# Size a campaign to your sending capacity

How many leads to load into a Victoria AI campaign, based on your senders and daily limits, with room for an A/B test and a refill rhythm.

Load a campaign with as many leads as your senders can actually reach in the next few weeks, not your whole market. A right-sized list starts sending at once, gives an A/B test enough leads to call, and leaves room to improve the copy before the list is used up.

## How many new leads a campaign can start each week

Throughput is set by your senders, not by the size of the list:

**Senders × per-sender daily limit × working days**

The working days are the campaign's work hours: 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday, US Eastern time by default. Each sender should send for one campaign at a time, so its limits are that campaign's.

## LinkedIn throughput per account

Every LinkedIn lead starts with a connection request, so connection requests set the pace:

- Up to 20 connection requests a day per account, and 100 a week.
- On a five-day week, the daily cap and the weekly cap meet: about 100 new leads a week per LinkedIn account.
- LinkedIn messages have their own caps, so follow-up messages don't eat into new requests.

A multichannel sequence that opens with a connection request runs at the same pace: about 100 new leads a week per LinkedIn account.

## Email throughput per mailbox

Email limits cover every email, first touches and follow-ups alike:

- Each campaign sends up to its **Emails** daily limit per mailbox, 30 by default, and each mailbox at most 500 a week.
- Each lead uses one email per email step it reaches. A five-email sequence needs up to five sends per lead.
- So once follow-ups are flowing, new leads per mailbox per week is roughly the mailbox's weekly sends divided by the number of email steps. At the default daily limit on a five-day week, a five-email sequence starts about 30 new leads a week per mailbox.

To send more, add mailboxes rather than raising one mailbox's limits. See [Sending mailbox best practices](https://docs.versionseven.ai/help/sending-mailbox-best-practices).

## New senders start slower: the warm-up ramp

For its first 14 days, a newly connected sender sends less:

| Ramp day | LinkedIn requests or messages a day | Emails a day |
| - | - | - |
| Days 1 to 3 | 5 | 5 |
| Days 4 to 7 | 10 | 10 |
| Days 8 to 14 | 15 | 20 |

Size the first two weeks of a new sender's campaign to these numbers, not to the full limits. See [Work hours and daily limits](https://docs.versionseven.ai/help/work-hours-and-daily-limits).

## Size the lead list from throughput

Leads to load = new leads per week × the number of weeks you want the list to last.

- **First batch**: two to three weeks of first touches. That's enough to reach about 100 contacted leads and judge the copy, without spending your best leads on a first draft.
- **After that**: refill on a rhythm, below, rather than loading months of leads at once.

Example with one LinkedIn account and three mailboxes, after the ramp: a LinkedIn-only or multichannel campaign starts about 100 new leads a week, so a first batch of two to three weeks is about 200 to 300 leads. During the free trial, a workspace holds up to 250 leads in total; see [Trial lead cap](https://docs.versionseven.ai/help/trial-lead-cap).

## Size a campaign for an A/B test

An A/B test splits new leads between two variations, so each arm grows at a share of the campaign's pace.

- The verdict needs 50 contacted leads per arm before it calls anything, and 100 or more per arm is better.
- On a 50/50 split, that's about 200 contacted leads for a solid read: two weeks for one LinkedIn account at full pace.
- On an uneven split, such as 80/20, the smaller arm sets the pace. B needs its 100 leads, so the campaign needs about five times that in total.

Load enough leads for the test before you turn it on, so neither arm stalls. See [A/B testing](https://docs.versionseven.ai/help/ab-testing).

## Refill leads before the backlog runs out

A campaign's backlog is its leads that haven't started the sequence. When it's empty, the campaign stops reaching new people, even though it's still active.

- **Check the backlog**: **Not yet contacted** on the campaign's **Analytics** tab, or ask the Copilot "how many days of leads does this campaign have left?". It reports the backlog and the runway: about how many days the backlog lasts at the campaign's daily limits. Treat the runway as an estimate; ramps and weekly caps can slow the real pace.
- **Watch for the warning**: the **Dashboard** shows "is out of leads" for an active campaign with nothing left to send.
- **Refill weekly**: keep at least a week or two of backlog. Add leads on the campaign's **Leads** tab with **Find Leads**, **Add Lead** or **Upload CSV**.

The weekly campaign review can also propose a top-up from the Lead database when a campaign's runway runs short, for you to approve. See [Your first month with Victoria AI](https://docs.versionseven.ai/help/first-month).