Setting up agentic email campaigns

Setting up an email campaign enables Piper to engage leads, follow up automatically, and book meetings. This guide covers agentic email campaigns, which are configured through plain-language instructions rather than separate template fields.

This article refers to the updated functionality of AI Email as of Spring 2026. If you are maintaining an existing legacy campaign, see the legacy email setup guide for configuration details.

Agentic email vs. legacy email

Before you begin

Before creating a new campaign, complete the steps in the email sender setup and email unsubscribe management help articles. You will not be able to save a campaign without completing those steps first.

We also recommend setting up your Email Writing Guide before creating campaigns, as it provides the global instructions that apply to every email your AI SDR agent sends. To configure it, navigate to Settings → Agent Studio → Guides → Emails.

Write a plain-language strategy for your emails. We recommend including the following as a starting point:

• Brand rules. Define your positioning (e.g., "Always position us as a partner, not a vendor").
• Content strategy. Set global preferences, such as referencing customer success stories or specific industry use cases.
• Stylistic preferences. Establish language rules (e.g., "Say 'clients' not 'customers'") or formatting choices.
• Email Conversation Design. Use this section to define goals and reply behavior that should apply across campaigns given certain conditions. For example: "If a lead mentions pricing, use @goal [Book a Meeting]."

Tip: If you find yourself writing the same instruction across multiple campaigns, move it to the email writing guide instead.

Create a campaign

Navigate to Email → Campaigns and click + Create Campaign. Add a unique Name at the top.

The campaign is organized into the following sections. Complete all sections before saving.

General

Enrollment

Trigger event: Define the event that will enroll leads into the campaign. Supported triggers include:

• Lead field updated: Triggered when the value of a Qualified lead field changes. A Qualified lead field is any lead-level field that is not connected to an external source such as Salesforce or your marketing automation platform. Select the field and the condition its new value should meet.
  • Changes to account-level fields and to fields synced from an external system are not available with this trigger. To enroll leads on a Salesforce field change, use Salesforce field updated instead.
• Meeting offered but not booked: Triggered when a meeting is offered via Qualified but not booked after the visitor's session ends. This trigger can be refined by meeting type, meeting source, or the rep who offered the meeting.
• Meeting Canceled: Triggers when a prospect uses the reschedule or cancel link from a Qualified meeting invite.
• Meeting No-Show: Triggers when a meeting type is set to report no-shows and the prospect does not attend.
• Inbound chat request missed: Triggers when an inbound chat is missed, no rep enters the conversation, and no meeting is booked after the session ends.
• Qualified form submitted: Triggers when a Qualified form is submitted.
• Salesforce campaign member matches: Records added to a specific Salesforce campaign with a specific member status. Members who meet the criteria when the campaign is activated will be emailed. Qualified checks Salesforce every 15 minutes for new matching members. Only active campaigns may be selected.

Note: If you activate a campaign using the "Salesforce campaign member matches" trigger, members who already meet the criteria at the time of activation will be emailed. A preview window will show an estimate of how many members will be emailed.

• Salesforce field updated: Triggers when a mapped field on the Lead or Contact record is updated to match the defined criteria. Qualified checks Salesforce every 15 minutes. Note: formula fields are not supported.
• Marketo form submitted: Triggers when a Marketo form is submitted.
• Added to Marketo static list: Triggers when a contact is added to a selected static list in Marketo.
• Added to Marketo smart list: Triggers when a contact appears in a selected smart list in Marketo.
• Added to Marketo program: Triggers when a contact is added to a program in Marketo.
• HubSpot form submitted: Triggers when a HubSpot form is submitted.
• Pardot form submitted: Triggers when a Pardot form is submitted.

Note: Only Marketo lists and programs set to sync with Qualified appear in the selector for the static list, smart list and program triggers. If a list or program you need is missing, turn on syncing for it in Settings → Integrations → Marketo → Programs & Lists, then return to the campaign.

Marketo syncs occur daily at 5am UTC by default. Newly synced records for Marketo triggers will process at the next sync. For an immediate sync, trigger a manual sync from the Marketo Integrations settings page.

