For recurring campaigns — a weekly term newsletter, a monthly leadership update, a regular community email — the fastest way to create the next one is to replicate the last one. PortalHQ keeps the design, sender, recipient list and structure intact so you only need to update the content.
When to replicate
Use replication when:
- The new campaign has the same audience as a previous one.
- The structure (header, sections, footer) is the same.
- You want consistency week-over-week or month-over-month.
If the new campaign is meaningfully different — different audience, different layout, different purpose — start from scratch or from a template instead.
How to replicate
- Open the campaign you want to copy from (any sent or draft campaign in your list).
- Choose Replicate.
- PortalHQ creates a new Draft campaign with everything copied across:
- Name (suffixed with (Copy) — rename it).
- Subject line.
- Sender and reply-to.
- Recipient list(s).
- Content (every block, image and link). - Edit the copy:
- Update the name.
- Update the subject to reflect the new edition (e.g. Term 2 Newsletter — Week 4).
- Update the content for this week’s news.
- Update images that are time-specific. - Preview, test, send (or schedule).
What carries across
- All content (text, images, buttons, layout).
- Sender, reply-to, recipient lists.
- Settings (category, subject patterns).
- Personalisation tokens.
What doesn’t carry across
- Stats — the new campaign has its own stats from zero.
- Sent timestamp — the new campaign is a fresh Draft.
- Send schedule — you set this on the new campaign.
A typical workflow for weekly newsletters
- Friday: replicate last week’s Term Newsletter.
- Friday afternoon: update the content with this week’s news.
- Monday: peer-review.
- Tuesday 9 am: scheduled send.
Replication shaves the design time off the workflow — content is what changes each week, not structure.
Replicating vs. templates
| Approach | When to use |
|---|---|
| Replicate | The previous campaign is recent and the content structure is current. |
| Template | The campaign is a longer-term recurring pattern, or you want a clean starting point without copying old content. |
For most weekly newsletters, replicate. For genre patterns (e.g. Event Reminder Template, Survey Template) used across many one-off campaigns, save as templates instead. See Building and reusing email templates.
Tips
- Don’t accidentally send the previous edition’s content. Always change the content blocks for the new week before sending.
- Update images. Photos of last week’s event are wrong for this week’s edition.
- Refresh links. Last edition’s call-to-action button may now go to a dead page.
- Update subject line. Term 2 Newsletter — Week 3 and Term 2 Newsletter — Week 4 tell parents which is which.
- Don’t replicate too far back. Replicating a campaign from a year ago can carry stale dates, expired offers and old branding. Replicate from a recent one, or use a template.