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Mail Merge for Gmail

Campaign scheduling

A campaign does not have to leave right away. Schedule send starts it at a date and time you choose, and Autopilot spreads it over several days within a daily cap and a sending window. Both live in the campaign builder, in Google Sheets and in the web app alike.

Schedule send

Section titled “Schedule send”
  1. Write the campaign as usual.
  2. Click the Schedule send calendar icon (in the bottom bar inside Google Sheets, in the Settings column in the web app).
  3. Pick a date and time, at least two hours from now, and click Apply. The time is in your own time zone, which the popover names.
  4. The send button now reads Schedule N emails. Click it and confirm.

The Schedule send popover in the campaign builder

In the web app the same popover opens from the Settings column, and the chosen date shows as a badge next to Schedule send.

The Schedule send popover in the web app

The campaign appears in the Scheduled tab of Campaigns, and the rows of your sheet are marked Scheduled until it starts. A scheduled campaign is checked against your daily sending limit on its day: if it no longer fits, it is postponed to the next day with enough room, and you are notified. The builder also refuses to schedule a campaign on a day whose limit is already booked by other scheduled campaigns; pick another day or use Autopilot.

Changing or cancelling a scheduled campaign

Section titled “Changing or cancelling a scheduled campaign”

Open Campaigns → Scheduled and hover the campaign:

  • Edit send date moves it to another date and time.
  • Delete cancels it. Nothing is sent, and the campaign’s data is removed.

The Scheduled tab with Edit send date and Delete

The Change the send date dialog

Autopilot

Section titled “Autopilot”

Autopilot is for lists larger than what you want to send in one day. It sends a slice of the campaign every day, only on the weekdays and during the hours you allow, until everyone has been emailed.

The Send with Autopilot dialog

  • Send on: the days of the week. Monday to Friday by default.
  • From (hour) and To (hour): the sending window, 9:00 to 17:00 by default, in your time zone. The time zone is fixed once the campaign starts.
  • Max emails per day: the daily cap. It cannot exceed your plan’s daily limit.
  • Send as a blast: send the day’s slice as fast as Gmail allows. Untick it to set a number of minutes between emails instead.
  • The dialog estimates how many days the campaign will take.

Click Start autopilot. The campaign shows as AUTOPILOT in the Campaigns list, and Edit autopilot in its row menu changes the days, hours, cap and delay while it runs.

Autopilot also lets a campaign exceed today’s limit: when the builder warns that a campaign is over your daily sending limit, Set up Autopilot is the way to send it anyway, spread over the following days.