Cadence is three decisions that look like one: how long a run lasts, how often you start a new one, and whether you make those decisions by hand each time or once, as a rule. The right answers depend on how Randio actually sends and serves, so that comes first.

How a run spends its time

An Outreach run does not email everyone at once. It sends in short windows, inside a daily limit that starts small for a new list and grows as your sending stays clean. A group of a few hundred goes out within the first day or two; a few thousand takes longer. The campaign page shows how many are sent and how many are waiting.

The reminder email, if the campaign has one, goes out in the later part of the run, after the first emails are done. And everything stops at the end time: the catalogs stop discounting, the page says the catalog has ended, and anything in a cart returns to full price.

So a run has to be long enough to send, remind and give people time to act, and short enough that the end date is a reason rather than a formality.

How long: starting points

Outreach: 3 to 7 days. Three days is the floor for a small group: a day to send, a day for the reminder, a day to act. Seven is the floor for a group large enough to take days to send. Go longer only if your product is one people research before buying; then the end date matters less and the catalog matters more.

Storefront: 7 to 14 days. A storefront catalog serves whoever visits, so its length is about repeat visits. It should outlast the gap between a visitor's first look and their return, and rotate before regulars stop noticing it. Guest catalogs are sticky per visitor for the whole run, which is another reason not to leave one up for a month.

What moves these: a larger group needs a longer send; a reminder needs its own day; a product with a long decision needs more days at the end, not the start.

How often

Two mechanics set the pace. A customer holding a live catalog from one campaign is not emailed by another until it ends, so campaigns to overlapping groups queue behind each other rather than stacking. And every outreach email counts on your bill, so frequency is also budget: group size times runs per month is your catalog count.

A monthly run per group is the starting point. It is one offer per customer per month, it keeps the catalog math simple, and it gives you a clean before-and-after each time you change the strategy. Shorten the gap for a group that keeps buying; lengthen it for one that does not open. The Discount dependency chart and the funnel in Analytics are what to read between runs.

By hand or by rule

Every campaign can run either way, and you can switch.

Manual runs are windows you choose. Pick a start and an end, save, and it joins the queue. Use manual runs for anything tied to a date: a launch, a holiday, a drop.

Automatic means a standing rule on the campaign: which strategy and template rows to use, a frequency, and a first start. Randio then rotates: when a run ends, the next one follows on the schedule, with fresh catalogs each time. The page shows which dates the rotation covers and when the first run begins.

The two share one queue. A manual run inside the rotation's window takes that cycle, and the rotation picks up afterwards. Turning the rule off pauses the rotation without touching runs already scheduled.

One setting worth knowing for automatic Outreach: Settings → Preferences → Add newly eligible customers to running campaigns. With it on, a customer who joins the group mid-run is added daily and sent their email. With it off, they wait for the next run.

Reminders

A reminder is a per-campaign switch, one email, sent in the later part of the run to people who received the first one. It is the cheapest thing in the campaign: it costs no extra outreach catalog, because the catalog was already counted when the first email went out. Turn it off only for runs so short there is no later part, or for a drop where the end date is the whole message and you would rather not say it twice.

Group size and run count are the budget side of cadence; the arithmetic is in Budgeting a month of Randio. Which groups to run on which cadence is in Segment before you randomize.