A campaign is a single email blast — one design, one audience, one send. This article walks through creating one from scratch.
Starting a new campaign
Go to Newsroom → Campaigns → New campaign.
The setup is split into a few steps:
1. Campaign details
- Name — internal label so you can find this campaign later. Recipients don’t see this.
- Category — optional grouping (e.g. Term newsletters, Event announcements). Used for filtering campaigns in the list.
- Sender — pick from the dropdown of allowed sender emails. Defaults to your school’s default sender.
- Reply-to — defaults to the sender; override if replies should go to a different address (e.g. send from no-reply@ but reply to communications@).
2. Recipients
Pick one or more mailing lists the campaign should go to. See Mailing lists and contacts for setting up lists.
The recipient count updates as you add lists, showing how many unique recipients will get the campaign.
You can also:
- Exclude specific lists — e.g. send to All Parents but exclude Unsubscribed.
- Test segments — send only to a small subset for testing before full send.
3. Subject and preview text
- Subject — the email subject line. The single biggest factor in whether recipients open the email. Keep under 60 characters where possible.
- Preview text — the snippet shown next to the subject in inboxes. Use it to expand on the subject, not duplicate it.
4. Content
Pick a starting point:
- From template — start from a saved template. Fastest for recurring campaigns. See Building and reusing email templates.
- From scratch — start with a blank canvas. Slower but more flexible.
- Replicate from a past campaign — see Replicating an existing campaign.
Click into the editor and design the email. See Designing campaign content for the editor.
5. Save
Save as Draft while you work. You can come back to a draft any time before sending.
Preview and test
Before sending:
- Preview — see how the email renders. Check desktop and mobile views.
- Send test — sends to your test recipients (configured in Newsroom settings). Open the test email in a few different clients (Gmail, Outlook, mobile) to confirm it renders correctly.
Sending
Two options:
- Send now — campaign goes out immediately.
- Schedule — pick a date and time. See Sending and scheduling campaigns.
For most campaigns, scheduling is better — sending at a predictable time (e.g. Tuesday 9 am) is more consistent and lets you do final reviews ahead of time.
After sending
A sent campaign can’t be unsent. PortalHQ starts tracking opens, clicks and bounces as soon as recipients interact. See Reviewing campaign performance.
The campaign appears in the campaigns list with the sent timestamp and current stats.
Editing after sending
You can’t change a sent campaign’s content. The record is preserved as a historical artefact of what was sent.
For corrections or follow-ups, send a new campaign. Use a clear subject like CORRECTION: … if you’re correcting something just sent.
Tips
- Always preview on mobile. Most parent recipients read on phones.
- Always send a test first. A typo caught in test is fine; a typo in a sent campaign is not.
- Schedule for your audience. A 9 pm send when parents are asleep gets buried by morning. Tuesday 9 am tends to land well.
- Use clear, scannable structure. Most recipients skim. Headings, short paragraphs and clear calls-to-action work better than long prose.