Creating campaigns

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
  • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Creating campaigns

    Campaigns in ServiceNow provide a robust content publishing tool designed to deliver targeted, timely internal communications to employees. As a content manager, you can configure multiple channels and audience segments to ensure relevant information reaches the right employees at the optimal moment. Campaigns enable organizations to deflect inquiries, drive employee actions, and communicate important topics effectively. Note that campaigns are strictly for internal use and should not be used for customer marketing to avoid email reputation issues.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Audience targeting: Deliver different content to distinct groups such as managers versus direct reports.
    • Trigger-based content delivery: Schedule content visibility based on fixed/dynamic dates, conditions, or system events.
    • Location targeting: Choose specific pages, topics, or widgets to display content strategically.
    • Multi-channel content: Communicate via the employee portal, email, SMS, and push notifications.
    • Campaign structure: Organize campaigns into stages (also called bundles) to sequence messaging, refine audiences, and deliver content progressively.
    • Demo campaigns: Access example campaigns via Content Experience Builder to explore best practices and configurations.

    Setting Up and Managing Campaigns

    Campaigns can be created using either the modern Content Experience Builder or the legacy records and forms approach.

    • Content Experience Builder:
      • Create and manage content within a single interface.
      • Define audiences, approvers, and timing when creating campaigns and stages.
      • Supports creation and addition of various content types, except rich content creation must be done in the Content Library’s Rich Content Editor.
      • Preview campaigns before publishing.
      • Publish campaigns directly and analyze effectiveness with goal tracking to measure impact and engagement.
    • Legacy method:
      • Create content in the Content Library.
      • Use records and forms to create campaigns and stages, specifying audiences and timing.
      • Preview and publish campaigns.
      • Analyze campaign effectiveness similarly by verifying audience targeting and tracking goals.

    Key Outcomes

    • Efficient delivery of targeted internal communications tailored to specific employee groups.
    • Improved employee engagement through timely and relevant messaging.
    • Ability to measure and optimize campaigns to meet organizational communication goals, such as reducing inquiry cases or encouraging specific actions.
    • Streamlined campaign creation and management via intuitive interfaces or legacy methods, depending on organizational preferences.

    Campaigns offer a powerful content publishing tool that provides organizations with the ability to efficiently deliver targeted information to their employees. As a content manager, you can configure multiple channels to ensure content reaches the intended audience at the optimal time.

    Here are a few examples of what you can accomplish through the targeted messaging of campaigns:
    • Deflect: Prevent your employees from creating more inquiry cases.
    • Drive action: Encourage your employees to sign up for health benefits.
    • Provide communication: Ensure that your employees know about a specific subject.
    Note:
    Campaigns are intended for internal communications only. Please do not use campaigns for customer marketing, as doing so could potentially lead to the NOW mailsystem being flagged as spam by email reputation systems.

    Example campaigns

    Content Experiences includes demo campaigns to help you better understand campaign structuring, explore examples of bundle trigger configurations, and discover various use cases. To access the demo campaigns, navigate to All > Content Experiences > Content Experience Builder.
    Note:
    The admin must select Load demo data during the installation or upgrade of the Content Experiences plugin. If the demo data does not appear in your instance, ask your admin to install the demo data.

    Campaign components

    When planning a campaign, consider the following components:
    Who: Audiences
    Target different content to different audiences. You can have a campaign deliver one set of content to managers and another set to direct reports.
    When: Trigger
    Content becomes available to employees based on the configured trigger. Content can be made available based on a fixed or dynamic date range, when a condition is met, or a system event occurs.
    Where: Location
    Target content to specific pages, topics, and widgets to ensure the content reaches the intended audience.
    What: Information that you want to communicate
    Define the information, links, videos, SMS messages, and emails that you want to communicate to your employees.

    Campaign structure

    A campaign consists of a hierarchy of stages, where each stage contains content.
    Note:
    Some parts of the interface use the term "bundles" to refer to stages.
    Here's an example of how to structure a company benefits open enrollment campaign, consisting of three stages:
    1. Get ready for Open Enrollment: This stage delivers content before the open enrollment period to prepare employees.
    2. Open enrollment is here: This stage delivers content during the open enrollment period to provide the necessary information on employee benefits.
    3. Open enrollment ends soon: In this stage, reminders are sent during the final week of the open enrollment period.
    Each campaign stage includes content that will be visible on the employee portal and distributed via email. Chart showing campaign structure.

    Setting up a campaign

    Set up a campaign using one of the following methods:

    Content Experience Builder

    With the Content Experience Builder, you can complete the entire workflow of configuring a campaign within a single interface.

    1. Create content in the Content library

      You can create a variety of content types that can be delivered via the employee portal, email, SMS, or push notification.

      Note:
      News articles are not yet supported.
    2. Create a campaign

      Create a campaign to define the audience, content approvers, and start and end dates.

    3. Create campaign stages with Content Experience Builder

      Add stages to your campaign to define what content users will see and when they will see it. You can also use stages to further refine the audience. For example, you can create one stage to hold content for managers and another stage to hold content for direct reports.

    4. Add content to a campaign using Content Experience Builder
      You can add content from the Content library and create a variety of content types in the Content Experience Builder.
      Note:
      If you are creating a campaign that contains rich content, you must create the rich content in the Content Library Rich Content Editor, since the Content Experience Builder does not currently support rich content creation. See Microsites
    5. Preview the campaign

      See how your campaign will appear to your audience before publishing.

    6. Publish the campaign from the Content Experience Builder.
    7. Analyze the effectiveness of the campaign

      Verify that your campaign is targeting the correct audience. Create goals to see if your campaign is driving action from your employees, or reducing activity such as the number of inquiry cases coming in. Continually evaluate your campaign as it progresses.

    Legacy (records and forms)

    If you prefer to create campaigns using records and forms, or if you are publishing to a custom widget, follow these steps:

    1. Create content in the Content library

      You can create a variety of content types that can be delivered via the employee portal, email, SMS, or push notification.

    2. Create a campaign

      Create a campaign to define the audience, content approvers, and start and end dates.

    3. Create a campaign stage

      Add stages to your campaign to define what content users will see and when they will see it. You can also use stages to further refine the audience. For example, you can create one stage to hold content for managers and another stage to hold content for direct reports.

    4. Preview the campaign

      See how your campaign will appear to your audience before publishing.

    5. Publish the campaign
    6. Analyze the effectiveness of the campaign

      Verify that your campaign is targeting the correct audience. Create goals to see if your campaign is driving action from your employees, or reducing activity such as the number of inquiry cases coming in. Continually evaluate your campaign as it progresses.