Schedule and send an email

Schedule an email to send to contacts now or at a later date

Review your plan: Some features, such as scheduling for later and resending to non-openers, are not available in all Constant Contact plans. If you don’t have full access, you may need to upgrade your plan.

Once you've finished customizing your email and have given it a preview to check for content and design errors, it's time to send it to your contacts. You can choose to send it immediately or schedule it to go out at a future date and time—up to a year in advance. If you add more contacts to your list before the scheduled date, they will receive your email too!

• Open the email schedule page
• Open the schedule page from within an email draft
• Customize the email schedule page

Design tip: Don’t forget to check for errors and send a test version of your email for proofreading before sending it to your contacts!

Open the email schedule page

You can find all of your email drafts from the Email dashboard:

1. In the left-hand menu, click Marketing channels > Email.
2. To help narrow your search:

•  Select "Draft" from the Status drop-down menu.
• Select an option from the Sort by drop-down menu.

3. Next to your email draft, click . . . > Schedule.
   
    
    

Open the schedule page from within an email draft

If you're already editing your email and are ready to schedule it:

1. On the upper right-hand side of your email draft, click the Continue button.
   
    
    

Customize the email schedule page

The email schedule page is loaded with tools to help you get the most out of your send by getting the right content to the right contacts!

1. Select the recipients for your email:

• Email Lists - Select a list or multiple lists. Don't worry! If a contact is on more that one list, they only receive the email once. You can't create new lists or add new contacts to a list from the schedule page. If you need to make changes to your list, click the "Got to the Contacts page" link and return to the schedule page when you're ready.
  Note: As you select or deselect different lists, your contact count changes. Clicking "Refresh contacts" gives you the total number of contacts your email will be sent to based on all the lists you currently have selected.
• Segments - You can send to contacts with shared interests or behaviors by sending your email to a segment. If you choose an existing segment, it automatically refreshes before you send so you're only sending to the contacts who currently meet your criteria. You can also create a new segment instead.
• Narrow by Tag - When sending to an email list you can filter your contacts by tag to prevent your email from being sent to contacts with a specific tag, or to only send to the contacts with the tag. Since tags are added to the individual contact, you can send to contacts across multiple lists that have the same tag. If you haven't created any tags, you won't see the "Narrow by Tag" link.
  
   
   

2. Review the information in the Campaign Info section:

• Subject line - Give your subject line a final review—it's the first thing your contacts see and can be what makes them decide to open your email or ignore it, so you want your subject line to have impact. If you want to add emoji or use subject line personalization, this is your last chance before sending!
  Note: Depending on your email plan, you have a couple of options to help you with your subject line. First, if you're not sure what to write, click the "recommended subject lines" link to get some subject line suggestions. Or, if you have too many ideas, you can A/B test two different subject lines with a portion of your contacts to see which performs better. The most effective subject line is then automatically sent to the rest of your contacts.
• Preheader - Give your preaheader a final review to make sure it supports your subject line.
  Note: Depending on your email plan, you can click the "recommended preheaders" link to get some preheader suggestions.
• From Name - This should be a name that your customers and contacts are most likely to recognize, whether it's the name of your organization, your personal name, or a combination of both.
• From address - Your "From address" helps your contacts determine if your emails are valid or if they should be sent to the spam folder. If you need to add a new address, you can select "Add another email" at the bottom of the drop-down menu to verify a new email address.
  Important: Due to industry email authentication requirements, your “From” email address may look different because it is automatically rewritten to comply with proper email authentication alignment. If you don’t have your own domain or haven’t self-authenticated your domain, we rewrite your address with our shared ccsend.com domain to ensure your emails get delivered to your contacts. We recommend using a custom domain.
• Reply-to address - The "reply-to" address receives replies from your contacts when they want to respond to your email.  Make sure it's an email account that you check regularly.
  
   
   

3. Review your Physical Address. Your physical address displays in your email footer and is legally required in order to be compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act. If you don’t have a physical location, you can use a valid PO box. If you have more than one location, you can click the Edit address button to make changes to your address.
   
    
    
4. In the Choose when to send section, select either:

• Send Now - To immediately begin sending your email. Please note that when selecting this option, an email may take up to 30 minutes to send, depending on your list size. To prevent any accidental sends, you're prompted to confirm your selection.
• Schedule for Later - To enter a future date and time to send your email, up to a year in advance. This defaults to an hour from when you hit the Schedule button if you don't specify a new time.

5. In the Additional Options section, you can:

• Select a verified email address to receive the early results email. This tells you how your email performed within the first 48 hours after it was sent.
• Check the box to automatically resend your email to those who don't open it.

6. Click the Send Now or Schedule button.
   
    
    

Once your email has sent, give your contacts some time to open it and then check the results to see how it's performing.

If a contact tells you they aren't receiving your email and they aren't on your bounce list, ask the contact to check their spam folder. If the email isn't in the spam folder, you can have your contact safelist your "From" email address in their email account or security program. There are also some role email addresses that Constant Contact never sends to.

Be a better marketer: Help extend the reach of your email by sharing it on your social media pages!

Questions?