External campaigns

Automate this workflow

You can also compose and launch External Campaigns programmatically — by script, pipeline, or AI agent — without using this UI workflow. For more information, see External campaign automation overview and Automation overview.

Overview

It is very important before following the next steps that you have already created a Blueprint for your External Campaign. You can find more info on creating Blueprints for Campaign Segmentation by clicking on the following link.

Getting Started

To start, navigate to Campaigns > External (formerly Segment > External).

Step 1: Select your Audience

The first thing you need to do is to search for an existing blueprint/audience. You can find this by clicking on the Settings tab and choosing the Audience selection. From there you can click on Select an Audience.

Step 2: Choose your Destination

Next, you are going to want to select the Destination for your Campaign. You can find this by going to the Settings tab and then selecting the Destination dropdown from the Destination tab.

MessageGears supports the following external destination types:

Destination	Destination Location	Delivery Type	Format
Airship Attributes	Airship Attributes	SFTP	CSV
Airship (External)
Airship Tag	Airship Tags	API	-
Audience Recording
AWS S3	Amazon S3	API	-
Facebook	Facebook	API	-
GoogleAds	Google	API	-
Google Cloud Storage	Google Cloud Storage	API	-
LiveRamp	LiveRamp	SFTP	CSV
Microsoft Ads	Microsoft Ads	API	-
S3 SFTP	Amazon S3	SFTP	CSV
Salesforce	Sftp	SFTP	CSV
Swrve Attributes Destination	Swrve Attribute	API	-
Swrve List Destination	Swrve List	API	-
TikTok	TikTok Ads	API	-

If the external destination is an S3 or GCS bucket, the Bucket field on the campaign settings page must only have the bucket name; folder paths with slashes cannot be included here. Instead, include any folder paths in the Name field.

External destinations that do not display in your instance may require initialization by MessageGears. For details on requirements or to request a new external destination, please contact MessageGears Support.

Some destinations require a one-time authorization or setup before they can be used. For destination-specific setup guides, see:

Paid social

• Meta Custom Audience Destination
• Google Ads Destination
• Microsoft Ads Destination
• TikTok Custom Audience Destination

Cloud storage

• AWS S3 via IAM Destination
• AWS S3 SFTP Destination
• Google Cloud Storage Destination

SFTP delivery

• LiveRamp Destination
• Salesforce Destination

Airship

• Airship Destination (Attributes and Tags)

Swrve

• Swrve Attributes Destination
• Swrve List Destination

Analytics

• Audience Recording Destination

For a connection to an SFTP destination using a private key file, please note that the key file should be in RSA format.  OpenSSH keys can be converted to RSA format with the following command:

sudo ssh-keygen -p -N "" -m pem -f your_private_key

Step 3: Choose Schedule

After the Destination for the External Campaign has been selected, the next thing you want to do is to Schedule the Campaign for launch. Beyond the scheduled Launch time, you also have the ability to create it as a Recurring Campaign.

The final step after Scheduling has been completed is to Save the External Campaign. You can find this in the top-right corner of Accelerator.

It is possible to immediately send out the External Adhoc by simply clicking Launch.