Campaign Builder

Read time 9 min Level Beginner Prerequisites A Story already attached to a signed agreement or planned in Engagement Hub

In a nutshell: Campaign Builder is the home base for a Story -- nine purpose-built tabs (ACTIVITY, BRIEF, SMART, OUTCOMES, STRATEGY, MEDIA RELEASES, TALENT, MEDIA PACK, NEWSWIRE) covering every job from objectives to publishing. You will spend most of your time on MEDIA RELEASES, where an inline editor with auto-save and AI drafting lets you write, refine and approve every release angle on the Story. Approve is publish -- the moment a release is approved, it becomes the version everything downstream pulls from.

What you will learn

Why Campaign Builder is the home base for a Story.
What each of the nine tabs is for, in the order they appear.
How the MEDIA RELEASES inline editor works -- including the AI Assistant and the Release Wizard.
The relationship between drafting in Campaign Builder and reviewing in the Editing Suite.

The mental model: one Story, many work surfaces

Open Campaign Builder from the CAMPAIGN menu. Stories arrive here from one of two upstream places -- the agreement and e-sign flow in Account Management, or a planned slot in Engagement Hub -- so Campaign Builder is where you pick up Stories that already have a commercial home.

The landing tab is ACTIVITY: a grid of Story cards with search, location filtering, a Story dropdown and an "Include Completed" toggle. Pick a Story and the rest of the tab strip opens. From that point, Campaign Builder is the Story's home base -- brief, objectives, strategy, releases, spokespeople, media pack and NewsWire post all live across the same tab strip.

[Screenshot placeholder -- Campaign Builder with a Story loaded, showing the nine tabs across the top]

The tab strip after a Story is selected: ACTIVITY, BRIEF, SMART, OUTCOMES, STRATEGY, MEDIA RELEASES, TALENT, MEDIA PACK, NEWSWIRE.

The nine tabs, in order

ACTIVITY: The landing tab. Pick a Story from the cards, the location filter, the dropdown or the "Include Completed" toggle. Once a Story is loaded, this tab doubles as the activity log -- everything the team has logged against the Story.
BRIEF BP1: The Campaign Brief: Specific Objectives, Key Messages and Target Audience, plus hours tracking, campaign notes and the agreed services pulled through from the Engagement. The "why" behind everything else.
SMART BP1: A SMART check on the objectives you set on the BRIEF tab -- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. Reads what BRIEF holds and shows you where to tighten.
OUTCOMES BP2: Where you set the targets you will be measured against: Delivery KPIs (with quick-start presets), a KPI progress summary, sentiment and message pull-through, and Business Outcome KPIs you add yourself. These feed the Success Score.
STRATEGY BP3: A sub-tabbed strategy workspace: CAMPAIGN BRIEF (outcomes and success criteria), PITCHING STRATEGY, SMART MATCH (AI-ranked journalists matched to the Story), CAMPAIGN LENS, SOCIAL MONITORING and PROJECT PLAN.
MEDIA RELEASES: The everyday release-writing surface. Inline editor, AI Assistant, auto-save, approve-to-publish. Covered in detail below.
TALENT: Two sub-tabs. TALENT holds the spokespeople list -- Add Talent, bios, photos, contact details, a per-row "Add Talent Agreement" action and a per-row Schedule Portal link that opens that spokesperson's availability portal. INTERVIEW PREP holds talking points and interview question tips that flow into the Spokesperson Pack and the Schedule portal.
MEDIA PACK: Where you assemble the branded media pack: Event Details, About The Research, About The Day, About The Client, Information Page, and data for up to three infographic charts. Two buttons here render the deliverables: Generate Media Pack and Generate Spokesperson Pack.
NEWSWIRE: A WYSIWYG editor for the Story's TheNewsWire post -- the public release card, its assets and its teaser, plus its publish date.

What makes a great brief

The BRIEF tab is the foundation everything else builds on. A strong brief is the difference between a Story that lands and one that drifts. Three principles to apply on every Story:

SMART objectives. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound -- the framework PR practitioners share with marketing. "Secure 10 pieces of tier-1 coverage in the launch fortnight" is SMART; "drive awareness" is not. The SMART tab is the cross-check; pass it before pitching starts. The Barcelona Principles (covered in The Barcelona Principles in Practice) make goal-setting their first principle for exactly this reason.
Audience-first. Specify the audience the Story is reaching, not the audience the client wishes for. A workplace-wellbeing Story for HR directors at FTSE 250 employers is a different pitch from one for SME owners or for the general consumer.
Key-message hierarchy. Primary message (the headline takeaway), secondary messages (the supporting points), proof points (the data that backs each message). A three-tier hierarchy survives the journalist's cut better than a flat list of seven bullets.

