Email Marketing - Setup Guide

How to set up Campaign Monitor

Otto's honest, no-fluff walkthrough. Every step here is what we'd actually do if we were sitting at your keyboard. Real gotchas first, real steps second, and a link to the personalized version at the bottom.

Read these before you start

• **Cost-per-subscriber scales aggressively as lists grow past 50k**, with reviewers on TrustRadius and G2 noting the bill outpaces competitors like AWeber and Mailchimp at scale (TrustRadius Campaign Monitor pros/cons, 2025). Model the 100k-subscriber bill before committing.
• Marigold-era product roadmap is uncertain - Selligent and Emma live under the same parent, and Campaign Monitor has seen fewer major feature releases than Klaviyo or ActiveCampaign.
• Automation is meaningful but shallower than HubSpot or ActiveCampaign - conditional branching and true lifecycle flows are limited.
• No native SMS, no push, no landing page builder (or a very thin one) - single-channel email tool.
• Client Manager is Premier-tier and adds seats-per-client billing that surprises agencies.

The 7-step setup

1. 1

   Create your Campaign Monitor account

   Sign up at the link below. Card required for the paid tier - most plans include a trial period; check the pricing section on this page first so you know what you're committing to.

   Open Campaign Monitor signup
2. 2

   Complete the initial onboarding

   Skip the marketing questionnaires when you can. Fill only the fields that actually configure the product - name, timezone, your first workspace or project. If Campaign Monitor pushes you into a setup wizard, take it - it usually accelerates the first productive session.

3. 3

   Connect your existing tools

   Wire Campaign Monitor into the rest of your stack. The integrations that most people set up first: Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, Eventbrite, Unbounce, Zapier, WordPress, Slack. Deep integrations are limited compared to Klaviyo or HubSpot; Zapier fills most gaps.. Do these before importing data - clean integration first, data second.

4. 4

   Import your existing data (only what you'll actually use)

   Do NOT bulk-import everything. Import the last 30 days of the ONE workflow you're moving over first. Prove it works. Then import more. Big-bang migrations are how Campaign Monitor deployments die in month 3.

5. 5

   Set up your first real workflow

   Pick the single most-frequent task you'll do in Campaign Monitor - the daily-driver workflow. Configure it end-to-end. Use it live for a week. Do not touch any other feature yet. Adoption failure comes from teams trying to use everything on day one instead of the one thing that actually pays.

6. 6

   Add your team (if applicable) and set access

   Once your solo workflow works, invite one teammate at a time. Watch them use it. The friction points you missed are the ones they hit. Fix those before scaling to more users. Never invite 20 people at once - you'll get 20 confused people and 0 useful feedback.

7. 7

   Compound with the right pairings

   Recommend Campaign Monitor when: business_size is 2-15, use case is newsletter or content-driven email marketing, design quality matters (nonprofit, brand-forward, publisher, agency), and list is under 50k subscribers. Do NOT recommend for e-commerce (Klaviyo), for SaaS lifecycle (Customer.io, HubSpot), for teams needing SMS/multichannel (Brevo), or for anyone whose primary decision criterion is price at scale. Flag the Marigold parent-company situation so users know product velocity is slower t...