cold-email-campaign-deploy

Create the campaign with POST /campaigns, add sequence steps with A/B variants via POST /campaigns/v1.1/{id}/sequence-steps using variant_from_step positional indexes, attach sender emails, then PATCH settings with open_tracking false and plain_text true. The campaign is created in paused state for review.

Use POST /campaigns with the full sequences structure embedded, nesting variants inside each step's variants array. The campaign_schedule with a schedules array is required, and follow-up emails use an empty subject for threading. Campaigns are created as status 0 (draft).

Email Bison uses {option1|option2|option3} format while Instantly uses {{RANDOM | option1 | option2 | option3}}. Deploying with the wrong format renders spintax as literal text in sent emails, so the format must match the target sequencer before deployment.

Instantly strips all text content from emails containing <br> tags, which is the most common cause of blank emails. Use only <p> tags for paragraph breaks in email bodies, including signature lines.

Verify lead lists with bounce rate under 3%, confirm warmup scores of 95 or higher on all senders, ensure SPF/DKIM/DMARC are configured, disable open and link tracking, use plain text, apply spintax, and meet A/B variant minimums of 3 variants on email 1 and 2 on each follow-up.

Since campaigns are created in paused state, recovery is safe. If sender attachment fails, retry with backoff or attach via the sequencer UI. If steps are partially created, delete all created steps and recreate the full sequence, since editing individual steps breaks variant linking.