A campaign that is live can be changed while it keeps running. Your changes go into a separate staging version: visitors in staging mode see it, and every other visitor keeps getting the live version, untouched, until you publish the new one. This page covers the buttons a live campaign has, the bar that says which version you are editing, putting changes back, and taking a campaign off live on purpose.
The buttons on a live campaign
On a campaign with a live version, the campaign’s top bar shows Publish to staging as two halves:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Save changes to staging | “Saves your changes as a separate staging version. Live visitors keep getting version N until you publish.” Greyed out when there is nothing to stage; the hover says why. |
| Take vN off live | “Moves the campaign to staging. Live visitors stop seeing it until you publish to live again.” Asks first — see Take it off live. |
| The arrow beside them | Staging mode: who sees staging — whether your IP is in staging, Enter staging / Leave staging. |
| Publish vS to live | On the staging version: “Replaces live version N for all visitors.” (Publish to live elsewhere.) |
| Save as draft | Keeps your work as a draft. On the version that is live it takes the campaign off live — see Save as draft, Publish to staging, Publish to live. |
When nothing is edited on the live version, Take vN off live is the bright half: the version you have open is the one in production, and there is nothing to stage.
Save changes to staging: live keeps running
- Open the campaign and make your changes — actions, variants, targeting rules, how often it shows.
- Press Save changes to staging. The campaign now has two versions: the live one, still served to every visitor, and the new staging version.
- Check it the way you check anything on staging: Staging view at the bottom of the menu, the QA step, or a preview link. See Testing & QA.
- Keep editing the staging version and save again as often as you like; each save stays beside live.
- When it is right, press Publish vS to live. It replaces the live version for all visitors.
Inside the action editor the same choice is in the Save and… menu: Push to staging, keep live running — “Save everything into a separate staging version. Live visitors keep getting version N, untouched, until you push this one to production.” On the staging version itself, Push to staging saves into it and live keeps running.
Why Save changes to staging can be greyed out:
| The hover says | What to do |
|---|---|
| There are no changes to stage yet. | Change something first. |
| This version is already on staging, with no changes since. | Nothing to do: publish it to live when ready. |
| Open staging version M to stage changes there. | A staging version is already waiting beside live. Open it (the bar has the button) and make your changes there. |
| Renaming changes live too. Publish to live, or undo the rename. | See What a staging version cannot hold. |
| One moment: this version is still loading. | Wait a second. |
Some campaign types cannot have a staging version beside live, and the half stays greyed out with the reason on hover: AI Search & Chat, AI Personalization and Landing Page, a survey, booking or review form that has a page of its own, and campaigns Personyze sends (email and web push), whose test sends always go out from the live version. For these, Take vN off live is still there.
The bar that says which version you are editing
While a campaign has two versions, a bar under the open step says which one you have open.
On the staging version: “You’re editing the staging version — live keeps running version N”, then:
- Differs from live: what this version changes — so many actions, the variants, the targeting rules, how often it shows, the A/B test settings — or Nothing differs from live yet.
- Not saved yet: your unsaved changes, and that Save changes to staging puts them beside live; publishing to live replaces version N.
- For a campaign Personyze sends: Test sends of this campaign go out from the live version until you publish this one.
Its button, Open live version N, opens the live version in the editor, to look at. If you have unsaved changes the browser asks “Discard unsaved changes and load the selected version?” first.
On the live version, while a staging version waits — this is where a campaign opens: “You’re editing the live version N. A separate staging version M is waiting beside it.” Changes cannot be staged from here; press Open version M. Publishing the live version from here replaces staging version M.
What a staging version cannot hold
A staging version copies the campaign’s targeting rules, its variants and their split, and its actions. A few things are shared by every version, so changing them beside live would change live at once. On the staging version they are locked, and each says why:
- The campaign’s name, a variant’s name and an action’s name — “The name is shared with the live version, so renaming here would rename live too. Rename it after publishing.”
- The order of actions inside a placeholder.
- The wording of a saved survey question, which the live survey’s profile field shares.
- Steps whose settings belong to the whole account or to the campaign’s page — for example AI Search & Chat’s Knowledge, Data and People, and Meetings’ Hosts, Availability and Meeting types: “The settings on this step have no staging copy, so changing them would change live right away. Publish version S to live first.”
Publish the staging version, and the lock is gone: from then on those controls change the version that is live, as they always did.
Throwing changes away: Discard and Put it back
The count beside Save as draft (“3 changes to save”) lists what is waiting; see Save as draft, Publish to staging, Publish to live. Under Not saved yet – lost if you leave the page its button is Discard unsaved changes.
An AI Personalization campaign can also throw away changes that were already saved. Under Saved – not live yet the button is Put back what is live (on a version on staging, Put back what is on staging):
- It asks: “Put the campaign back to what is live? N saved changes are undone. This cannot be undone.”
- Put it back does it; Cancel leaves everything as it is.
- It answers Put back. — or Put back. These could not be undone and are still waiting: and the list.
For other campaign types, saved changes stay in the staging version: open the live version (Open live version N) to see what live is serving, and publish only when the staging version is what you want.
Take it off live
Take vN off live stops the campaign for live visitors. It always asks first, in a red dialog:
- Take this campaign off live? — “Live visitors stop seeing it. Staging visitors will see version N.” For a campaign Personyze sends: “Its live version stops sending. Version N will be on staging.”
- Take it off live does it. Cancel, Esc or a click outside does nothing.
The live version moves to staging, or, while a staging version is already waiting, to a draft — the waiting staging version stays on staging. To put the campaign back in front of visitors, publish to live again.
Team members without production access
A team member who can work on staging but not publish to live (see Team members) gets Save changes to staging and no Take vN off live. Every save of theirs on a live campaign goes into a staging version beside live, and the count says so: “Save changes to staging keeps these – publishing them to live needs production access.” Someone with production access opens the staging version and publishes it.
Related
- Save as draft, Publish to staging, Publish to live — the three buttons, and the count beside Save
- Testing & QA — checking the staging version before you publish
- Live visits and Campaign activity — watching the campaign after you publish
- Team members — who can publish to live
- Finding your way around the panel — Staging view at the bottom of the menu