For Acme PR Corp's Globex Wellbeing Index 2026, the brief reads:

Specific Objectives: 10+ tier-1 national placements in launch fortnight; CQI average of 7.0+; 3+ broadcast interviews with Dr Helen Ashworth.
Key Messages: Primary -- UK workplace burnout is up 23% YoY and the hybrid model is amplifying the rise. Secondary -- The data is sector-specific, with manufacturing and healthcare worst hit. Proof -- Globex Industries' annual research, 4,000-respondent sample, peer-reviewed methodology.
Target Audience: HR directors and chief people officers at UK employers with 500+ headcount, via national news and HR trade press.

One paragraph, no waffle, every line testable. That is the standard.

The MEDIA RELEASES inline editor -- the centrepiece

Click MEDIA RELEASES and you are in the inline editor. Each Story can carry as many release angles as the launch needs -- a Primary release, a regional version, a broadcast angle, a Print version -- and each angle gets its own tab across the top.

Release tabs run across the top of the editor. Click Add Release to add a new angle. Right-click a release tab to rename or delete it.
Four content fields per release: Headline, Summary (Key Points), Body, and Suggested Questions, References and Citations -- the last field is general references and citations rather than dedicated interview questions.
Auto-save runs roughly every 15 seconds while you edit, with an "Auto-save enabled" indicator on screen. A Save button writes immediately if you want the safety of an explicit save.
Workflow buttons sit on the status bar: Save, Assign (hand the release to a colleague), Approve (and Revert after approval), and Publish Release where the workflow allows it. The status badge moves through Draft → Progress → Approved.
Versioning and approval are built into this editor -- an Approved release is the published version, and Revert reopens it for editing if you need to change something.

[Screenshot placeholder -- MEDIA RELEASES tab: release tabs, status bar with Save/Assign/Approve, and the four content editors]

The inline editor: release-angle tabs, the status and action bar, and the Headline / Summary / Body / Suggested Questions editors.

The AI Assistant and the AI Release Wizard

The AI Assistant button on the MEDIA RELEASES tab opens a slide-out panel. Set the Story Context -- Category, Topic, Key Message and a few supporting statistics -- and you get three actions: Regenerate Full Story, Ideas (inspiration prompts) and Headlines.

When you open an empty release, the editor opens straight into the AI Release Wizard -- a four-step flow covering Body, Headline, Bullets and Questions. Paste your brief or rough notes, the wizard drafts a body, then suggests around three headline options grounded in that body, then key points, then questions. "Write manually" skips the wizard at any step, and "Re-run wizard" on the status bar reopens it whenever you want it back.

The rich-text editor itself carries an AI tone helper on its toolbar -- useful for tightening the prose without leaving the editor.

Drafting here, reviewing in the Editing Suite

Campaign Builder is your drafting surface. The Editing Suite is the focused, distraction-free reviewer surface a colleague or client reaches via an assigned link -- same four fields, same auto-save, but with the rest of the Story stripped away so the reviewer can read, edit and approve cleanly.

So the flow is: draft in Campaign Builder > Assign or Add Reviewer > reviewer works in the Editing Suite > Approve. One author, one reviewer, one published version.

Try this: Open your next Story, head to MEDIA RELEASES, and click Add Release. Name the new angle "Broadcast". Open the AI Assistant, set the Category and a topic line, and click Headlines. Pick the one that fits and watch it drop straight into the Headline field. Wait a few seconds and check the "Auto-save enabled" indicator -- your work is already safe.

Quick reference

Open Campaign Builder from the CAMPAIGN menu
Nine tabs: ACTIVITY, BRIEF, SMART, OUTCOMES, STRATEGY, MEDIA RELEASES, TALENT, MEDIA PACK, NEWSWIRE
Stories arrive from Account Management (post-signature) or Engagement Hub
MEDIA RELEASES -- inline editor, four fields per release, multiple release angles, ~15-second auto-save
Status bar carries Save / Assign / Approve / Revert / Publish; Approved is the published version
AI Assistant slide-panel + AI Release Wizard (four steps) for drafting; rich-text editor has its own AI tone helper
Editing Suite = reviewer surface reached via assignment link; same content, stripped UI

Key takeaways

Campaign Builder is the home base for one Story: nine tabs, each a different job.
MEDIA RELEASES is where most work happens. Inline editor, AI Assistant, auto-save every ~15 seconds.
Approve is publish. The approved release is what email pitching, the media pack, portals and client reports all pull from. Revert reopens it if you need to change something.
The Editing Suite handles reviewers; Campaign Builder handles authors.