One campaign, four channels, and a refusal to launch badly
A campaign is a list, a sequence of steps, and the channels those steps use. The parts worth describing are not the builder — every tool has one — but the checks around it: what has to be true before it will start, when it is allowed to send, and what makes it stop on its own.
What a campaign is
| A filtered listWhich of your leads this campaign is for | Filters |
|---|---|
| ChannelsWhatsApp, email, SMS, AI voice — any combination | Up to four |
| A sequenceOrdered steps with delays between them | Multi-step |
Four states
- Draft — being built. Nothing has been sent and nothing has been charged.
- Active — running, inside its send window.
- Paused — stopped, by you or by the system, and resumable.
- Completed — the sequence finished for every lead in it.
Four rather than a dozen, for the same reason the inbox has three statuses: a state machine nobody can hold in their head is a state machine nobody keeps accurate.
The pre-flight
A campaign will not launch if the channel it needs is not actually configured. If a sequence has a WhatsApp step and no WhatsApp number is connected, the launch is refused with the reason — rather than starting, failing per message, and telling you afterwards.
Why this matters more on WhatsApp than anywhere else
Failed sends are not free of consequence there. They can affect the quality rating on your number, which affects your messaging limits. Finding out at launch is materially better than finding out from Meta.
Send windows
Steps go out inside a send window that defaults to Monday to Friday, 9:30am–6:30pm IST. A campaign launched at midnight starts on the next working morning rather than at midnight.
Two reasons, and the second is the serious one: arrival time changes B2B reply rates more than subject lines do, and commercial calling and messaging hours are regulated in India.
What stops a campaign
- You pause it.
- The balance runs out — it pauses itself and notifies you rather than failing message by message.
- A lead replies, is marked do-not-contact, or lands on the suppression list. That lead stops; the campaign continues for everyone else.
- The sequence finishes.
Scheduled steps live in a queue rather than in a running process, so a step booked for tomorrow morning survives a restart and fires on time.
What it does not do
- It does not launch itself. An AI can propose a campaign; a person approves it.
- It does not write the pitch for you, beyond a first draft you are expected to edit.
- It does not guarantee delivery. Meta, your SMTP reputation and the carrier all get a vote.
- It does not decide who to contact. That is the filter you set, and the scoring you ran first.
Questions
- Can one campaign use more than one channel?
- That is the point of it. A sequence can open on WhatsApp, follow up by email, and try a call — from one campaign against one list, rather than three tools and a spreadsheet reconciling them.
- What happens if I run out of balance mid-campaign?
- The campaign pauses itself and you are notified, rather than continuing to fail one message at a time. Half-sent sequences are worse than paused ones: the recipient gets an opener and no follow-up.
- Does a reply stop the sequence?
- A reply is what the sequence exists to produce, and continuing to send automated follow-ups to someone who has already answered is the fastest way to lose them. Replies are surfaced and classified so the conversation moves to a human.