Creating an email campaign (legacy)

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

As of August 17, 2026, Race Roster is upgrading the event-level email campaign editor experience. Effective this date, all new campaigns created within the event email campaign tool will use a new editor, Unlayer. This new editor is the same one already used in Race Roster CRM email campaigns—an overall better design tool that is easier to use, contains more features, and ultimately helps you create polished campaigns faster.

As of October 1, 2026, campaigns that use the legacy editor will no longer duplicate into new events. If any legacy campaigns exist, they will only be available for viewing and reference.

To learn about adjusting to the changes, read our other articles:

• How to transition your event's legacy email campaigns to the new editor

• How to copy new editor email campaigns between events

For a sneak peek at the functionality of the new editor, read Steps 6 and 7 only of our article:

• Creating a CRM email campaign in my organization

Once the date arrives, the instructions below will be updated. In particular, Step 6: Customize will feature new information and screenshots to reflect the use of Unlayer.

 

Setup instructions for legacy email campaigns

First, log into your dashboard as an Event Organizer of a specific event. 

Then, navigate to the left of your screen to the search bar at the top of the navigation menu. Search and select "Email campaigns". 

You will then land on the email campaigns overview page. Creating a campaign is an 8-step process. 

 

Step 1: Select

1. After clicking the green Create a campaign button, select to either start from scratch or one of the pre-made campaigns. General campaigns provide a blank canvas with limited formatting. Pre-made campaigns have triggers and copy already set for the purpose. The pre-made campaigns are:

• Social referral tool invitation

• Abandoned registration reminder

• Thank you for registering message

• Personalize your fundraising page instructions

You are always able to adjust triggers and copy, no matter which type. Click the blue Save & continue button to proceed.

 

 

Step 2: Set up

1. Name your campaign. The Campaign name will be visible to you as Event Organizer, from the event dashboard.

2. Choose a campaign type, whether Transactional or Promotional. Learn more from our other article, Understanding the two email campaign types.

3. Use the dropdown menu to select a Sender. If empty, create and verify a sender by clicking the blue campaign senders overview hyperlink in the fine print. Learn more from our other article, Adding a sender for email campaigns.

4. Add the Email subject line, visible to the contacts whom you'll be triggering with the campaign, from their email inboxes. Optionally, you may also enter an email pre-header for additional detail at a glance.

 

Step 3: Triggers

Triggers are the logic that cause a campaign to send to a contact. The event contacts comprise the following:

• participant list

• volunteer list

• fundraisers list

• donation report

Based on the triggers selected, you target specific audiences within these contacts.

1. Select the trigger that applies to your campaign. Click Add condition if you need multiple conditions for a single audience.

For example, by selecting Send campaign if contacts match > all of the following conditions with the conditions Sub-event > is any sub-event and Date registered > is equal or less than > X date,  the campaign will send to all participants, no matter what sub-event, who register up until X date.

 

Click Add condition if you need multiple conditions for a single audience.

2. Select "any of the following conditions" if fulfilling just one of the conditions is enough for the contact to be triggered. Select "all of the following conditions" if you only want contacts who match every single condition to be triggered by the campaign.

3. If you want the same campaign to go to separate audiences, you can click "Add a trigger" to create another set of conditions. Example: you may have a reason to trigger participants of the marathon who register up until X date, as well as participants of the half marathon who register up until Y date, but none of the other contacts.

 

Step 4: Schedule

Determine when the campaign will be sent:

• Send immediately: send as soon as a contact who matches the triggers is added to the list, or for bulk sending. Example: as soon as someone donates and becomes part of the donor list, they receive a "thanks for your donation" email.
• Delay sending: send X months/days/hours/minutes from the time the contact who matches the triggers is added to the list. Example: 24 hours after someone registers, they receive an email with race training content.
• Send at a set time: send to all contacts who match the triggers at a specific date/time. Example: everyone receives their bib number and corral assignment 3 days before the event, on November 4.

Please note that with the "set time" option, the campaign will show 0 contacts in the review step, at first. Event organizers can view the list of scheduled pending recipients by opening the campaign, selecting the three dots "..." button, choosing "Recipients", then "Pending recipients", and adjusting the date filter to a date after the scheduled send date.

 

 

 

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Step 5: Template

1. Select a page layout, a theme, or a saved template. If you chose a pre-made campaign in Step 1, you will see its corresponding template pre-selected. As you create campaigns, you will have the ability to name and save them as templates, in which case they will list in the "Your templates" section. 

For more information on templates click here.

 

 

Step 6: Customize

1. Name your template. By giving your template a name, you will be able to recognize it and reuse it in future email campaigns, to save time.

2. Use the editor (also known as WYSIWYG) to add or edit text, tables, images, links, and any other customization. 

3. To personalize the campaign to each contact, you may use the merge tags icon.

4. Change the address and legal frame language if needed.

 

 

 

Step 7: Recipients

1. Navigate to the section titled "Who are you sending this to?" and select accordingly:

• Current contacts who match set triggers: send the campaign to every eligible contact at the time of starting the campaign. New contacts who are later added to the list (new registrant, new donor) will not receive this campaign, even if they match the triggers and conditions.
• Future contacts who match set triggers: send the campaign to every eligible contact from the moment the campaign starts, and moving forward. The campaign will continue to send out until the registration end date.
• BCC recipients: if you would like the campaign to be sent to a specific email address(es) every time the triggers are matched. This is intended for internal use as a way for Event Organizers to track every email sent out of a campaign.

2. Toggle on "Only send to each email address once" if you'd like only one email sent to each unique email address on the list. This feature is best used for promotional communications. It is not recommended for sharing participant-specific data (such as bib numbers). Example: if 3 members of the same household registered using the same email address, such as the parent's, an email campaign containing bib numbers and corral assignments should be sent for each household member, so the toggle should be left off.

 

 

 

Step 8: Review

1. On this page, you will be able to view the number of contacts the email campaign is queued for (if applicable).

2. Navigate to the left side to ensure that all your conditions and configurations are set up properly. If anything is off or incomplete, click the "Edit" button to go back to that section and update.

3. You can test what a campaign will look like in an email inbox using the "Send as a test email" tool. Enter your email address (so that you may check the inbox) and, if you've used merge tags in Step 5, select from an existing contact to pull their real data into the test email.

4. Once you're satisfied with the settings and look, navigate to the right side. Check off on the user agreements and click the green "Start your campaign" button.