I set up a campaign for an internal team. I tagged everyone as “Internal.” Then set up a campaign that started with the tag applied (Internal) goal, which led to the sequence. For some reason, only 14 of the 22 contacts received the first email. My boss was one of the people who did not receive the email, which put me in an awkward spot trying to answer why they didn’t get the email. Why didn’t everyone tagged become active in the campaign and receive the email?
You setup the campaign first. Then raise the tag. If the tag is already set and you attempt to raise it then it won’t work. The tag must not be applied to start with and the campaign must be published first.
There is an option when publishing a campaign to add the contacts that qualify for the tag goal but I don’t know how consistent that approach is. I do know making sure the tag is not set and then setting it to all the contacts you wish does work though.
You also may want to check and ensure that all contacts have a marketable email status. If you added them manually, or imported them, then it’s possible that the system just doesn’t know that there is permission.