Engagement program cadence v. Frequency with which members receive email

[Lauren_Galietti]

Add an option to not only set the cadence of the stream but also the frequency with which members of the stream can receive content from the stream.

This would allow users to set their streams up to cast each week (or with whatever frequency they choose) but would prohibit the members of the campaign from receiving emails every week. Instead members of the stream would only receive email from each cast for which they are "eligible."

Cadence = how often email messages in the stream are sent
New Feature = how often members of the stream can receive email (like a wait step)

So, while the stream might have casts that happen weekly (every Tuesday at 2pm), if the stream is set up so that members can only receive email from the stream once every 2 weeks, then after receiving their first email, members will only receive an email every other cast.

[Anonymous]

I'm not clear as to why you would do this rather than just create a different stream with a different cadence?  If you want some people to receive email 1x week and others to receive content 2x a week, you can segment them into the different streams.

[Lauren_Galietti]

I am not having the easiest time explaining what I'm meaning here but I'll try to explain it with an example.

Currently, we have our cadence set to every 4 weeks. So let's say, an email went out today (9/26).

Then, on 9/30, we get an email list from a tradeshow and realize that many of the contacts are perfect for the same engagement program that just sent an email on 9/26.

Now, since our candence is set to every 4 weeks, these new additions and anyone else added to the program in early October won't get an email from us until 10/24 when the next cast occurs.

I'd like to be able to set the cadence to every 1 week so that each week new members can enter the program and begin receiving emails BUT I'd like to prohibit each individual member from receiving email messages weekly as part of the program and instead would like to use a setting to say "an individual member can only receive messages from this stream once every 4 weeks."

Outside of the engagement engine this could be accomplished by using a schedule recurrence (so a campaign triggers and sends an email to all new members of a smart list every Thursday) with wait steps so that after receiving that first email, the person waits 28 days (or whatever time period) before receiving the next email. So some members might receive the email on 9/26 and then the second email after the 28 day wait on 10/24, others would receive it on 10/3 and 10/31, others on 10/10 and 11/7 and so on...

I don't know if that helps or not...

Additional thought: right now, with engagement programs, a "wait step" and a "schedule recurrence" aren't mutually exclusive like they are in a regular program.

[Lauren_Galietti]

Quite honestly, this would be a non-issue if we could set our cadence closer together but we don't have the content to sustain that right now.

[Anonymous]

Trying to do the exact same thing.  Was hoping I could set the stream cadence to weekly to run on Tues and Thurs.  Then the first program in the stream has no wait step, so that it would send an email to the new members on Tues then when it is run again on Thurs those members would go to the next program which has a wait step of 14 days and begin the two week cycle.  The logic works in my head but I am looking for someone from Marketo to confirm this approach would work before I make changes to an already running nurture.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Hey Cheryl, any chance you can tell me if I am on the right track?

[Ryan_O_Shea]

Agreed. This is an area where switching to the Engagement Engine was actually a step backwards for us.  We have a daily flow of leads entering our nurture program where they start in a general content stream until they are moved to different stream based on what content they engage with.  I want the leads to get 1 email per week in the general stream, but by setting the stream's cadence to once a week, a new lead might wait 6 days before getting any content.  This also means my volume of sends on cast-day is huge, rather than spreading out the casts all week.  I need the stream to cast every weekday, but for each lead to be elgible for only 1 cast per week.

[Anonymous]

This would be huge for us as well. Ideally, I think EPs would have the option to work like a classic trigger campaign, where a lead can enter and start the program at any time, without a wait. We have multiple nurtures that would fit perfectly into an Engagement program, but a few things are holding us back and forcing us to go back to the old Traffic Cop style build. The whole casting, cadence and wait step functionality is highly lacking in features.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for suggesting this idea! It would be great for me too. I want to set our cadence to every 2 weeks but hate the idea that someone may have to wait 13 days before getting their first email.

[Anonymous]

I agree! I'd like to follow the best practices, but seem to constantly need workarounds. I'd love to use the engagement program for the way it's meant to be used. But we need new members added weekly and emails sent every three weeks, so it's not going to work without integrating programs and campaigns.

Can anyone provide further detail on how they've had success with workarounds?