Send your first email

Take one campaign from a new workspace to a reviewed inbox test, then decide when to reach your audience. Establish the sender and brand, bring in the customer context, and inspect the message and sending eligibility before committing the campaign.

Use a small, understood audience for the first send. The guides linked below explain each stage in detail.

1. Set up your space

   Choose manual setup or start from your website. Manual setup has three stages: Workspace, Brand and Contacts. The website-assisted path adds extraction and review across Website, Workspace, Brand, Contacts, Voice, Content, Assets and Design.

   Give the workspace a name and unique handle, and choose its permanent Data region from the available options. Check the business identity, sender domain and postal address, then choose the first contact type, such as Customers or Subscribers. When starting from a website, review the extracted voice, footer, assets and design before creating the workspace; they are proposed materials, not verified business facts.

   This establishes your workspace, brand and first contact schema. See Set up your space.

2. Verify the domain you send from

   Open Settings, Domains and select the domain from setup. Copy the exact DNS record names, types and values into your DNS provider, then choose Start verification check. Follow the individual record statuses until the domain shows Verified For Sending. DNS caches and provider processing can delay that result.

   Choose a sender profile or a From address using the verified domain. An in-app preview is different from an inbox test: Send test, campaigns, templates and workflow emails need the verified sender and available email allowance. Form double-opt-in confirmation uses a platform address; it does not unlock a campaign sender.

   On Free, first domain verification grants the one-time 5-credit gift. Eligible new workspaces can receive funded setup assistance earlier; ordinary generation still requires available credits. See Connect your domain and billing.

3. Get your contacts in

   Open Records and choose the contact type. Add Customer, or the equivalent button for your type, lets you create one person. Inspect their identity, useful profile fields, email subscription and topics before using them in a marketing audience.

   For a list, open Import Customers and Download sample CSV. The standard importer expects writable field keys with the exact case, such as email and firstName; it has no column-mapping screen. Unknown and read-only columns are omitted, and the row-outcome table does not show a warning for every omitted column. Inspect several saved profiles rather than treating a successful import as proof every field arrived.

   Subscribe to email by default starts off. It applies to newly created contacts whose row does not supply subscriptions; it is not an override for every row or an unsubscribe action for existing contacts. Choose it only for people who agreed. For a file needing renamed columns or transformations, maxinja's onboarding path can prepare a mapping and sampled dry run for review before starting the import.

   Check a new record, a matched existing record and a sparse record. An import can update stored data and trigger journeys, so review its outcomes before uploading the rest. See Add your contacts and Import a contact list.

4. Write it, test it, send it

   Open Broadcasts, New broadcast, then choose the contact schema and an optional segment. The schema stays with the campaign. Review the condition and actual matching contacts; the audience count is not the eventual number of deliveries.

   Open Composer, using Add content if the campaign has no email yet. Ask maxinja for a draft with the audience, message and fixed offer facts stated clearly, and ask it to leave the campaign unscheduled for review.

   Use Design (or Outline in a code editor) to inspect the email and sender, Data to check the selected customer and sample values, Personalize for Adaptyle instructions and generation settings, and Checks for readiness issues. Keep exact prices, dates and destination links in authored content or Liquid when they must remain fixed.

   Render a sample. If the email uses Adaptyle, configure Runs with under Personalize and choose Generate preview. Compare examples with complete and missing customer context. Use the toolbar's Send test to inspect the current rendered sample in a real inbox; the test is a transactional send and consumes email allowance. It does not prove your production marketing consent or audience mapping is correct.

   The app's readiness check requires valid sample data and a successful render. Resolve blocking issues, then read Estimate, including generation, possible corrections, reviews and sending costs. Unknown amounts are not zero, and an uncalibrated duration is not a completion promise.

   Open Send, or Schedule after saving a draft, and choose Send now, Schedule for later or Save as draft. See Send a broadcast for the full review sequence.

Know what happens after scheduling

maxclicks fixes the campaign revision and recipient selection during preparation, renders the messages and applies the required quality checks before dispatch. Preparation can begin before the scheduled delivery time. Contacts who join the audience afterward are not added to that run, and current consent and suppression still control whether an eligible message can leave.

On Metrics, Cancel send is available before preparation starts and returns the campaign to editing. After it starts, Stop sending permanently cancels remaining work. Messages already being dispatched may still arrive, and incurred usage remains. A credit wait or quality hold is different from a stopped campaign: inspect the reason before creating a replacement send.

What to do after the first send

• Check recipient outcomes first. Open Emails to inspect failures, cancellations and message activity. Sent means provider acceptance; Delivered is a later signal and does not prove inbox placement. Reconcile uncertain deliveries before arranging another message.
• Read the results. Use Metrics for delivery and response. Opens and clicks are recorded interactions, not proof of a purchase or activation. See See your results.
• Build the next customer journey. A workflow responds to a defined trigger, checks context and sends the appropriate follow-up. Review its branches and recipient data before publishing.
• Collect future signups. A form records the fields and communication preferences you explicitly configure.
• Adapt the relevant passages. Adaptyle uses selected customer context within the message you authored; review representative samples and keep required facts fixed.

Related

• maxclicks 101: the guided course from workspace to automation.
• Guides: one walkthrough per task.
• Developer quickstart: send a saved template from your application. The API validates actual inputs at execution time; its runtime checks are separate from the editor's sample-readiness check.