Bringing microcampaigns back

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Over the last couple of months building skyp.ai and talking to literally hundreds of founders about their outbound, I feel like I lost the plot. Microcampaigns are where it’s at. Here’s why, and how to run them.

I lost the plot because the current AI world has taken scalability to a whole new level. What used to be only for enormous, well funded companies with dedicated growth teams has become common at any company, especially startups. Whether stringing together automations using vibecoding and OpenAI’s API or leveraging purpose built products like Clay or UnifyGTM, automating GTM strategies has never been easier.

The rise of the “AI SDR” means you can run “plays” all the time, emailing literally everyone all at once. Some of these are effective (most are not) but the feeling that you’ve solved the problem by articulating a strategy, automating the shit out of it, and having it always running in the background is a great feeling. Even if it doesn’t really work. Maybe you’ll learn something.

As a startup, however, these scaled “plays” are not the way. Because they are automated, they take a lot of thought and setup. They require significant budget. They can flood inboxes and calendars with unqualified leads. Usually they don’t work all that well, so you make up for that with volume. In small markets, or for early stage, targeted products, scale isn’t possible.

Microcampaigns are the answer. They solve two major problems for startups. First, they get results–qualified people to talk to and sell. Second, they enable experiments.

What is a microcampaign?

Microcampaigns are targeted campaigns to a very specific set of people. You might reach out to speakers at TechCrunch Disrupt. Or attendees who fit specific criteria. Maybe you target leads who took a meeting last quarter but never bought. You might run a campaign targeting portfolio company founders of a specific VC (which, now that I write it down, sounds like a pretty clever idea that I should try).

While microcampaigns could be executed in any medium–email, sms, paid search, display, outdoor, etc.–usually they start with or at least include email. This is because email at small scale is very fast to get going, if and only if you keep volumes small.

Any specific micro campaign is usually a one-off. You are not always reaching out to founders debuting at Disrupt. It only happens once a year so you do it just the one time. Every year, if it works. But the strategy of running microcampaigns is evergreen. You can (and perhaps should) always be trying new campaigns to see what works.

What makes microcampaigns interesting

Microcampaigns simply work. The nature of the campaign itself makes it effective. A microcampaign speaks specifically to a very narrow audience. You’re not trying to reach every startup founder; you’re talking to ones with, say, a board member from Congruent Ventures. Or a booth at TC Disrupt. The more targeted, the better. This makes everything about the campaign perform better.