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This walkthrough covers the full journey from a blank campaign to a scheduled send.
Before your first campaign, make sure you have a verified sender address and ideally a verified sending domain.

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1. Pick a template

Go to Campaigns → Create campaign. The template gallery opens — browse, sort, or search, then pick a starting point. Every part of a template can be changed, so choose for layout rather than color. You can also start from one of your own saved templates.

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2. Design your email

The editor opens with your chosen template. Depending on the template type you’ll be in the drag-and-drop editor, the rich text editor, or the HTML editor — see Email editor for what each can do. The essentials for every campaign:
  • Subject line — the single biggest factor in whether the email gets opened. Keep it under ~50 characters and specific.
  • Preview text — the gray snippet shown next to the subject in the inbox. Don’t waste it on “View in browser”.
  • From name and address — pick a verified sender your customers will recognize.
  • Unsubscribe link — included automatically in the footer; required by law and by mailbox providers.

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3. Choose your audience

Select who receives the campaign: one or more lists, a segment, or your whole subscribed audience. Retainful automatically excludes unsubscribed and suppressed contacts, so you can’t accidentally email someone who opted out.

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4. Configure tracking

Under campaign settings you can add UTM parameters to every link, so the campaign’s traffic and sales show up clearly in Google Analytics and your store’s reports.

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5. Test before you send

Click Send test email and send it to yourself (and a teammate). Check:
  • Subject and preview text look right in the inbox list.
  • Images load and buttons work.
  • Personalization renders correctly — including for contacts with no first name (set a fallback).
  • It reads well on a phone.

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6. Review and send

The Review step shows everything in one place — audience size, sender, subject, and a final preview.
Click Send and the campaign starts going out in batches. Status changes to Sending, then Sent.
After sending, watch the first hour in campaign analytics — if something’s wrong (broken link, wrong audience), pause the campaign and fix it before the rest goes out.

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Re-target from a previous campaign

From any sent campaign’s recipient list you can create a follow-up campaign — for example, target everyone who didn’t open with a different subject line a few days later, or move everyone who clicked into a list for a special offer.