How to send your first email campaign in Stacks

A Stacks email campaign is a message you send to a segment of your contacts — a newsletter, an announcement, an offer. You write the body once as a reusable template, pick who it goes to, and send. Stacks only emails people who've actually opted in, adds an unsubscribe link to every message for you, and paces delivery so your sender reputation stays healthy.

Before you start

• A sending email set up. Campaigns go out from your own connected email — you configure this once under Settings → Email.
• A few subscribed contacts. Stacks only emails contacts whose marketing consent is Subscribed (and who aren't suppressed). You can set a contact's consent on their record, and web-form sign-ups can opt people in for you.
• A message body. In Stacks the body lives in a reusable Template — you'll make one in step 1 (or reuse an existing template).
• Permission to manage email — only admins and managers can create and send campaigns. Team members and view-only users can see campaigns but not send them.

Step by step

1. Create a template for your message. Go to Email → Templates and click New template. Write your email body using placeholders like {{first_name}}, {{last_name}} and {{business_name}} — Stacks fills these in per recipient at send time. You can start from a built-in starter, write it yourself, or (using workspace AI credits) have AI draft it for you. Save the template.
2. Start a new campaign. Go to Email and click New Campaign. Give it a name (for your own reference), pick the template you just made for the body, and write a subject line — you can personalize it with {{first_name}} too.
3. Check deliverability (optional). Click Check deliverability to run a free spam pre-flight — it scores your subject and body from 0–100 and flags issues like ALL-CAPS subjects, spammy phrases or a missing personalization. Subject ideas next to it suggests alternative subject lines and uses workspace AI credits.
4. Choose your audience. Under Send to, pick All contacts, Contacts with a tag, or a Saved view. You can optionally exclude a tag or view. Unsubscribed and suppressed contacts are always removed automatically — you don't have to filter them out yourself.
5. Choose when to send. Pick Send now (goes out on the next send cycle), Schedule for later (choose a date and time), or Throttle (cap how many emails go out per hour to protect deliverability). Click Save draft.
6. Review and send. On the campaign page, Stacks shows exactly how many subscribed contacts will receive it — and how many were excluded for not being subscribed or being suppressed. When it looks right, click Send and confirm. Stacks queues the emails and delivery begins on the next send cycle.

Good to know

• Only opted-in contacts get emailed. Even if your tag or view includes everyone, Stacks sends only to contacts whose consent is Subscribed and who aren't on your suppression list. This keeps you compliant and protects your sender reputation.
• Every email has an unsubscribe link. Stacks adds a one-click unsubscribe link (and a List-Unsubscribe header) to every marketing email automatically. Opt-outs are honored right away — an unsubscribed contact is skipped even if they were already queued.
• Sending is paced, not instant. Emails leave on a rolling send cycle rather than all at once. Throttling lets you cap the hourly rate; scheduling holds the campaign until your chosen time.
• The body is locked in at send. When you hit Send, Stacks freezes a copy of the template's body onto the campaign — editing that template afterward won't change what already went out.
• Track results on the campaign page. Once it's sending, the campaign shows Recipients, Sent, Opened, Clicked, Bounced and Unsubscribed.
• Drafts are editable, sent campaigns aren't. You can edit or delete a campaign while it's a draft; once it's sending or sent, it's locked.

Frequently asked