Possibility to add "skip content" filters in engagement programs

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Today, when setting up an engagement program, there are 2 possibilities:

• adding plain emails, that will be sent unless this email has already been sent to the lead
• Adding sub-programs that may do some testing before sending (filters or choices in the smart campaign), with the big drawback that if the lead does not qualify of the smart campaign, the lead receives nothing.

Neither of these 2 possibilities enable to skip a content in cast and move directly to the next one under certain conditions.

This idea is to add the possibility, on each content of the stream, to add a "skip content" smart list with filters (no triggers). When the cast occurs, Marketo would evaluate the smart list BEFORE assigning the lead to the content and automatically move to the following content in the stream if the list is a member of the "skip content" smart list. This evaluation would be done at each cast, so if the lead is no longer member of the "skip content" list at next cast, then the lead would qualify for the content.

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

+100!  If a lead doesn't qualify for an Engagement Program cast, does it proceed to the next email?

[Robb_Barrett]

Please explain this more.  In my Engagement Programs, I do the following:

Cast 1: Send Email 1.

Cast 2: If you've opened Email 1, Send Email 2. If not, Send Email 1b.

Cast 3: If you were sent Email 1b, Send Email 2. If you were sent Email 2 and didn't open it, send 2b. If you opened Email 2, send Email 3.

Etc, etc.

It's not quite as complex to build as it sounds. It sees if you're qualified for an email and sends it if you are or skips it if you are not.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Robb,

You method works, but I still see 1 major problem: at each cast, you always add 1 more "if". After 10 or 11 casts, this becomes a pure nightmare.

The method I propose makes it much simpler. You get the email or you are moved to next content.

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

No, actually it doesn't.  The first time I built it it did, then I simplified it.

PM me if you want to set up a time to run through it.

[Dan_Stevens_]

I'd be interested as well - can you share here with the community?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Robb,

Thx a lot. I think I got it. Cast 4 will be: in you were sent Email 2b, send email 3. If you were sent email 3 and didn't open it, send 3b. If you opened email 3, send email 4. In fact, you do not need to test email 1, because it's "embedded" in email 2b and 3. Meaning that on cast 5, you will not have to test email 2, etc. So it limits the total to test to 3 emails at each cast.

Nevertheless :

Cast 3: If you were sent Email 1b, Send Email 2. If you were sent Email 2 and didn't open it, send 2b. If you opened Email 2, send Email 3.

With all due respect, the simple reading of this sentence will give headaches to most of the standard users we empower with engagement programs in most of companies

I do not think that your or Dan's level of understanding of Marketo principles and program design skills can be used as a reference for what can be understood, digested and put at work, especially on large orgs.

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

I'm putting together a blog post on it now.

[Robb_Barrett]

It's easier than this, less headachy.

[Robb_Barrett]

Length Matters: Engagement Programs that Don't Finish Too Quickly...

[Anonymous]

I also want to be able to skip emails that promote content that the lead has already consumed through other channels (if they already attended the live webinar, I don't want to send them an invitation to view the recorded version as if they have never heard of it). Building programs around this is a lot of work and it would be so much easier to just control it on each email in the engagement streams.

When I suggested this a few years back Marketo replied that they wanted to keep the engagement streams as simple as possible and not add this extra functionality. I hope they are willing to reconsider