• Activity recorded: Triggers when an activity guide’s behavior is observed by a lead.

Audience filter: Choose whether to target Everyone who triggers the enrollment event, or Only specific people based on criteria such as:

• Excluding employees or current customers
• Filtering by CRM fields indicating qualification (e.g., company type, employee count, lead status)
• Segmenting visitors who qualify but are not already in Outreach or Salesloft sequences

To prevent spam, each lead or contact can be in only one standard email campaign at a time. Standard campaigns are ranked in priority order and can be reordered by drag-and-drop. When a lead joins a higher-priority standard campaign, they are exited from the lower-priority one.

Always run campaigns are the exception. They run alongside standard campaigns and have no priority rank of their own, so a lead can be in an Always run campaign and a standard campaign at the same time. See Always-run email campaigns.

Require a Salesforce record: Toggle whether a matching Salesforce Lead or Contact record is required before a lead can be enrolled. This is optional in agentic campaigns. Legacy campaigns always required a Salesforce record.

When the toggle is off, the campaign checks two settings when you sae it:

• Unsubscribe footer: the footer must include at least one Qualified field, so unsubscribes can be recorded for leads that have no Salesforce record. A footer that uses only Salesforce fields can’t be saved.
• Sender: If the sender is Salesforce owner, choose a fallback sender in Sender & Replies.

Salesforce activities aren't logged for leads without a Salesforce record. For those leads, email sends, opens and clicks are tracked in Qualified only.

If you turn the toggle back on later, leads already enrolled without a Salesforce record stay in the campaign.

Exit criteria

A recipient will always be removed from the campaign if any of the following occur:

• They click the unsubscribe link
• They are enrolled in a higher-priority standard campaign
• A campaign goal is met

The following exit conditions are configurable:

• Lead replies: Whether a reply removes the lead from the campaign. In agentic campaigns, the AI SDR agent can continue the conversation rather than exiting the lead on reply. Out-of-office replies do not trigger exit.
• Meeting is booked: Optionally remove a lead if any meeting is booked, regardless of email activity. You can specify which meeting type(s) apply.
  • Use the Meeting Date dropdown to control which meetings count
• No longer matches audience filter: If enabled, leads will be re-evaluated before each send and removed if they no longer meet the criteria.

Custom exit criteria: Expand this section to build additional exit conditions based on changes to the Salesforce Lead or Contact record:

1. Click + Add exit criteria.
2. Select the field change(s) on the Lead or Contact record, or the campaign member update, that should trigger exit.
3. Repeat as needed for additional criteria.

PRO TIP: Configure workflows in Qualified to log campaign exits in Salesforce or Marketo. Learn more about workflows for AI Email Campaigns.

Sender & Replies

Choose who the campaign emails will be sent on behalf of.

Your AI SDR agent

The first option shows your agent's own profile name. All emails are sent from your AI SDR agent's connected email account. Select the reply behavior for this campaign. For more information, see How Piper handles email replies.

Choose a user

Emails will appear as coming from a specific user. Select the user from the dropdown of connected Qualified user accounts. Replies will go to that user's inbox. The selected user must have a Google or Microsoft account connected.

Salesforce owner

Select fields on the Lead and/or Contact objects in Salesforce to identify the sender. Qualified will wait up to 3 hours for record creation and assignment. If no matching Qualified user is found, choose a fallback:

• Send from a Qualified User: the email is sent on behalf of a specific Qualified user you designate. That user needs a connected email account.
• Exclude from Campaign: the lead is not enrolled and no email is sent.
• Send from your AI SDR agent: the email is sent from your AI SDR agent's connected mailbox. 

Note: the Qualified UI will show your agent’s profile name for the third option.

These fallback options appear only when the sender is set to Salesforce owner. They do not apply to campaigns that send from your AI SDR agent or from a user chosen in Choose a user.

The identified user must have a Google or Microsoft account connected. If Salesforce routing identifies a user without a connected email account, no email will be sent.

