Building an initiative takes a few minutes. Click **Initiatives** in the sidebar, hit **Build Initiative**, pick your trigger from the menu, and you land in a four-step builder with a live phone preview beside you the whole way.

## Before you start

Have an offer ready, and ideally a published sales agent if you want one to handle the conversation. See **Create an offer** and **Create your first Sales Agent**.

## The four steps

![](https://app.chatwoot.com/rails/active_storage/blobs/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBCTmtsL0FVPSIsImV4cCI6bnVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--c95190f20ec3eac6f044c19207caaee732ebf628/Initiative.png)

1. **Trigger:** choose what the initiative watches, like a specific post, a DM keyword, or a story, and set the keywords. See **Choosing a trigger**.
2. **Opt-In:** write the opt-in message your prospect receives, and the button they tap to start the conversation. See **Writing your opt-in message**.
3. **Delay (optional):** add a short wait between the prospect's tap and the agent starting, or leave it off. See **Adding a delay**.
4. **Conversion:** decide what happens next, either a **Sales Agent** who carries its own offer, or a **Direct Conversion** where you pick the offer yourself. See **Choosing what happens next**.

The builder checks each step as you go, so you cannot wander forward with something important missing.

## One thing worth knowing: save your work

Initiatives do **not** autosave. Use **Save** to keep a draft, or **Publish** to go live. If you close the tab without saving, your changes are gone. (Offers autosave; initiatives are deliberate about it. When in doubt, hit Save.)

**Save** is only there while the initiative is a draft or paused. Open a live one and the button is gone, because a half-finished edit has no business sitting on something that is actively talking to people. To change a live initiative, use **Pause & Edit**. See **Preview, publish, and pause initiatives**.

## Name it and publish

Give your initiative a name so you can find it later, then **Publish**. Cloziq runs a final check and tells you in plain sentences if anything is missing. Once it is live, the next person who matches your trigger gets pulled into the flow automatically.

## Tips

- Watch the phone preview as you build. It updates live and shows the post, comments, DM, and story views exactly as your audience sees them.
- You can always start simple: one trigger, a short opt-in message, and one agent. Refine from there.

## Related articles

- [Choosing a trigger](https://help.cloziq.com/hc/cloziq/articles/choosing-a-trigger)
- [Writing your opt-in message](https://help.cloziq.com/hc/cloziq/articles/writing-your-opt-in-message)
- [Choosing what happens next](https://help.cloziq.com/hc/cloziq/articles/choosing-what-happens-next)