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Campaigns User Guide

This documentation will advise how to use Campaigns in Colleague.

  

 

Campaigns

This guide walks you through how to send and manage email Campaigns using Colleague, including setting up Outlook rules to organize receipts and track campaign performance.

 

Step 1: Prepare Outlook to Handle Receipts

Before sending a campaign, configure Outlook to automatically sort read receipts and undeliverables into folders to avoid inbox clutter.

Create Rules in Outlook

  1. Open Outlook and create folders for different types of receipts (e.g., “Campaigns > Read”, “Campaigns > Undeliverables”).
  2. Go to Rules → Manage Rules & Alerts → New Rule.
  3. Choose Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder.
  4. Click Next, then:
    • Select with specific words in the subject.
    • Add keywords like read, undeliverable, etc.
    • Choose the appropriate folder (e.g., “Campaigns > Read”).
  5. Click Next (no exceptions needed).
  6. Repeat for each type of receipt you want to filter.
  7. Click OK to save all rules.

 

Step 2: Select Records in Colleague

You can initiate a campaign from:

Highlight Records

  1. Navigate to the desired section in Colleague.
  2. Highlight all records you want to include in the campaign.

 

Step 3: Create and Send a Campaign

Create a New Campaign

  1. Select the records you wish to email and click Email.

  2. Choose Create Campaign.

  3. Enter a Campaign Name (e.g., “January Marketing Campaign”).

  4. Set an Expiry Date to define how long to track responses.

  5. Click OK.

Compose and Send Email

  1. Add the subject and message body.
  2. Use email templates or merge fields if needed.
  3. Click Send.

 

Step 4: Monitor and Manage Campaigns

Track Campaign Progress

  • Go to the Campaigns section in Colleague.

  • Your campaign will appear with a status (e.g., “Waiting to send”).

  • Once processed, you’ll see metrics such as:

    • Emails Sent
    • Undeliverables
    • Opens
    • Replies

 

View Results in Outlook

  • Check your designated folders (e.g., “Undeliverables”) to see the delivery status responses

 

Step 5: Associate Records with Existing Campaigns

If you want to add more records to an ongoing campaign:

  1. Select the new records.

  2. Click Email → Campaigns → Associate Current Campaign.

  3. Choose the existing campaign from the dropdown.

  4. Click OK to link the new emails to the campaign.

 

Step 6: View Colleagues’ Campaigns

Colleague also allows you to view campaigns created by other team members for collaboration and visibility.

 

Please Note

Specific categorisation in the event of undeliverables can be a limitation when using Outlook Exchange in comparison to solutions such as Mailchimp or SendGrid.
 
When using a campaign it will include a delivery receipt and a read receipt per email, but SPAM filters can block these receipts.
 
In the event of a 'bounce' (i.e. an invalid email address), there is logic to track undeliverables in this scenario.
 
However you could have a delivered email with the delivery receipt blocked and the 'read' receipt blocked.
 
Ultimately, the 'Sent' and 'Replied' stats are confirmed and can not be manipulated. However, Delivered/Undelivered and Read/Unread, are subject to the SPAM filters.

 
 

For more information regarding Colleague's API, please contact the Support Team.

Email: support@colleaguesoftware.com

Telephone: (+44) 01603 735930