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What this page helps you do

Create a Lifetime campaign that stays ready for events from your system. Each valid trigger creates at most one execution and sends one nudge to the contact in its payload.

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Why this matters

You can send timely, relevant email without repeatedly building and launching campaigns. Your backend controls when an event happens, while Nudgen keeps the email content, delivery, tracking, and contact preferences in one place.

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When to use a Lifetime campaign

Use a Lifetime campaign for event-driven email, such as:
  • Order confirmations
  • Payment reminders
  • Event-based onboarding
  • Account or subscription updates
Unlike one-shot and drip campaigns, a Lifetime campaign does not send to a saved audience immediately. Its audience is always Trigger.

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Create and activate a campaign

1

Create a Lifetime campaign

Go to Campaigns, click New campaign, then choose Lifetime. Add the campaign name, goal, brand configuration, and optional CTA link.
2

Define runtime parameters

Add each value that your system will provide at send time. A parameter creates a data.* variable: for example, order_id becomes {{data.order_id}} in the email.
3

Create the email

Generate or write the subject and HTML, then add your runtime variables where they belong. Preview the email and send a test before activating it.
4

Activate the campaign

Save it as a draft, then click Activate. Nudgen checks that required parameters are represented in the email and that the parameter contract has not changed since generation.
5

Create a trigger key

Go to Settings → API Keys and create a Team trigger API key. Store the ndg_team_* secret in your backend or secret manager; never place it in browser or mobile-app code.

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Runtime parameters and template variables

Your variableManifest is the contract between the email template and each trigger’s data object. A campaign can define up to 100 variables. For example, use {{data.order_id}}, {{data.total}}, and {{data.order_url}} in a template. You can also use contact.*, event.*, brand.*, and legacy variables such as {{firstName}} and {{brandName}}. Nudgen escapes variable values inserted into HTML. Templates do not support JavaScript, expressions, or loops. Any variable used in an href must be a data.* variable declared with type url.

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Manage the lifecycle

The valid transitions are draft → active → paused → active and active|paused → archived.
Pausing or archiving cancels executions that are still pending or queued. An execution already processing may still send.
Every execution snapshots the campaign content and send settings when Nudgen receives the trigger. Editing an active campaign affects only later triggers, not executions that already exist.

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Trigger from your backend

Call the trigger endpoint from a trusted server after you validate the source event. Use the Team trigger API key, not a Personal Access Token (PAT).
Keep the same eventId when you retry an event. Nudgen returns the existing execution with 200 and duplicate: true instead of sending another nudge. A new execution returns 201.

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Integrate safely

  • Trigger from a webhook consumer or backend, and verify the incoming webhook before calling Nudgen.
  • Retry network errors, 429, and 503 with exponential backoff and the same eventId.
  • Do not log Authorization headers or payloads containing sensitive contact data.
  • Rotate trigger keys regularly and revoke a key immediately if you suspect it is exposed.
  • Create one campaign per event type and variable contract so that templates and execution audits stay clear.

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Monitor executions

Open the campaign in the dashboard to see recent executions and their statuses. An execution can be pending, queued, processing, sent, skipped, cancelled, failed, or delivery_unknown. skipped means the contact was unsubscribed or bounced, so Nudgen records the event but does not send or consume quota. delivery_unknown means the provider may have accepted the email but the final delivery result was uncertain; Nudgen does not retry it automatically to avoid a duplicate send. For programmatic setup, triggering, and execution queries, see the Developer API.

Campaigns overview

Compare one-shot, drip, and Lifetime campaigns.

Developer API

Manage Lifetime campaigns and triggers through the API.