# Campaign Forms vs. Contact Segments (what is best to start a campaign)

**URL:** <https://forum.mautic.org/t/campaign-forms-vs-contact-segments-what-is-best-to-start-a-campaign/15834>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Tags:** community, development\
**Created:** [August 27, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/campaign-forms-vs-contact-segments-what-is-best-to-start-a-campaign/15834 "2020-08-27T14:15:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mgulam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/mgulam/32/593_2.png) [@mgulam](https://forum.mautic.org/u/mgulam)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/campaign-forms-vs-contact-segments-what-is-best-to-start-a-campaign/15834/1 "2020-08-27T14:15:34Z")

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The title pretty much says it all. Is there a preference and how does each option effect a campaign?

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**Author:** ![chris0928](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/chris0928/32/118_2.png) [@chris0928](https://forum.mautic.org/u/chris0928)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 1:18am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/campaign-forms-vs-contact-segments-what-is-best-to-start-a-campaign/15834/2 "2020-08-28T01:18:05Z")

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In my opinion, using standalone forms and then triggering campaigns via contact segments is usually the way to go. You get more flexibility and you have more “Actions” you can trigger directly after form submission (before a campaign even starts).

One of the complaints about standalone forms used to be that you’d have to wait for your cron jobs to trigger (update segment / start campaign) before the first email could be sent. So if you wanted to send an email immediately after someone submitted, it wasn’t always doable.

But now you can just use the “Send email to contact” action on the form to send that first email right away.

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**Author:** ![mgulam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/mgulam/32/593_2.png) [@mgulam](https://forum.mautic.org/u/mgulam)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/campaign-forms-vs-contact-segments-what-is-best-to-start-a-campaign/15834/3 "2020-08-28T20:59:34Z")

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Thank you @chris0928 - To elaborate my question, what is the difference between the two and when do you use a Campaign Form vs. Contact Segments.