> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.instantcampaign.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# AI campaign strategist

> Turn a brief into a finished campaign plan with audience, timing and follow-ups, review it, and approve it once to send.

When you generate a campaign with AI, you get a **campaign plan**, not just drafts. The strategist recommends:

* who to send to
* whether to use send-time optimisation
* how the follow-up emails are spaced

It also explains each choice. You review the plan, change anything you like, and approve it once.

## Get a plan

There are two ways to get a plan:

* **From a brief**: click **New campaign → Generate with AI** and fill in the brief in AI Studio (see [Create a campaign](/guides/audience-and-campaigns/create-campaign)). The plan appears when generation finishes, usually within about a minute.
* **From a weekly proposal**: see [Weekly proposals](#weekly-proposals) below.

You can reopen the plan at any time with **View plan** on the campaign page.

## What's in a plan

| Section                      | What it shows                                                                                                                                                                                      | What you can change                                          |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Audience**                 | The recommended list or segment, its number of sendable contacts and why it was chosen. The strategist only recommends lists and segments that exist in your workspace and have sendable contacts. | Pick any other list or segment.                              |
| **Timing**                   | Whether send-time optimisation is on. **On** means each contact gets the email at the hour they usually open. **Off** means everyone gets it at once.                                              | Switch it on or off.                                         |
| **Follow-ups**               | For a multi-email plan, the cadence of emails 2 onwards, for example **+2 days**, and the status of the follow-up automation.                                                                      | Open the automation with **Open automation**.                |
| **From your recent results** | What the strategist learned from your last sends and A/B tests, and how that changed the plan.                                                                                                     | —                                                            |
| **Ready to send**            | Deliverability checks, content checks for each email and your monthly allowance. See [Campaign safety](/guides/audience-and-campaigns/campaign-safety#plan-readiness-and-content-checks).          | —                                                            |
| **Sequence**                 | Each email with its subject, preview, timing (**At approval** or **+N days**) and a **Why** explanation.                                                                                           | **Edit subject**, **Edit** in the builder or **Regenerate**. |

## How follow-ups work

Email 1 is sent by the campaign. Emails 2 onwards are sent by an **automation** that the strategist creates as a draft. It starts with a one-time schedule trigger, followed by wait and send steps. On the campaign page, those emails are marked **Sent by the automation**.

A follow-up's subject can be edited in the plan or in the automation's email step. Both edit the same subject.

## Approve and send

<Steps>
  <Step title="Check the audience">
    Make sure an audience is selected. **Approve & send** stays disabled until you pick one that has sendable contacts, email 1 has a subject line, and your remaining monthly email allowance covers the audience times the number of emails in the plan. It sends with the sender and send policy saved under **Sender & Subject** on the campaign, and the **Ready to send** checks judge that same sender. The audience's sendable contacts are counted under that policy too: with a transactional policy, unsubscribed contacts are included, because the send reaches them.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review the readiness card">
    Warnings don't stop you from approving. A blocking deliverability problem does, and so does an audience that needs more emails than your remaining monthly allowance.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Approve">
    Click **Approve & send**. Email 1 goes out straight away to the chosen audience. It passes through the same audience, allowance and deliverability checks as any other send. Then the follow-up automation is pointed at the same audience, timed from the moment of approval, and activated.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  To approve a plan, you need permission to send campaigns. If the plan has follow-up emails, you also need permission to activate automations.
</Note>

If email 1 is sent but the follow-ups couldn't be started, you'll see: *Email 1 was sent, but the follow-ups could not be started. Open the automation to start it by hand.* Nothing is sent twice. Open the automation from the campaign page and activate it.

### Need more control over the send?

**Adjust in send wizard** takes you to the campaign page, where you can pick a sender profile or send policy, schedule the send or run an A/B test. See [Send a campaign](/guides/audience-and-campaigns/send-campaign). If you send email 1 that way, the follow-up automation isn't started for you. Open it from the campaign page, check its trigger and audience, and activate it yourself.

## Weekly proposals

Each Monday, the strategist looks at your audiences, your recent results, how long it's been since your last send, upcoming dates on the marketing calendar and, if your Shopify store is connected, the last 30 days of store activity. It then suggests one to three campaigns.

Proposals appear on your dashboard in the **This week** card. Workspace owners and admins also get a notification and a digest email.

* **Accept & generate** turns the proposal into a campaign and opens its plan. Nothing is generated or counted against your allowance until you accept.
* **Not now** hides the proposal.

<Tip>
  Workspaces with fewer than five sendable contacts don't get proposals. Untouched proposals expire after three weeks.
</Tip>

## Describe an automation

The strategist can draft automations too. On the **Automations** page, click **Describe with AI**. Say what should happen and to whom, for example: *"When someone joins the Newsletter list, send a welcome email, wait 2 days, then send our best tips."* Then click **Create draft**. You get a draft automation on the canvas to review before anything runs. See [Automations](/guides/audience-and-campaigns/automations).

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="There's no View plan button">
    Only campaigns generated with a recommendation have a plan. Campaigns started from a template, or created before the strategist was introduced, don't have one.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Generation failed">
    The campaign shows **Failed** with a **Retry** button. Retrying generates the plan again from the same brief.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>