Every CRM uses its own words for the same few ideas, so if you’ve used another tool before, some of ours may be called something else there. This page explains what each one does here, and the table at the bottom gives the name it goes by in other tools.
Sequences: personal follow-up that stops when they reply
A sequence is a series of follow-ups (emails, texts, call or LinkedIn tasks, and waits between them) sent from your own mailbox one person at a time. As soon as that person replies, books a meeting or opts out, the sequence stops for them.
Use a sequence for 1:1 sales follow-up: a quote that went quiet, a new lead from your site, someone you met at an event. You enroll people yourself.
Also called: Cadence (Salesforce, Salesloft), Workflow (Close).
Campaigns: automation that runs for many people
A campaign is a set of automatic steps (emails, texts, tags, tasks, webhooks and waits) that runs for each person who joins it. People can join by hand, from a list, through auto-enroll rules, or when a deal reaches a stage. By default a campaign also stops for a person when they reply to one of its emails (you can turn that off).
Use a campaign for anything that should run without you: a welcome or nurture series, onboarding, reminders. To send one email to a list, make a campaign with a single email step.
Also called: Workflow (HubSpot, GoHighLevel), Flow (Klaviyo, Mailchimp), Automation (ActiveCampaign).
Lists: saved groups of contacts
A list is a saved group of contacts. A rule-based list keeps itself up to date (for example “leads from the website in the last 30 days”). A fixed list holds exactly the people you added. Use a list to enroll many people into a campaign at once.
Also called: Segment (HubSpot, Klaviyo), Smart List (GoHighLevel).
Which one do I want?
- Talking to one person and want it to stop when they answer? Sequence.
- Same steps for lots of people, running on their own? Campaign.
- One announcement to a group? A campaign with one email step, sent to a list.
- Just need to pick out a group of people? List.
Turning things on
Sequences and campaigns both start as Draft — not sending. At the bottom of the panel there is one button: Turn on, then Pause while it’s on, and Turn back on when it’s paused. The line next to the button says what will happen, for example how many people will carry on from their next step.
Coming from HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Pipedrive, Mailchimp or Salesforce?
| Here | HubSpot | GoHighLevel | Pipedrive | Mailchimp | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sequence | Sequence | Workflow | Sequence | — | Cadence (Sales Engagement) |
| Campaign (multi-step) | Workflow | Workflow (formerly Campaigns) | Automation | Flow (formerly Customer Journeys) | Flow / Journey; Engagement Studio (Account Engagement) |
| Campaign with one email | Marketing email | Email campaign | Campaign | Email campaign | — |
| List (rule-based) | Active segment (formerly Active list) | Smart List | — | Segment | Dynamic list (Account Engagement) |
| List (fixed) | Static segment | — | — | Tag | Static list |
| Tags | — | Tags | — | Tags | — |
“—” means there’s no single equivalent we could confirm in that product’s own documentation.
A word of caution on “campaign”: in HubSpot and Salesforce a campaign is a folder for reporting that groups emails, pages and ads. It does not send anything by itself. Here, a campaign is the thing that sends.