Campaigns
Navigate to: Menu > Email & Promotions > Campaigns
Overview
Campaigns let you send emails to your audiences, for example a season launch to your whole mailing list, a priority booking offer to Friends Members, a last chance to book email for a show with seats left, or a reminder to last year’s panto bookers that this year’s show is on sale. You choose who receives the email, which design to use and when to send it, then track who opened it and clicked through.
Before you create a campaign, you need:
● An audience: A saved list of contacts to send to, built in Contacts & Relationships > Audiences. See the Audiences article
● An email template: The design of your email, created in Email & Promotions > Template Designs
The Campaigns page
The Campaigns page lists all your campaigns, with each campaign’s Name, how many Contacts it was sent to, its Status, for example Sent or Not Sent, the date it was Sent, or Draft if it hasn’t been sent yet, and whether it is Active.
● Add Campaign: Create a new campaign
● Show / Hide: Choose which campaigns are shown in the list
● Search, Column visibility and CSV: Find a campaign, choose which columns to show, or export the list
Create a campaign
● Go to Email & Promotions > Campaigns and click Add Campaign
● Include Audience: Choose the saved audience you want to send to, for example Panto 2025 Bookers, Opted In. The number of contacts in the audience is shown beside its name
● Exclude Audience: Choose an audience to leave out, for example people who have already booked this year’s panto, so they don’t receive the offer
● Campaign Name: Enter a name so you can find the campaign later, for example Panto 2026 On Sale
● Template: Choose the email template to send
● Subject: Enter the subject line your audience will see in their inbox, for example Oh yes it is! Panto tickets on sale now
The total at the top, Contacts Found, shows how many contacts the campaign will go to once your include and exclude audiences are applied.
Send or schedule your campaign
● Save Draft: Save the campaign to finish later
● Send Test to your email: Send yourself a preview so you can check the design, links, subject line and merge tags before it goes out
● Send Later: Schedule the campaign for a date and time, for example first thing on the morning your new season goes on sale
● Send To Contacts: Send the campaign straight away. The button shows how many contacts it will go to
After you send, the campaign shows as Queued for a while. Emails are sent gradually in batches rather than all at once, and campaign results update automatically every hour.
Campaign results
Track how each campaign performed so you can see what works for your audiences.
● Go to Email & Promotions > Campaigns
● Click the campaign you want to review
At the top you’ll see:
● Campaign Status: For example Sent
● Contacts: How many contacts were selected for the campaign
● Sent: How many emails were sent
● Bounced: How many emails couldn’t be delivered, for example because an email address no longer exists
● Total Contact Clicks and Total Clicks: How many contacts clicked a link, and the total number of clicks
● Total Contact Opens and Total Opens: How many contacts opened the email, and the total number of opens
You can also see the email template used for the campaign.
Updating results for large campaigns
For campaigns sent to more than 1,000 contacts, a Schedule Update button appears in place of the standard Update button. Click it and the results are updated automatically every five minutes, which is useful for large season launch mailings.
Contacts table
The Contacts table lists everyone the campaign was sent to.
● See each contact’s Name, Email, Opens, Clicks and Status, for example Sent, Queued or Invalid
● Use the Status filter to show only contacts with a particular status, for example Invalid to find email addresses that need correcting
● Click CSV, PDF or Excel to export the table, or Print to print it
● Click a contact’s name to open their contact record
Clicks and opens tables
● Clicks table: The contacts who clicked a link in the email, with the device and browser they used
● Opens
table: The contacts who opened the email, with the device and browser they used
Export your newsletter contacts
You can export the contacts a campaign was sent to at any time. Many venues do this after each newsletter, or monthly, so they keep their own copy of their mailing list as a back-up.
● Go to Email & Promotions > Campaigns
● Click the campaign you want to export, for example your latest monthly newsletter
● Scroll down to the Contacts table
● Click CSV or Excel to download the list of contacts the campaign was sent to, with their Name, Email, Opens, Clicks and Status
● Save the file somewhere secure, for example a shared drive your team can access
Use these to see how your audiences read your emails, for
example whether most open on a phone, and design future emails to suit.
What Backstage Manager tracks for each campaign
Every campaign records who received it, who opened it, who clicked and which links they clicked, so you can see how each email performed and who engaged with it.
Summary figures
At the top of each campaign you can see the Campaign Status, the number of Contacts it went to, how many were Sent and Bounced, and the total Opens and Clicks.
● To work out your open rate, divide Total Contact Opens by the number Sent
● To work out your click-through rate, divide Total Contact Clicks by the number Sent
For example, if a newsletter is sent to 10,000 contacts and 4,000 open it, your open rate is 40%.
Contacts table
● Lists everyone the campaign was sent to, with their Name, Email, Opens, Clicks, Status and Reason
● Reason shows why an email wasn’t delivered, where this applies
Clicks table
Every click on a link in your email is recorded, with:
● Name and Email: Who clicked
● URL: The exact link they clicked, for example your What’s On page or a specific show’s booking page
● IP and Location: Where they were when they clicked, for example Dublin City, IE
● Device: The device and browser they used, for example an Android phone using Chrome or an iPhone using Safari
● Timestamp: The date and time of the click
Use the URL filter to see how many people clicked each link. This shows you which shows, offers or buttons in your email got the most interest, so you can plan what to feature in future campaigns.
Opens table
Every open is recorded with the contact’s Name, Email, IP, Location, Device and Timestamp. A contact who opens the email more than once appears once for each open.
Filter and export
● Use the filters at the top of each table to narrow down the results, for example by Location or URL
● Click CSV, PDF or Excel to export any of the tables, or Print to print them
A note on opens
Campaign ideas for theatres
● Season launch: Your full opted-in mailing list, with highlights of the new season and a link to book
● Priority booking: Friends Members only, a few days before general sale
● Last chance to book: Past bookers of similar shows, excluding anyone who has already booked, when a show has seats left
● Know before you go: Everyone booked for a performance, with arrival times, access information and running times
● Thank you and feedback: Everyone who attended, using the Scanned filter in Audiences, with a link to a feedback form
● We missed you: Bookers whose tickets weren’t scanned, with details of upcoming shows
For emails that send automatically, such as a reminder before every performance, see the Automation article under Contracts & Signatures.
Tips
● Always build your audience with the Marketing filter set to Opt In for promotional campaigns
● Use Exclude Audience so people don’t receive offers for shows they have already booked
● Send a test to yourself and a colleague before every campaign, and click every link
● Keep subject lines short and specific, for example the show name and the offer
● Check Bounced and Invalid contacts after each campaign and tidy up their records in Contacts & Relationships