Create Campaign

> Before running: verify exact flag names with smartlead --help. Flag shapes shown below are illustrative — confirm against the actual CLI.

/create-campaign

You're walking the user through creating a brand-new Smartlead campaign end-to-end.

What you need from the user

Ask these one at a time (don't overwhelm with a 10-question form):

1. Campaign name — e.g., "Q1 Founders Outbound"
2. Client (optional) — if they run a multi-tenant Smartlead account, which client this campaign belongs to. Skip if not applicable.
3. Target audience size — rough lead count. Drives mailbox sizing.
4. Lead source — do they have a CSV ready, or should we set up the campaign empty?
5. Sender mailboxes — by tag, by ID, or "use all my warmed-up mailboxes"
6. Schedule — timezone, sending window (default: 9-5 weekdays in the user's TZ)

The 6 setup steps

Step 1 — Create the campaign shell

smartlead campaigns create --name "" \
  ${CLIENT_ID:+--client-id $CLIENT_ID}

Save the returned campaign_id.

Step 2 — Set the schedule

smartlead campaigns schedule  \
  --timezone "America/New_York" \
  --days 1,2,3,4,5 \
  --start-hour 09:00 \
  --end-hour 17:00 \
  --min-time-between-emails 10 \
  --max-new-leads-per-day 50

Defaults to weekday business hours unless the user specifies otherwise. days: 0=Sunday through 6=Saturday.

Step 3 — Settings (deliverability-safe defaults)

smartlead campaigns settings  \
  --no-track-email-open \
  --no-track-link-click \
  --no-ai-esp-matching \
  --stop-on-reply \
  --stop-on-auto-reply

Why these defaults:

• Open/click tracking OFF → plain-text feel, fewer spam signals (see docs/learnings/mailbox-warmup-best-practices.md)
• AI ESP matching OFF → it routes Google recipients wrong (see docs/learnings/esp-matching-analysis.md)
• Stop on reply → don't keep emailing people who already replied

Ask the user if they want to override any of these.

Step 4 — Add the email sequence

Ask the user for their sequence — usually 2-4 emails. If they have a draft, paste it. Otherwise offer a starter template.

smartlead campaigns sequences  --add-step \
  --seq-number 1 \
  --subject "{{personalization_hook}}" \
  --body @email1.html \
  --delay-days 0

smartlead campaigns sequences  --add-step \
  --seq-number 2 \
  --subject "Re: {{previous_subject}}" \
  --body @email2.html \
  --delay-days 4

(Same for each follow-up step.)

Step 5 — Assign sender mailboxes

# By IDs
smartlead campaigns email-accounts  --add --ids ,,

# Or by tag
smartlead accounts tags get --tag-id  --output json | jq -r '.[].id' > mailboxes.txt
smartlead campaigns email-accounts  --add --ids-file mailboxes.txt

Sizing rule of thumb: at golden config (15 sends/mailbox/day), 1 mailbox can handle ~75 leads/week. For 1,000 leads, plan ~15 mailboxes.

Step 6 — Upload leads

If the user has a CSV ready, invoke /upload-leads to handle this step. Otherwise leave the campaign without leads — they can add them later.

Pre-launch checklist (before starting)

Before invoking smartlead campaigns start , verify:

• ✅ At least 1 sequence step exists
• ✅ At least 1 mailbox assigned
• ✅ Leads uploaded (or user confirms empty start is OK)
• ✅ Schedule + settings are sane
• ✅ All assigned mailboxes have completed warmup (/audit-mailbox-config)

If any check fails, surface it. Don't auto-fix without asking.

Start the campaign

smartlead campaigns start 

Or if they want to schedule a future start:

smartlead campaigns schedule  --schedule-start-time "2026-06-01T13:00:00Z"
smartlead campaigns start 

After launch — what to monitor

Tell the user to check back in 24-48 hours with:

• smartlead campaigns analytics — sends + bounce rate
• /check-deliverability — full audit

If bounce rate >5% in the first day, pause and triage.

Reference

• docs/learnings/campaign-cloning-runbook.md — full 6-step API details
• docs/learnings/settings-api-quirks.md — field translation gotchas
• docs/learnings/mailbox-warmup-best-practices.md — sender pool health

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: MattSezgin
• Source: MattSezgin/unofficial-smartlead-cli
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/MattSezgin/unofficial-smartlead-cli

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.