How to Build Your First Automated Candidate Nurturing Campaign in Keap (Step-by-Step)

In today’s competitive talent landscape, a streamlined candidate experience isn’t just a nicety—it’s a necessity. Leaving candidates in the dark after an initial application or interview can cost you top talent and damage your employer brand. An automated nurturing campaign built in Keap transforms your follow-up process from reactive to proactive, ensuring every candidate feels valued, informed, and engaged, regardless of their immediate hiring status. This guide will walk you through setting up your first Keap campaign to keep your talent pipeline warm and ready.

Step 1: Define Your Campaign Objectives and Audience Segments

Before you build anything in Keap, clarity is key. What is the primary goal of this nurturing campaign? Is it to keep rejected candidates engaged for future opportunities, to warm up passive candidates, or to inform active candidates about next steps? Your objective will dictate your content and cadence. Simultaneously, segment your audience. Will this campaign target all applicants, specific roles, or candidates who’ve reached a particular stage (e.g., interviewed, but not selected)? Defining these parameters upfront ensures your messaging is precise and relevant, preventing generic communication that can disengage potential hires. This strategic foundation is crucial for maximizing the impact and efficiency of your Keap automation.

Step 2: Map Out Your Candidate Journey and Content Strategy

With objectives and audience defined, visualize the journey. What actions do you want candidates to take, and what information do they need at each stage? A typical nurturing campaign might include an initial thank-you, follow-up content (e.g., company culture videos, employee testimonials, industry insights), and calls to action (e.g., “join our talent community,” “check out other openings”). Outline the specific emails, their content themes, and the desired timing between each message. This content strategy forms the backbone of your campaign, ensuring a logical flow that builds rapport and keeps candidates engaged without overwhelming them. Think about providing value rather than just asking for something.

Step 3: Set Up Your Initial Trigger and Segments in Keap

Navigate to the Campaigns section in Keap and start a new campaign. Your campaign’s success begins with its trigger. How will candidates enter this nurturing sequence? Common triggers include submitting a specific application form (linked directly to Keap), being tagged with a certain status (e.g., “Nurture – Rejected”), or being moved to a specific stage in a Keap opportunity record. Once triggered, the first step should often involve applying a descriptive tag (e.g., “Candidate – Nurture Campaign Active”) and segmenting them further if necessary. Keap’s tagging system is powerful for precise targeting and ensures that only the right candidates receive the right messages at the right time.

Step 4: Design Your Email Templates and Sequence

Inside your Keap campaign, begin adding your email sequences. Drag and drop email icons into your campaign flow, connecting them in the logical order you mapped out. For each email, craft compelling subject lines and personalized content. Leverage Keap’s merge fields to dynamically insert candidate names and other relevant details, making each communication feel personal. Include clear calls to action, whether it’s linking to a careers page, a talent community, or a survey. Remember to set appropriate delays between emails, allowing candidates time to digest information without feeling spammed. A well-designed sequence respects the candidate’s time and maintains engagement.

Step 5: Implement Decision Points and Conditional Logic

Automated nurturing campaigns become truly powerful with conditional logic. Utilize Keap’s decision diamonds (goals) to guide candidates down different paths based on their actions or inactivity. For example, if a candidate clicks a link to “view other openings,” you might move them to a different, more active job search campaign. If they don’t engage after a few emails, you could send a re-engagement email or tag them for future, less frequent communication. This dynamic approach ensures that candidates receive highly relevant content, optimizing their experience and saving your team valuable time by focusing efforts where they matter most.

Step 6: Test, Publish, and Monitor Your Campaign

Before publishing, rigorously test your entire Keap campaign. Enroll yourself as a dummy contact and follow every step, ensuring triggers fire correctly, emails are delivered, merge fields populate, and goals are achieved. Check for typos, broken links, and proper formatting across different devices. Once confident, publish your campaign. Post-launch, monitoring is crucial. Use Keap’s campaign reporting to track open rates, click-through rates, and goal completions. Identify areas for improvement, A/B test different subject lines or content, and iterate to continuously optimize your candidate nurturing process. This iterative approach ensures your campaign remains effective and responsive to your evolving talent needs.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: The Automated Recruiter: Your Blueprint for Transforming Talent Acquisition with Keap & AI