How to create your first campaign

A successful launch is decided in the weeks and months before a launch happens, not on launch day itself. Launch Oracle exists to provide you with the tools to run that pre-launch period well—capturing leads, validating demand, and surfacing what your community actually wants, so that by the time you launch, you're not hoping it goes well. You already know it will.

This guide walks you through that process end to end: signing up with Launch Oracle, setting up your workspace, and building your first campaign. If you're new to Launch Oracle, this guide is for you. For a condensed version of this guide, see Getting Started.

Sign up for Launch Oracle with your email address or your Google account. Either gets you in, but Google is the recommended default. It inherits whatever security you've already set up (like 2FA), skips a separate password, and feels familiar to teammates who already sign in with Google elsewhere.

1. Go to launchoracle.com/account.

2. Click Create an account.

3. Choose how you want to sign up:

   • With email: Enter your email and click Sign up.

   • With Google: Click Continue with Google. (Recommended option—Google accounts offer the most seamless login experience.)

Your organization is the top-level container for your Launch Oracle workspace. Every property, campaign, and teammate you add lives underneath it, and your campaign URLs will always include your organization's name (i.e. launchoracle.com/organization/property/campaign-id).

Think of your organization as the company itself, not the product it makes. If you're a publisher running multiple game lines, or a studio with both a flagship IP and a few side projects, they all sit inside the same organization or company. You'll separate them out one level down, at the property level, in the next step.

It's worth knowing upfront that you won't spend much time actually working at the organization-level day to day. Most of what you do in Launch Oracle happens inside a campaign. The organization's job is mainly structural. It's what keeps your properties and campaigns organized underneath it.

If your company has never used Launch Oracle before, you're creating. If you were invited here by someone on your team, then you're joining.

1. Set up your organization. Your organization is the top-level account that holds all your properties, campaigns, and team members.

   • To create a new organization: Click Add Organization from your dashboard or from the dropdown menu in the top-left corner of the platform.

   • To join an existing organization: Accept your teammate's invitation. You'll be added to their organization automatically.

2. (Optional) Add an organization avatar. You can change this anytime in Settings.

A property represents a single product, intellectual property (IP), or application within your organization. It's common and completely normal to run several different campaign types under the same property. Launch Oracle supports six types of campaigns—lead generation, form, poll, quiz, A/B test, and reservation—which we'll get into in the next section. For now, what's important to understand is that you'll likely run multiple different campaigns for a single property. For example, the same product might have a lead gen campaign capturing leads, alongside a character quiz to organically increase your web traffic and campaign reach, and an A/B test to decide box cover art.

This is the decision that confuses most new Launch Oracle users, so it's worth slowing down on. The test for whether you should create one property or several to capture your product line isn't "is this a different campaign" but rather "does this need its own brand identity, its own audience, and its own integrations."

A tabletop studio launching one game with a pre-launch lead generation campaign, an A/B test on box art, and a character quiz still only needs one property. That's because all three campaigns concern the same product, audience, brand, and fonts and colors.

A publisher running two unrelated game lines—say, a cozy card game and a grimdark miniatures line—is a different story. Those likely have different logos, color palettes, and email lists. That's two properties, even though both game lines fall under one organization.

If you're not sure, ask: would a new visitor to this campaign recognize it as "the same brand" as your other campaigns? If yes, same property. If no, create a new different property.

Properties serve an important organizational purpose in Launch Oracle. Fonts, brand colors, brand assets, and connected third-party applications (i.e. CRMs) are all tied to your property—not your campaign. That means your property-level attributes are shared automatically across every campaign that falls within it.

Properties also let you segment your audience data by property, which becomes useful once you have more than one. Say you're launching a new property that's similar to an existing one—a similar product with a similar target audience. You can filter your audience data down to just that existing property and target its backers directly, since they're a likely fit for what you're launching now. A property that has nothing to do with the new one stays out of that filter, so you're not spending outreach on an audience that was never going to be interested in the first place.

1. Start creating your property. A property represents a single product, intellectual property (IP), or application within your organization. Many organizations have several properties.

   • From the left-hand menu, go to Properties and click Add New.

   • Or, from the left-hand menu, click Properties and then select Add Property.

   • Alternatively, click Create Campaign from the quick-start option on your dashboard. This opens a wizard that walks you through selecting an existing property or creating a new one before you build your campaign.

2. Fill in your property's details. Enter your property's name and select the industry it best fits into.

3. (Optional) Connect your property to third-party applications, such as Meta, Google, Stripe, and CRMs like Klaviyo and Mailchimp. You can also configure this later by going to Applications on the left-hand menu.

This is where the actual work happens. A campaign is a single initiative tied to a property, and you can run several at once for the same property. Launch Oracle supports six campaign types, each with different capture and reporting capabilities and features. Choosing the closest fit to your goal up front saves you from having to rebuild later.

