Campaign Setup
An in-depth and detailed description of how to set up your first campaign
Last updated
An in-depth and detailed description of how to set up your first campaign
Last updated
The first step is to click the Create Campaign button to give your campaign a unique name, description, and select your use case. All settings applied when creating a new campaign can be edited at a later date by clicking Edit Campaign from the campaign's Overview tab.
Typically, Poplar's address enrichment process sees a 50-70%+ match rate. In our internal tests we have generally found that older demographics tend to yield a higher match rate than younger ones. Thanks to the strict accuracy filters we've put in place, there should be a high yield of accurately matched addresses.
If applicable, Enable Address Enrichment when your campaign is created, or Edit and existing campaign to adjust the setting.
When making an API request or prepping an audience file, leave the fields for the physical mailing address blank and include an email address; Poplar will initiate an address search. You will only be charged if an append is successful, and will not be charged if a match can't be found.
The system will return append failed if it is unable to identify an address to match. If it's successful it'll change the status to mailing_queued.
You must agree to the Share Local Media Supplemental Terms of Use.
Emails submitted must be customer emails; you should NOT submit emails you have obtained in other ways.
The emails must belong to US residents only.
Recipient addresses for append will always be addressed to "Current Resident." Any personalization of the mail piece should not include any PII (personally identifiable information) for that specific customer.
Use of name merge tags is restricted for recipient privacy purposes.
Utilize a holdout to compare conversions between the mailed and unmailed groups. When setting up a campaign you can enable a holdout to easily analyze incremental lift.
We recommend taking a holdout for larger campaigns that send at least 5,000 sends a month. If you're mailing at lower volumes, the holdout size is generally too small to get a high level of confidence in it. Although for certain highly conversion campaigns smaller volumes may still allow use of a hold out.
Holdouts are taken after the address enrichment step so that it can be checked against your opt out list. Any holdout requests are still charged for address enrichment, but the print & mail fee is not charged when the mailing is in the holdout group
Given that the mailings are triggered individually and in real time, the holdout percentage is approximate. The holdout percentage you set is just the odds that any individual mailing will move to the holdout group.
When setting up a campaign you have the option to specify a daily and/or weekly budget cap. Budget caps are approximate and your actual costs may end up lower or higher. The reason for this is because you are only charged after specific events occur in the mailing stream. This means if more data appends succeed than expected, or if more mailing addresses you've provided fail to validate, you may see the actual costs come in above or below your budget.
Cadence
Reset
Daily Budget
Resets everyday at 12:00am UTC
Weekly Budget
Resets every Sunday at 12:00am UTC
All mailings that end up suppressed due to insufficient account credit or exceeded budget will be visible under an Exceptions tab, which will appear to the right of your campaign's History tab. The option to Retry mailers will expire after 30 days.
If your account has insufficient credit, you'll have to fund your account before you see the option to Retry the mailers from the Exceptions tab. If you have sufficient account credit but the set budget was exceeded, you'll see the option to Retry them if needed.
In addition to the account-wide address strictness setting in Account Settings, you have the option to set address strictness on a campaign-level which will override the global setting.
The Organization Default points to the Address Strictness set under Account Settings. The difference in criteria between each level of strictness:
Strict only validates addresses deemed "in-service" by the USPS.
Normal checks the existence of an address and verifies that the street and unit information is correct.
Relaxed will mail regardless of address validity.This setting is only recommended when mailing to commercial addresses
You can set a custom attribution window when you create a new campaign. By default, Poplar uses a 90-day attribution window. This is the period of time for which you wish to credit a customer's transaction to the mailing. We recommend a minimum of 30 days.
Before your attribution window has fully passed, you may begin to see some results, but because these are incomplete, we suggest waiting until the attribution window has fully passed before evaluating the performance of the mailings.
A campaign is not considered Active or available for selection during trigger setup until creative artwork is uploaded.
NCOA is a dataset of change-of-addresses filed by individuals and/or businesses with the USPS. The database is maintained by the USPS and we are required by the USPS run a check for every mail piece we send. Learn more.
Our location and area-based checks are performed on the original address that you provide. These checks are run prior to NCOA, meaning if your recipient has moved, we do not account for the move in our checks.
However, if you are concerned about potentially mailing someone who has moved outside your delivery area(s), you can append the phrase "or Current Resident" to your recipient name field. This allows you to skip NCOA, meaning your mailer ultimately lands at the original address.
Original
Use This Instead
USPS requires NCOA on this address
Bypasses NCOA
Jane Doe
123 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11221
Current Resident
123 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11221
Some campaign use cases require or would benefit from the option to show a unique return address from the one listed for your Organization. Reach out to support@heypoplar.com to have this feature turned on for your account.
Once you've created your campaign, you'll be brought to your campaign's Overview tab. From here you can navigate to Suppressions tab where you can enable Audience or Geolocation suppressions:
Before you begin designing, be sure to take a look at our extensive template selection and detailed instructions on file dimensions, address block, and export settings:
First step in uploading creative is selecting the size and format that corresponds to your design files:
Our address block is auto-applied, please DO NOT include a white block in your back artwork. We take care of that for you.
Keep in mind that postage type is assigned by creative and not campaign. Postage speed can be changed after finalizing your creative upload by clicking Edit Creative. USPS Standard postage is calculated into the Base Rate:
Premium Uncoated stock can only be used with static creative files (PDF/X-1a, PNG or JPG/JPEG).
Postcard creative files are uploaded in two parts: front and back. Two different supported file formats can be used in one creative; for example if only one side of your creative uses dynamic merge tag elements, the dynamic side should be an HTML file and the static side can be uploaded as PDF/X-1a.
If your creative is in HTML and contains a Custom Merge Tag, the platform will detect it and prompt you to set a Default Value. This value will populate in the event of an empty field in the recipient merge tag data being sent to Poplar. If your HTML creative contains Default Merge Tags, Location Based Merge Tags, and in some cases Liquid Logic, you will not be prompted to set a Default Value.
If you're passing custom merge tags to Poplar via triggered integration, use your Test API to confirm the data matches your creative and is present in the Request Details under your campaign's History tab.
The last step in the creative upload process is to Review & Finalize. Here you will see a preview of the front and back after cut, with our address block applied and populated with default data, the postage type, and a list of any custom merge tags present with their default value.
Only the creative name and postage type can be edited after finalizing. If any other information is incorrect or not ready to be finalized, click back or cancel to avoid over-crowding your account with creative drafts.
We recommend always downloading and reviewing your creative as a PDF preview to assure all images and text are rendering in high resolution.
After finalizing your creative upload, you'll be brought to the Creative tab within your campaign to see an overview of the creative's file format, size, postage, number of custom merge tags. If only one creative is present in a campaign, that creative will automatically be defaulted. If more than one is uploaded, you'll have the option to default one or none of the creatives. Read more on A/B Testing...
Click into the preview to see a more detailed summary of the creative's settings, the unique creative_id , the option to download proofs, and Edit or Deactivate the creative. The Default creative is the one that will mail in the event creative_id isn't specified in a trigger or API call.
Edit Creative only allows you to rename the creative or adjust the postage setting.
Deactivate Creative will label the creative Inactive but a greyed-out "ghost" of the creative will remain visible. An active creative cannot use the same name as an inactive creative.