Delivery

Campaign dates

Choose whether the campaign runs continuously or over a specific date range.

Sending hours

Sending hours set which days and hours your AI SDR agent can send follow-up emails for this campaign, and in which time zone. You'll find them below the campaign schedule.

• Days of week: select at least one day.
• Hours: a start and end time, in whole hours. The end time isn't included, so 9am to 5pm means the last follow-up starts before 5pm.
• Send in the lead's local time zone: on by default. Your agent uses the lead's own time zone when it's known.
• Fallback time zone: with the toggle on, this time zone is used for leads whose time zone isn't known. With the toggle off, the field is labeled Campaign time zone and applies to every lead. It defaults to the time zone in your organization's business hours. If no business hours are set, it defaults to Pacific Time.

New campaigns start with the business hours set in Settings → Company Details, in the Business Hours section. If no business hours are set, the days and hours start empty. These are only starting values. Saving a campaign's sending hours doesn't change Company Details, and changing Company Details later doesn't update existing campaigns.

Campaigns created before sending hours were available show Mon–Fri, 8–9am, which is the schedule they already run on. They keep that schedule until you edit and save the Delivery tab.

How sending hours work

• Only follow-up emails wait for sending hours. The first email and replies send right away.
• A follow-up that comes due outside sending hours waits for the next open slot. It isn't skipped, and the lead stays in the campaign.
• On a campaign with start and end dates, a follow-up has to fall inside both the dates and the sending hours.
• Exclusion dates, max follow-up attempts, and the engagement window still apply, using the same time zone.
• Changes to a live campaign only affect emails that haven't been sent yet.
• Emails you send manually aren't held by sending hours.

Note: Fewer open days can mean fewer follow-ups. Sending hours don't extend the engagement window, and closed days aren't made up later. A campaign that only sends on Mondays and Fridays sends fewer follow-ups over the same engagement window than one that sends every day, and may end before its final email.

Engagement window

Defines the maximum number of weeks a recipient stays in the campaign if they do not respond, book a meeting, or unsubscribe. The default is 2 weeks. If no action is taken within this period, the recipient will automatically exit the campaign.

Max follow-up attempts

Enter the maximum number of follow-up emails a lead can receive within the engagement window. The default is 5.

Note: Email send limits are enforced per organization. Contact your Qualified Success Architect if you need to send more than 1,000 emails per day.

When emails send

The first email sends on the same day the lead enters the campaign, including weekends. Follow-up emails send during the campaign's sending hours, in the lead's local time zone or the campaign's fallback time zone. See Sending hours above.

First-touch emails and direct replies send as soon as they are ready and are not held for the local send window. This includes first touches from Salesforce campaign member enrollment.

How the lead's time zone is determined

When Send in the lead's local time zone is on, your AI SDR agent resolves a lead's time zone using the first of these that is available:

• The time zone from the lead's most recent tracked website visit
• The country and region or state on the lead's CRM record, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, or Eloqua
• The country and region or state stored in Qualified person fields

If none of these is available, the campaign's fallback time zone is used. By default, that's your business hours time zone, or Pacific Time if no business hours are set. When the toggle is off, the campaign time zone applies to every lead.

The resolved time zone governs more than the send window. It also applies to weekend checks, engagement window calculations, campaign exclusion dates, and daily per-lead email limits.

A country value is needed to derive a time zone from a location, so a state or region on its own is not enough. For countries that span multiple time zones, the region or state is used where it is supported. Where only a country is available, a default time zone for that country is used, which may not match every recipient's exact location.

Note: If a follow-up arrives at an unexpected local time, first check the campaign's sending hours, the Send in the lead's local time zone toggle, and the fallback time zone. Then check that the lead has an accurate country value, and add a state or region where the country spans multiple time zones. A lead's most recent tracked website visit takes precedence over CRM and Qualified field values.

Settings

Campaign language, unsubscribe, tracking, and URL parameter options are in the campaign’s Settings section (previously called Email preferences).

Language

Select if emails should be sent in the lead’s preferred language. If this language is unknown or this box is unchecked, select the default language to be used instead.