Every campaign type answers a different question or need, so the fastest way to choose is to figure out what question you're actually asking or which outcome you're seeking:

• "I want to build an email list." Start with lead generation. This will be the default starting point for most campaigns.

• "I need more than an email address." Use a form. This is the right call whenever you need something a simple sign-up can't capture or want to connect in-person events with your digital lead capture.

• "What does my audience actually think?" Run a poll. This is direct feedback gathering. You're asking your audience a question and using their answer to shape your launch strategy, not just collecting contact info.

• "I want to engage my audience and increase my traffic organically." Build a quiz

It's common to run more than one type of campaign under the same property over the life of a launch—a lead generation campaign early to build your email list and capture leads, an A/B test midway to decide box cover art, and a quiz to keep your audience warm and engaged and increase your reach organically.

1. Start creating your campaign.

   • From your organization dashboard, click Create Campaign (quick-start wizard), or

   • Go to Campaigns under your property in the left-hand menu, then click Add Campaign in the top right.

2. Assign your campaign to a property. Select an existing property or click Create Property to set one up as part of this flow.

3. Choose a campaign type.

   • Lead Generation: Capture contact information to build your pipeline ahead of a launch.

   • Form: Build custom forms to collect more than just contact info, such as file uploads, receipt photos, and other launch-specific details.

• Poll: Gather direct audience feedback to inform your launch strategy.

• Quiz: Shareable and engaging. Quizzes help organically expand your campaign's reach.

• A/B Test: Test different page variants to see which one drives the best results.

Reservation: Works like a lead generation campaign, but also lets you build a committed audience by collecting a nominal fee from users who reserve a spot on your waitlist.

4. Enter your campaign basics:

   • Title: Should reflect what you're assessing or gathering info for; often mirrors the campaign type.

• SEO metadata: Controls how your page appears in search results and social media link previews.

• Campaign image: Helps identify the campaign in your list and appears in social embeds.

5. Select your campaign attributes: Categories, Tags, Unique Selling Points (USPs), Genres, and Utilities. These help segment your target audience data and organize the leads and contact info Launch Oracle collects, so you can filter and target accordingly later.

6. Invite your teammates and assign the right level of access. You can always invite teammates or update their access later from Team in the left-hand menu.

This is the page that visitors will actually see, so it's worth taking your time here. The page builder gives you full control over layout, content, and design, along with engagement features that keep visitors coming back as your campaign progresses.

Before you begin, have your approved text, images, and branding assets ready so you're not switching contexts mid-build. Also note that only one person can edit a page in the builder at a time. If a teammate is already editing, you'll need to wait until they're done.

Every campaign has three page variants—pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. (Reservation campaigns have a fourth variant: a reservation page.) Each variant is a different face your campaign shows at different points in its life. Your pre-launch variant is what a visitor sees before you've launched. Your launch variant is what visitors see once you've actually gone live. Often the page redirects to your crowdfunding campaign or product website. Post-launch is what's left standing after the dust settles, for anyone who finds your campaign late. Knowing which variant you're editing matters, because building beautiful pre-launch content on the wrong variant means none of it shows up when it's supposed to.

It's tempting to jump straight to adding sections and writing copy, but setting your global styles—fonts, colors, and button styles—first means every section you add afterward already matches your brand. That way you're not going back to restyle ten sections one at a time because you changed your mind about a shade of blue. Five minutes here saves a much longer cleanup later.

The page builder features unique engagement features, including a countdown timer, an audience counter, and timed reveals. Each one serves a purpose. A countdown creates urgency toward a date. An audience counter uses social proof—seeing that hundreds of people already signed up makes a new visitor more likely to as well, which is why it's worth waiting until you've hit a respectable number before turning it on. Timed reveals give people a reason to bookmark your page and come back, which is especially useful if your launch window is weeks or months out and you need to keep momentum rather than a single traffic spike. Utilize the engagement features that are right for your campaign. Some features are campaign-specific. Reservations, for example, are only available on reservation campaigns.

The post-signup moment is easy to treat as an afterthought, but it's the one guaranteed touchpoint every single lead will see. You've got four options: redirect them somewhere else (i.e. your Discord, your crowdfunding page), hand them an asset immediately (i.e. an STL file, a wallpaper, a preview chapter), show a custom thank-you message, or set up some combination of the three. Which one you pick should match what you actually want them to do next. A redirect works when you want to move momentum somewhere else; an asset download works when the reward itself is the incentive to sign up in the first place; a custom message works when you just want to confirm they're in and set expectations for what's coming.

Desktop edits cascade down to tablet and mobile automatically, which means that any changes on desktop are inherited by tablet and mobile and any changes made on tablet are inherited by mobile. Once you make changes to tablet or mobile, however, they no longer inherit changes made on desktop.

Make sure not to focus only on desktop view. A three-column layout that looks great on desktop often collapses into something cramped or oddly spaced on a phone screen. Since a large share of traffic to a pre-launch page typically comes from social links people tap on their phones, treat the mobile preview as a required check, not an optional one, before you publish.

