Launch-day playbook: hour by hour

If you've done the six weeks of preparation, launch day isn't chaos — it's execution. Your early-giving total is banked, your captains are briefed, your messages are drafted, and your match pools are loaded. Today your job changes from builder to conductor: keep the room updated in your Overview tab and make sure every planned beat lands on time. Here's the script.

Plan note: the Email/SMS/Robocall channels, match pools, visit-and-conversion analytics, and the Live Screen are Pledgix Pro and Political features by default (the Pledgix team can adjust access per campaign) — run the same beats through whichever channels your plan includes.

Before the doors open (60–90 minutes out)

• Run the quick version of your pre-launch checklist: make one final test donation, confirm your match pool badges read the way they should (Active or correctly Locked), and check the page in each language.
• Post the "almost time" teaser to your community channels — the countdown on your public page is doing the same work for anyone who visits.
• Send captains their wake-up message via the SMS Center: "We go live at 10:00. Send your team link at 10:05 — here it is again." Never assume they saved it.

Hour 0: Go live loudly

The moment your page flips to Live Now, fire everything in the first fifteen minutes:

• The launch email from Email Studio — lead with the banked early-giving total and the match: "We open at 32% of goal, and every gift is DOUBLED."
• The launch SMS — shortest possible: the multiplier, the deadline, the link. SMS gets read within minutes; it's your fastest channel all day.
• Captain activation — their single job this hour is sending their personal team link to their own network. Personal messages from captains reliably out-convert anything the campaign account sends.
• If you use Robocalls, schedule the first wave for mid-morning rather than minute one — let the personal messages land first.

A strong opening hour matters beyond its own numbers: everyone who visits during the day sees the momentum it created.

Hours 1–3: Watch, verify, celebrate

Settle into your dashboard rhythm. On the Overview tab, watch four things:

• Recent Donations — is money flowing? Are gifts crediting the right teams?
• Velocity and Pace & Projection — you'll see your projected final total from the very first hours. Don't panic over a mid-morning dip; do note whether you're broadly on pace.
• Conversion — plenty of Page Visits but few gifts means the page or the suggested amounts need attention, not your traffic. (The conversion rate itself lives in the Visits view of your Analytics section — Visitor Analytics is a Pro/Political feature; the Overview's Page Visits chip gives every plan the traffic half of the picture.)
• The Team Leaderboard — screenshot it and post the first standings update 2–3 hours in. Name the top three teams. Competitive captains will do the rest. (The Overview leaderboard comes with Pledgix One and above.)

Celebrate early milestones in your channels the moment they happen — first 100 donors, 40% of goal, a team hitting its goal. Momentum is a story you narrate all day.

Midday: The second wave

Attention dips after lunch everywhere; plan a deliberate beat for it:

• A fresh-angle email — not a repeat of the morning blast. Tell one donor story, spotlight a team, or reveal a milestone: "The Cohen team just became the first to hit their goal."
• Captain check-ins, individually. Your All Teams table shows donations per team — and, with Visitor Analytics (Pro/Political), page views per team too, where captains with low page views haven't shared yet. Call them. A two-minute call converts a dormant captain far better than a group message.
• If you held a surprise match pool in reserve, midday of a multi-day campaign (or mid-afternoon of a one-day blitz) is a classic moment to activate it and announce: "An anonymous friend just added $25,000 to the match!"

Evening: Prime time

For most communities, roughly 7–10 pm is the heaviest giving window of the day — check Today by Hour on your Overview tab and you'll usually see it forming. Ride it:

• Send your strongest remaining message into the window, not after it.
• Post the leaderboard again; evening is when friendly rivalries peak.
• If launch day doubles as event night, this is your Live Screen moment — see Running a live event with the Live Screen.

Before you sleep

• Post a day-one recap with the total, top teams, and tomorrow's target — gratitude plus a cliffhanger.
• Send captains their standings and one specific number: "You're at $3,400 of $5,000 — six average gifts finishes it tomorrow."
• Note tomorrow's plan against today's data: which hours were hot, which segments underperformed, which teams need a morning call.

Tip: Assign one person to be on the dashboard all day whose only job is watching Recent Donations and flagging anomalies — a misattributed team gift or a stalled pool caught in ten minutes is a footnote; caught at midnight, it's a mess.

Tip: Prepare your milestone graphics and messages the day before. When you cross 50% at 3:47 pm, you want to post at 3:48 — not start designing.