Unsubscribe footer

Select the unsubscribe footer to use for this campaign. If you have multiple AI profiles, first select the AI profile for this campaign (which determines which footers and promoted content are available), then select the footer. If you have not configured an unsubscribe footer yet, see the email unsubscribe management help article.

Tracking

Open tracking and Link tracking are both on by default. Clear either checkbox to stop recording opens or clicks for this campaign. When link tracking is off, your URL parameters are still added to links.

If both checkboxes appear cleared and locked with the message Email tracking is disabled for your team, tracking is disabled for your whole organization.

For what each setting controls and how it affects campaign reporting, see Email tracking management.

URL parameters

To append UTM parameters to links your AI SDR agent includes in emails, such as meeting links and promoted content, enter them in the URL parameters field. Parameters are written as name and value pairs separated by an equals sign, and joined with an ampersand. If a pair is missing its equals sign, the field returns a validation message.

Using variables in URL parameters

Parameters can hold static values, and they can also hold variables that resolve per send, so a single campaign can pass the sender, the campaign name, or a lead value through to your analytics.

To add one:

1. Open the campaign’s settings, select Settings in the sidebar, and find URL parameters.
2. Click the variable button in the field.
3. Choose a tab: General, Mailing, Fields, or External Fields.
4. Select a variable. It is inserted at your cursor.

Commonly used variables include the sender display name and sender email from the Mailing tab, and the campaign name. Lead fields and external fields are available from their own tabs. Meeting variables are not available in this menu.

How and when parameters are applied

URL parameters are added to links when the email is sent, which applies to static values and variables alike. They do not appear on links in the preview, the simulator, or drafted emails, which keeps test activity out of your attribution reporting. To confirm the parameters are working, check a delivered email, or an admin copy sent while the campaign is in testing.

On send:

• Variables resolve to their values.
• Values are URL-encoded, so a sender name of Jane Doe is passed as Jane+Doe.
• If a variable has no value for that lead, the parameter is left out of the link entirely. The link will not carry an empty value or the unresolved variable text.

Parameters are also appended to the unsubscribe link, though clicks on it are not counted as clickthroughs and will not appear in session reports.

Campaign Guide

The Campaign Guide is where you provide the AI SDR agent with the strategy and context it needs to generate emails for this specific campaign. Instructions here take priority over the email writing guide when there is a conflict.

How should the agent engage leads?

Describe the goal of the campaign, who it is targeting, and what call or calls to action the agent should include. Add any additional context the agent should consider, such as the reason for the campaign, specific product details, or insights about the target audience's needs.

Tips for writing instructions:

• Write in plain English as if providing guidance to a team member.
• Describe how messaging should evolve across the thread rather than labeling emails by type. For example: "The first email should focus on X; the follow-up should shift to Y."
• If you find yourself repeating an instruction across campaigns, add it to the email writing guide instead.

Goal

Select the goal the agent should pursue in this campaign. Goals are optional in agentic campaigns. Goals can also be referenced inline in your instructions using the @ syntax (e.g., @Book a Meeting).

Qualification behavior

If the selected goal uses branch nodes, the agent can ask qualification questions over email when field information is incomplete. Configure the fallback behavior if you prefer the agent not to ask questions: book a meeting of a specific type, or skip the goal entirely.

When referencing a goal in your instructions, choose one of three fallback behaviors: ask qualifying questions in the first email, book a meeting of a specific type, or skip the goal.

Allow contextual personalization

When enabled, the agent can search for and reference relevant content from your connected sources when generating emails.

Personalization fields

Select the lead fields the agent should use to personalize emails (e.g., First Name, Company Name). If a field has a value, the agent will include it. If the field is blank, the personalization will be skipped.

Preview

Once your Campaign Guide is configured and saved, click the Preview button in the upper right corner to open a preview panel and review how your AI SDR agent will generate email content for this campaign.

Select a lead from the dropdown to simulate the initial email. Only leads that meet the trigger criteria will be available. Personalization fields will be highlighted in the preview.