Campaigns and sending rules

A campaign is one email to an audience of opted-in contacts. Its page has three steps, shown at the top: Write, Review and Send. A draft saves as you type, and you can go back to any step.

Write it

The Write step holds the subject, the preview text (shown after the subject in inboxes), the design and the content. Start from a template or from scratch, in one of three formats:

• Visual editor: text, images, buttons and columns.
• Markdown: quick to write, also by hand or by an AI agent.
• HTML: your own design. Zeebra cleans it and adds what's missing.

Merge tags fill in each person's details: {{first_name|there}} writes their first name, or "there" when it's empty. Your own contact properties work as {{custom.ticket_type}} (the property's key, shown under Settings → Properties). In the visual editor, type / and choose Contact fields (or type the field's name after the /); the subject and preview text have an Insert tag menu. Add more fields under Settings → Properties. The footer with your postal address and the unsubscribe link is added for you.

Test and review

The Review step checks the campaign. Each problem has a button that takes you to what fixes it:

• Blocks (must be fixed): no subject, no content, no unsubscribe link, larger than 100 KB (Gmail cuts off longer emails), no postal address, sender's domain not verified, nobody in the audience, sending paused for the workspace.
• Warnings (can be accepted): a subject over 70 characters, no preview text, unknown merge tags, no test sent, images without alt text, http:// links.

What passed is listed under them. Send yourself a test from there (it goes to workspace members only), and open the preview on desktop, on a phone and in Gmail, as any of your contacts would get it.

Tips for more opens

Under the checklist, the Review step may show up to three tips: things in the saved draft that tend to send email to the spam folder or cost opens. Each one highlights the exact words it's about. They're only advice and never stop a send. They point out:

• a subject in capital letters, or a run of !!! or ???;
• classic spam phrases such as "act now", "100% free", "risk-free" or "click here" (in English or Arabic);
• a "Re:" or "Fwd:" on an email nobody wrote first;
• link shorteners such as bit.ly;
• an email that is mostly images with little text, or has a great many links;
• no preview text, so inboxes show your first words instead.

When the content check's AI is on, it may add a tip of its own about the wording. Most emails get none. The API and MCP give the same tips (get_campaign_tips).

Where it goes

The Send step starts with where the campaign goes. Besides email, a campaign can be posted on your public page: a web page listing your past campaigns, like a newsletter's website, that anyone can read. Email only (the default) sends it to your contacts' inboxes and nothing is public; Email + public page sends it and also posts it there; Public page only posts it without sending any email. The public page has no tracking or personal links, and merge tags show their fallbacks.

Choose who gets it

Choose who it's from, then pick lists and segments, and exclusions to take people out. Only opted-in contacts who can be emailed get it: prospects, unsubscribed, bounced and people on the do-not-email list are skipped. You can also send to only the most engaged people first and send to more later. The number of people who get it updates as you choose, with who is skipped and why.

Choose a topic if the email belongs to one (newsletter, event invites): people who left the topic don't get it.

Send or schedule

The button stays off until the review has nothing left to fix. It shows how many people get the campaign, and you confirm that number (and accept any warnings) before it goes. If the audience changes before you send, you confirm again.

Send now, or schedule up to a year ahead (in your workspace's timezone). The audience is worked out when sending starts, so people who join in between are included. A scheduled campaign can be unscheduled; a sending one can be paused, resumed or canceled.

The rules that protect your sending

Zeebra sends at a pace that keeps your domain's reputation, and stops by itself when something looks wrong:

• New contacts first get a slice. People you have never emailed before are the riskiest. A first slice of them (5%, between 200 and 2,000) gets the email; the rest wait about three hours while bounces and complaints come in.
• Big sends are spread out. A workspace that suddenly sends much more than before is spread over a few hours (at most 72).
• New domains warm up. See Sending domain and DNS.
• Automatic pause. A campaign pauses when over 2% of its emails bounce (at least 5) or over 0.08% are marked as spam (at least 2). You decide whether to resume.
• Automatic block. Over 5% bounces (at least 10) or 0.3% complaints (at least 3) blocks the workspace's sending until our team reviews it.
• Gmail asks to slow down. When Gmail rate limits your sending domain (it answers "421 4.7.28"), the campaigns sending from it pause for 6 hours and then go on by themselves. For the rest of that day and the next, the domain sends at most half of what it sent in the 24 hours before (at least 100 a day), then the usual pace comes back. The campaign page and the Send step say until when, and you get an email about it.

Unsubscribes take effect at once, and people who bounce or complain are never emailed again.

Results

Each campaign shows delivered, opens, clicks, bounces, complaints and unsubscribes, its most clicked links, results by inbox provider and how it compares with your recent campaigns. Automatic opens (such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection) and link scanners are counted apart, so the numbers show real people.