In this article, you'll learn how to set up an event campaign using Spear. Before getting started, make sure you have:
An active profile connected to Spear
Know the ICP you want to input
Have the campaign copy you want to use
What is an Event Campaign?
An event campaign is a time-sensitive strategy designed to generate business opportunities around a specific occasion. It uses a targeted messaging flow to secure registrations or meeting slots before a fixed deadline.
Each event campaign is crafted to maximize visibility and engagement toward one of the following goals:
Driving registrations for a client-hosted event, such as an invite-only session, dinner, or webinar.
Arranging sales meetings with prospects who are attending a major industry conference.
Re-engaging contacts immediately after meeting them at a networking session.
Targeting a specific group of relevant prospects, regardless of whether they are attending an event.
How to start a new event campaign
Step 1: Start a New Campaign
Navigate to the Campaigns page in your Spear dashboard and click the '+ New campaign' button located at the top right of the page.
Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Type
You will be asked to choose a campaign type based on the prospects you want to reach:
New Prospects: For new prospects you are not connected with. Get prospect suggestions and send personalized trigger-based messages.
Existing Network: For existing connections within the outreach platform. Spear will suggest prospects from your network that match your ICP.
Select your preferred option and click Create Campaign.
Step 3: Campaign Settings
Enter a clear and descriptive name for your campaign in the Campaign Name field.
Choose the primary language for your campaign.
Step 4: Choose Campaign Type
Select Event campaign as your campaign type. The event configuration fields will appear in this same step:
Enter the Event name and the Event domain (URL) in their designated fields so the system identifies the event correctly.
Conference events
This only applies to conference-type events. Client-hosted events (an invite-only session, a dinner, a webinar), pure networking-session campaigns, and general audience targeting still need manual campaign setup — Spear can only auto-detect speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors for public industry conferences with a public event website.
Note: Once you save a conference event, Spear automatically finds its speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors from the event's official website — you don't need to build those audiences by hand. This only happens once per event: if another profile creates a campaign for the same event later, Spear reuses what it already found.
If Spear can't confidently identify the event, it asks you to edit the details or pick from a list of suggested matches instead.
Attendees event campaigns
Note: These types of campaigns aren't available on the Starter tier.
Attendees work differently for now: they aren't found automatically. If your Customer Success contact has already uploaded an attendee list for this event, your campaign will pull from it automatically — otherwise you'll still need to source attendees manually.
Scheduling
Define the specific timeframe for your outreach by selecting dates for Auto activation and Auto de-activation. Then click 'Next' in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
If the event uses a networking platform, select Connect.
Input your login details. Then, click the 'Save' button.
Step 5: Input the ICP definition
If you selected Spear ICP filters as your prospect source, use the filters to input the ICP you want to apply to this campaign. For a full breakdown of each available filter, check out What are the different filters and how to use them.
If you want to know more about how our ICP per campaign feature works, click here for the complete guide.
When your ICP definition is complete, hit 'Apply'. This is what a good campaign looks like:
If you want to know more about the ICP scoring, click here for the complete guide.
On the right, you'll see a preview of prospects Spear has found based on the ICP filters you entered. Review these examples carefully — if you spot prospects that don't match your ICP, you'll need to adjust your filters.
Step 6: Set Up Your Sequence
Build your first message and follow-ups for the campaign. For the full walkthrough on how to structure and write your sequence, check out How do I set up my campaign sequence?
Once your sequence is complete, click 'Create Campaign' in the bottom-right corner of the screen to finalize your setup.
Useful Tips and Best Practices
Start Early: Set Auto activation to 3 weeks before the event to give yourself enough time to book meetings.
Stop on Time: Set Auto de-activation to one day before the event so you don't send meeting requests while the event is happening.
Connect the App: If available, enable the Networking app toggle to pull attendee data directly from the event platform.
Maximize Volume: Consider pausing other general campaigns for the profile attending the event to concentrate daily volume on the event campaign.