Build And Configure Your First Campaign

Building and configuring a campaign is the final step before sending information to your CRM. A campaign is made up of three elements: datasources, channels, and segmentations. Together, they allow you to cross-reference channels with segments and tag your constituents with the right information in your CRM.

Before creating a campaign, make sure you have a datasource connected, at least one channel created and a segmentation already built.

If you're missing a datasource or channel, start with the Quick Setup Guide. If you don't have a segmentation, follow the Build Your First Segmentation Guide.

To get started, go to the Campaigns page. Click Create New Campaign, then select Create Blank. A step-by-step builder will walk you through the setup.

Enter a name for your campaign. The description is optional, but it can be helpful for context. Once ready, click Next Step.

Select one of your existing channels, or create a new one. When finished, move to the next step.

A system determines where the information will be sent. Click the Add System Interaction box, then choose a system and entity. Systems and entities are tied to datasources. For example, if you’ve connected Raiser’s Edge NXT, you might select Raiser’s Edge NXT as the system and Constituent Appeal as the entity.
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You can edit the label if needed, but by default it uses the system and entity names. Confirm your selection and continue.

Click the Use Existing Segmentation box and select a segmentation. If you don't have one yet, click the Create New Segmentation box and follow the Build Your First Segmentation Guide.

After this step, you can view your campaign by clicking View Campaign.

Once your campaign is created, you’ll see its main components: Segmentation, Channels, and Systems, along with two new sections: Assign Data and Summary.

The Assign Data tab is where you decide what information to push to your CRM. Each row in the table represents a segment from your segmentation, and each column represents a channel. Where they intersect, you’ll find:

Click on a system badge to configure it. The information required depends on the system. For example, with Raiser’s Edge NXT, you’ll need to choose an Appeal and a Package to tag your constituents with, and you may optionally add a date. Once confirmed, the badge border changes from dashed to colored, indicating it is ready.

Before you can push data, you must lock your campaign. Locking creates a snapshot of the numbers in your campaign and ensures consistency when sending data to your CRM.

To lock, use the switch at the bottom-right of the screen. You’ll be asked whether you want to refresh calculations. This option recalculates your segmentation and channels to pull the latest numbers from your CRM, which may take time depending on complexity. For this guide, you can skip the refresh and simply confirm the lock.

Once locked, you can push data from any configured system badges. Pushing applies the information you set to your constituents in the connected CRM.

You can push data in different ways:

For example, to push all data for the Lapsed 3 Years segment, open the three-dot menu at the end of the segment row and select Push all data in this segment. A progress window will show you the status, and once complete, the selected constituents will be tagged in your CRM.

If you need to reverse the process, you can unpush data. The steps are the same as pushing, except you choose the Unpush action.

Congratulation, you’ve successfully built your first campaign and pushed data to your CRM.

Building a campaign from scratch helps you understand how everything works, but it can take time to set up. To make things faster, you can use templates. With just a few clicks, templates let you build complete campaigns with pre-defined structures.

To learn more, check out the Templates section.

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