Campaign, sequence or series?

Three ways to send, and the whole difference is whose clock decides when an email leaves.
  • A campaignone email, one audience, one departure. You decide the moment.
  • A sequencea journey each contact walks at their own pace. Their entry decides the moment.
  • A seriesa calendar of emails to everyone at once. The date decides the moment.

One example of each

Campaign — your November newsletter. You write it, pick the list, and send it now or schedule it for Tuesday 9:00. It leaves once, to everyone on the list at that moment. Done. Sequence — your welcome journey. Someone subscribes on Monday: welcome email that day, tips three days later, an offer a week in. Someone else subscribes on Thursday and gets the same three emails — on their Thursday, their Sunday, their next Thursday. At any moment your contacts are scattered all over the journey, each on their own step. Look at the counts on the right of each step in the picture below — 6 here, 5 here, 4 here. That is a sequence in one image: fifteen contacts, three different places, because each one entered on their own day. The steps carry delays (wait 2 days), never dates. Series — your product launch. A teaser on 15 March at 9:00, the announcement on the 18th, a last reminder on the 22nd. You build the three steps once. Nobody enrols, nobody has a personal clock: the whole audience receives step 1 together on the 15th, then step 2 together on the 18th. Same editor, and look at what changed: each step carries a date and a time instead of a delay, and no step has a count — because nobody is sitting anywhere. Everyone moves together.
A sequence — delays, and contacts scattered across the steps
A series — dates, and nobody sitting anywhere

Side by side

CampaignSequenceSeries
What starts itYouThe contact, by joining a list or getting a tagThe calendar
The clockA single departureRuns per contact, from their entryOne calendar, shared by everyone
Where contacts areAll in one sendScattered across the stepsAll on the same step
How many emailsOneOne per step, per contactOne per sending step, to the whole audience
Delays mean"three days after this contact entered""three days after the previous step"
Where you build itCampaignsSequencesSequences, Fixed date (Series) tab
Shows up in the campaign listYes, as itselfNo — its emails are not campaignsYes, one campaign per step, created on its date

Which one do you need?

If you are thinking…You want a
"I have something to say this week"Campaign
"Everyone who signs up should get the same three emails"Sequence
"Everyone should hear about the launch on these three dates"Series
"I want to nurture people from the moment they arrive"Sequence
"I want a countdown that ends on the same day for everyone"Series
The short version: if the delay is counted from the contact, it is a sequence. If it is counted from a date on a calendar, it is a series. If there is no delay at all, it is a campaign.

Where the three meet

A series is a sequence — same editor, same blocks — with a date for a trigger instead of an event. Every series is a sequence; most sequences are not series. And each sending step of a series becomes a campaign on the day it is due, named <series name> · step N. From that moment it is an ordinary campaign: same statuses, same statistics. Before that day it does not exist as a campaign at all — you can see it coming on the Series tab of the campaign list, and on the calendar, as a forecast. A sequence's emails are never campaigns: they go out one contact at a time, as that contact reaches the step.

What is the same for all three

Whatever you send, the same rules apply at departure — a verified domain, a valid sender address, a working unsubscribe link, and the same balance. The same people are excluded: unsubscribed contacts, the suppression list, and anyone who declined the topic. And every send is logged per recipient, with the same statistics.