Understanding campaign schedule and send options

You will learn

Learn what sending options are available for campaigns and how you can use them. When you schedule or send a campaign, you can choose things like your send time, send strategy, time zone, and other details.

Schedule vs. Send now

If you choose Send now when sending a campaign, it will begin sending immediately. This process may take several minutes or more. 

Alternatively, choose Schedule to select a time in the future for the campaign to send. When scheduling a campaign, you have a few send strategy options, outlined below. 

Send strategies

When scheduling a campaign, choose between a fixed, gradual, or smart send time in the Type menu.

• Fixed send time
  Select this option if you want all recipients to receive the email around the same time. Available for email, SMS, and push. Sending times may be slightly slower during peak times (e.g., on the hour, on the half hour). For faster sending, choose off-peak times (e.g., 3:04 p.m. instead of 3:00 p.m.) by typing in a minute value rather than selecting a 15-minute interval.
  
  Note that there is required processing time when sending emails, so there may be a few minutes between your scheduled send time and email delivery, even during off-peak times.
• Gradual send over several hours
  Select this option to break your send up into batches, sending to a certain percentage of recipients each hour until the message is sent to everyone. You cannot use this strategy if you're A/B testing the campaign. Available for email, SMS, and push. 
• Smart send time
  This option is only available to senders who meet certain criteria. Use Klaviyo’s AI tools to determine the ideal send time for your audience(s), then send at that time for optimal results. Learn how to use the smart send time feature. Available for email. 

Determine recipients at send time

When the Determine recipients at send time option is checked, Klaviyo takes a new snapshot of your target list or segment right before the scheduled campaign sends. This ensures that you are sending to the most up-to-date list.

This option is available for:

• Email
• SMS
• Mobile push notification

By default, determine recipients at send time is turned off. Learn how to change when campaigns determine recipients. 

When this option is not checked, Klaviyo takes a snapshot of your target list/segment the moment you click Schedule. If anyone is added to or removed from your list between the moment you schedule the message and when it sends, these changes will not be reflected in the send list. Note that anyone who unsubscribes will be filtered out of the send, even if they unsubscribe between when you schedule the message and when it begins sending. However, this may lead you to using more credits or sends than expected, as your list/segment may have grown since the time you created the campaign.

Timezone options

Depending on your send strategy, you may have 2 timezone options: recipient’s local timezone or a specific timezone you choose. 

Recipient’s local timezone

Select this option to send the campaign at a specific time in each recipient’s local timezone.

For example, if you send at 3 p.m. and select the recipient’s local timezone, a subscriber who lives in California will receive the email at 3 p.m. PT, while the UK subscriber will receive it at 3 p.m. GMT. If a recipient’s timezone is unknown, they will receive the message in your account’s timezone. 

If the scheduled send time has already passed in a recipient's timezone, you have 2 options:

• Send the campaign to those recipients immediately.
• Wait until the scheduled time on the following day to send to those recipients.

If you choose to send immediately, you cannot change the send time after you schedule the campaign. 

When you choose to send based on each recipient's timezone, you cannot also determine recipients at send time, meaning that no new recipients will be added to the campaign after you click Schedule.

Specific timezone

When a specific timezone is selected, the message will be sent to everyone at that time. For example, if you send a message at 3 p.m. PT, the message will be sent to all subscribers at 3 p.m. PT, regardless of their location. 

Additional resources

• How to change when campaigns determine recipients
• How to cancel a scheduled or sending campaign