Adjusting stream cadence - Engagement Programs

[Balkar_Singh]

This engagement program is built with multiple streams and one content piece per stream. 

The transition is based on whenever the email in the prior stream is delivered.

Here’s how things are working right now.

• A recurring batch smart campaign adds people to this engagement program in 01
• 01 sends email whenever the cast is due - which is every two weeks
• People qualify for 02 when the email in 01 delivers (transition rules)
  

But we need to change this to the following.

• People who qualify till the time of cast for 01, need to get the email within the week. Currently, if the cast of 01 is not due this week, people who qualify this week will get the email in 01 next week.
• People who qualify for 02, need to have a delay of at least one week, but maximum of two weeks. That is, the email in 02 should be sent within two weeks and at least one week after email in 01 has been delivered.

I’m thinking to 

• Change the cadence of 01 to weekly
• Change the cadence of 02 to weekly
• Add a wait step of 7 days  in the flow step of transition rules at 02

This should work, right?

[Michael_Florin · Accepted solution]

Yes, that will work. See also: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/champion-program-blogs/engagement-program-hacks-for-variable-cadence-a...

But allow me to ask: Why do you put three pieces of content into three streams when the transition rule is that the email is delivered? That looks like a standard use case of having three content pieces in one stream. "Email Delivered" is not really a transition rule which would usually imply some kind of interaction of your recipient with the content.

But in general: Yes, making the stream cadence tighter - even set it to every day - and add wait steps to create a variable cadence is certainly a way to go.

[Balkar_Singh]

Thanks @Michael_Florin !

I'd agree and it'll keep things simple - we had to accommodate future possibility of adding more content. As transition rules will modify overtime. The only thing we want to modify is the Email Asset Name in transition rules when we add more content to streams. 

I usually advocate the idea of simplicity, and I think Engagement Programs scale best when simple. But let's see what time unfolds!

[Darshil_Shah1]

Instead of adding people to a wait step to delay the transition, I think it would be more convenient to add people to a static list based on their stream eligibility (e.g., email delivered), and then batch those people in the correct stream using recurring transition campaigns (and of course then remove people from the static list(s) post-transition). In this way, you need not worry about setting up the stream cadences around the criteria/requirement (unlike using wait steps in the transition rules approach), as in this case you can schedule your transition campaigns to add people to the correct stream before the cast time.

[Balkar_Singh]

Thanks Darshil, a variety of ways to achieve things here for sure.