A Stop Feature for Campaigns

[Anonymous]

My Idea is for a "Stop button" be added to the campaign schedule page.

At some point using Marketo you may run a campaign which involves an email which you then realise you have forgotten something. This could be as small as not including yourself in the smart list or major like an error in the email subject line.

If you run a campaign and realise after you have clicked run, the only choice is to delete the campaign and start over again. A stop button would help avoid having to recreate complicated campaigns.

[Anonymous]

Hi Graeme,

When running smart campaigns there is a little red X beside future runs of the campaign. Just click on the X and it will cancel the next run for the campaign and you won't need to delete the entire thing. 

If you are talking specifically about when you hit the "Run Now" button, I usually try to avoid using that option and instead always schedule campaigns 1 hour in the future. I do this to avoid the situation of someone requesting a change at the last second. I also created a comprehensive pre-send checklist that I review before approving each campaign to ensure that everything has been double checked. It really helps with the little stuff: that I'm added to the list of recipients, subject line is good, etc.

I recommend that everyone create a checklist for campaigns because there are so many little things to remember!

Hope that helps

[Anonymous]

Julia's advice is excellent, and probably answered your question. But it's also worth noting the "Remove from Flow" flowstep here, as that feature seems to be under utilized, and is a pretty handy tool for situations like these. Suppose you have some sort of long term drip campaign that's all contained in one smart campaign:

1. Send Email
2. Wait 1 month
3. Send Email 2
3. Wait 1 month
...

If you decide two weeks in that you screwed it up, added the wrong people to the list, need to start over, etc, you don't necessarily need to delete that smart campaign and lose historical data. And simply turning that smart campaign off (if it's triggered) won't necessarily work either, because that only prevents new leads from entering the smart campaign, not existing members from completing the flow.

The solution is to use "Remove from Flow". Simply view the members in the smart campaign, and use the "remove from flow" option to physically remove those members from the campaign flow. This will stop them from proceeding any further in your smart campaign, allowing you to tweak & change before your next attempt.

Hope this helps.

-Jeff

[Anonymous]

I would agree that Julia's method is effective. I also have a similar workflow which I follow and involves creating campaigns and assets based on checklists made in OneNote. But not everyone who uses Marketo has the experience or knowledge to put in place this approach (Until they make the first mistake)

I am of the opinion that a stop button wouldn't take much to implement but could save a lot of people a lot of panicking/stress IF they were to make that first mistake. But the obvious answer here is to not make a mistake in the first place with proper preperation.

[Anonymous]

I think there is another key (and suitably festive) reason for this kind of 'stop button'. Yes it would be useful for when a flow has been screwed up, but also, for pausing campaigns.

I am running several campaigns on an on going basis, they run over a month and have new leads added on a daily basis. This means that it is almost impossible to know exactly which day which lead will be sent the next email. Now this is fine, apart from over the holidays.

In general, there is not a need to send emails to prospects on chrsitmas day, at least not generic emails. Hence i want to pause all campagins over the hoididays. Currently the only way to do this is to add a dated wait function in each campagin before each email......some 20 new wait steps!

[Josh_Perry1]

I have seen several people want this feature.  I think it will be great when it comes out.