the correct RSVPs, and create place-holder Variables such as Event-Name and Venue which will be saved every time.
For a reminder of how to create sub-templates, check out the step by step guide here.
Once you have created a new sub-template and saved it into a Category you can apply that Category to the correct Containers. In this way, your users could find just the sub-template they need, and no other, when they go to a Container and click New Campaign. This method saves time and prevents errors.
Below is a table which indicates what is saved by the copy process and what is saved by the sub-template process:
| Feature | Copy? | Sub-template? |
| Campaign Summary Page – Campaign Name | Yes | No |
| Campaign Summary Page – Notes | No | No |
| Campaign Summary Page – Email lists | No | No |
| Campaign Variables | No | Yes |
| Triggers | No | Yes |
| Email pages and text | Yes | Yes |
| Standard links | Yes | Yes |
| Activity templates for link clicked | Yes | Yes |
| Content type for pages (eg Notification template) | Yes | Yes |
| Sent email folders | Yes – No data | Yes – No data |
Quick note: there is currently no feature available to identify how exactly a campaign was created