Save Draft never puts anything in front of a real visitor. It's a private checkpoint and you can save as many times as you want without any risk. (Save often and early!) Publish is the only action that makes your page live. That distinction matters because it means you can build, walk away, come back days later, and keep refining without any pressure. Nothing goes public until you decide it does. Use Preview Draft liberally along the way. It shows you exactly what a visitor would see without ever exposing the page itself.

The standard builder covers the vast majority of what a campaign page needs—fonts, colors, buttons, layout, spacing. Custom CSS exists for the remaining edge cases: a very specific visual effect the builder doesn't have a toggle for. It's powerful, but it's also the one place in the builder where a mistake can actually break your page's layout or functionality instead of just looking slightly off. Reach for it last, not first, and only if you're comfortable enough with CSS to know what you're changing.

1. Open the page builder. Click the page builder icon from your campaign's overview.

2. Get familiar with the toolbar before you start building.

   • Variant Selector (top of the builder): Shows the page variants tied to your campaign. Every campaign has three: pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. Reservation campaigns include an additional reservation variant. A green light means that variant is published and live — it's what visitors currently see. Decide which variant you want to build or edit first.

   • Page Status: Shows whether you're viewing a draft, a page in progress, or a published page.

   • Sidebar: Holds your editing tools—Page Layout, Global Styles, Media Library, Templates, CRM Sync, Schedule Settings, Signup Settings, and Custom CSS.

5. Add engagement features.

   • Countdown: Build urgency toward your launch date and give visitors a reason to return to your page. (Setting up a countdown)

   • Audience Counter: Show your live signup count, with the option to set a threshold before it appears. (Setting up an audience counter)

   • Timed Reveals: Gradually reveal content (art, characters, etc.) over time to keep visitors checking back. (Setting up a timed reveal)

6. Configure what happens after someone signs up. Choose from:

   • Redirect Link: Send visitors to another page or link, such as your crowdfunding platform or Discord server.

   • Asset Download: Give them immediate access to a digital file, such as an STL file.

   • Custom Thank You Message: Build a personalized thank-you page, complete with your own image, message, and formatting.

7. Schedule when your pre-launch page transitions to launch by clicking Schedule Settings. (This can also be adjusted from your campaign overview.)

8. (Optional) Fine-tune your page with

9. Click Save Draft. Saving doesn't publish your page. Use the dropdown next to Save Draft to select Preview Draft and see what a visitor would see before you publish.

10. Check the builder's Checklist to confirm your page is ready. It tracks:

    • Lead capture (whether a sign-up flow is set up)

    • CRM sync

    • Post-signup redirect

    • Page content

Launch Oracle works even better connected to the rest of your tools. Third-party applications connect at the property level, not per campaign. That means if you link a platform once, every campaign under that property syncs to it automatically.

If you're not ready to connect everything right away, that's fine. Your campaign data is still captured within Launch Oracle, and you can connect additional platforms whenever you're ready.

You don't need to connect everything on day one, but two are worth doing before you ever publish a page. Your CRM or email platform (i.e. Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or similar) matters most, because every hour it's disconnected is an hour of leads sitting in Launch Oracle instead of entering your actual email sequence—and the whole point of a pre-launch campaign is staying in touch with that audience until launch day.

If you're running paid traffic, Meta or Google comes next, because it's what lets your reporting tell you not just how many leads you got, but what each one actually cost you. Without it, you're flying blind on ad spend the moment your campaign goes live. Although this guide doesn't dive into reporting, you can check out How to read and analyze your report for additional insight into how to understand your campaign's report and Advanced reporting to analyze your Meta and Google ad performance.

1. From the left-hand menu, navigate to your property and click Applications.

2. Choose the platform you'd like to connect and click Connect Property. Launch Oracle currently supports:

3. Locate your API key from the third-party platform. Each platform generates and manages its own API keys, so you'll need to retrieve yours from their dashboard. If you're not sure where to find it, click Where to find your API key for platform-specific instructions.

4. Copy and paste your API key into Launch Oracle and click Connect. Launch Oracle will authenticate the connection and confirm once it's active.

5. Confirm the connection is live. A connected platform shows a green status indicator next to its name under Applications.

Now that you know how to create and run your first campaign on Launch Oracle, all that is left is the real work of running it. With Launch Oracle, you're not just hoping your pre-launch campaign works—you're running a campaign with purpose-suited tools, thoughtfully designed engagement features, and the analytical tools to find out, in real time, what will.

From here, a couple of things worth doing next:

• Learn How to read and analyze your report to understand how your campaign is performing.

• Dig into Advanced reporting to analyze your Meta and Google ad performance.

• Learn How to drive traffic to your page, so people actually find it. Social posts, community forums, your email list, and ref links that track where your visitors come from are all good places to start.

• Create a launch page for a seamless transition from pre-launch to launch.