How to Send Email that was Accidentally Skipped in Engagement Program Cast

[Sheila_Baker10]

Looking for ideas on the best way to manage this...

We were changing around an existing Engagement Program that had a single stream with all Programs in the stream. The single stream was broken up into two streams and the programs moved into each of the two streams as appropriate. The original stream had all programs de-activated.

We moved people from the original single stream into one of the two new streams as well as pushed new people into the one of the new streams. All looked good. Then we let the engagement program run for a month with casts each week. Unfortunately, we just discovered that emails from the new Streams never went out. This was because the Send smart campaigns in the Programs had a filter of Member of Engagement Program and specified the original Stream, not one of the new one Streams. So with each cast, the people that would have otherwise qualified for the email were skipped because they were not in the right stream. 

I believe that just updating the stream reference in the program won't be good enough to get the person to qualify again because they already were skipped. Am I correct in my understanding? 

Assuming I'm correct, is the only way to get the emails to go is to clone the email program and enable that new program? Then we would also have to add a filter to ensure that the people that were sent the specific email prior (in the original stream) won't get it again.

Hope I'm making sense. Any insights/ideas would be appreciated. 

Thanks,

Sheila

[brandy_witte]

As long as the Orginal stream emails were moved to new streams AND NOT actually duplicate emails created, Marketo will manage that no members of that engagement program receives the same email again (Asset/ID). So if you want to essentially requalify everyone for the two new streams you want to target audience to + fix the filter and they will only receive the emails in those new streams they have not been sent before as members of that Engagement program. This only works however if the email assets are the Orginal i.e. same email ID they had when the Orginal stream ran in that same engagement program.  

Otherwise it might be wise to start fresh and / or use nested programs where you can use exclusions for the duplicate emails in the original stream to be very sure you don't send duplicate content if you plan to retarget some of the former audience members. 

[Katja_Keesom]

First of all, yes your understanding is correct. The Engagement Program remembers who has been sent to which content program and will not send the same person to the same program again. In addition, the Engagement Program will recognize members of those content programs and will not send a person to a content program they are already member of.

@brandy_witte provides an interesting alternative solution by removing your audience from the Engagement Program and requalifying them. That may actually work, but would almost certainly also remove the history of those people in the Engagement Program (which is kind of the point to overcome this issue, but also distorts your EP reporting).

The second alternative is indeed to set up a new range of content programs and moving your email assets from the old to the new in order to try and retain your reporting history at least at the email level. In this scenario it is important to ensure the people who received the content before are properly added as members of the new program with the correct status to also retain your reporting at content program level and ensure the Engagement Program will skip that particular email in the upcoming casts.

[Sheila_Baker10 · Accepted solution]

Thought I would circle back to put the solution I  used in case anyone else has a similar problem. As a reminder, all emails were in nested programs. The "Send" smart campaign in the programs refereneced the original stream. When they were moved into the new streams, people in the new stream went through the casts but because of incorrect reference to the original stream did not receive the email. I did not want to lose any reporting and I wanted the reporting to continue in the same program/sfdc campaigns for continuity.

The solution that has worked:

1) Created a new nested program with same channel as original program.

2) Cloned just the "Send" smart campaign from the original program. Updated the smart filter for Member of Engagement Program to reference the new stream instead of the old one. Added a filter of "Not Was Sent Email" referencing the email in the original program.

3) In the flow, left the email to be sent as the one in the original program. Also left the change program status flow steps referencing the original program. So no flow steps were changed.

4) In the new Stream, deactivated the original program. Added and activated the new program/Send campaign reference

On the next cast, the skipped email was sent. All of the nested program statuses and sfdc campaign statuses remained with the original program as desired. A standard Email Performance report shows the email references in the orginal program. An Engagement Stream Performance report has the Email Name that includes the new program.original program.email so the name is a bit long. But since the report is breaking it up by Stream anyway,  the extra reference isn't hurting anything.

[Katja_Keesom]

Well thought out!