Best Practices for Changing Program Status?

[Marisa_Rybar]

Up until now, I have been changing the program status of my leads involved in smart campaigns. However, today I am scheduling an email to go out tomorrow morning to invite prospects to download a guide, through which they would need to click on a link that directed them to a landing page in the same program.

Since I set this up as a web program (because I have shared it out in other places besides this email push tomorrow morning), I am not able to add a flow step to my email push tomorrow to Change Program Status > Email Blast > Sent.

Now that's got me thinking. Have I been adding an extra, unnecessary flow step all along? How does it affect me when I change a program status to Email Blast > Sent? Is it included in a specific report? If not, couldn't I just pull a smart list or look at the batch results to view leads included in an email push?

I'm curious how other people approach this and what best practices are around it.

Thank you all in advance for your feedback!

-Marisa

[John_Clark1]

Hi Marisa,

The statuses within a program are provided to help you keep track of your leads if you want to do it that way, but they're completely subjective.  You don't have to use them if you don't feel it provides you with any useful information later on.

Additionally, you could always change your lead's statuses in a dummy email program if you're still wanting to track them for this web program.

John

[Marisa_Rybar]

Thanks, John. I haven't actually used the statuses yet to track anything because it just hasn't come up. When people do use this feature, how do they use it? Before I choose to discard that option, I'd like to make sure I fully understand it first.

Thank you again!

[Josh_Hill13]

Sounds like the Web channel does not have the Status you want. It would be best to just make those folks a Member and then have a listen campaign make them Clicked or Filled Out form when that happens.

[Marisa_Rybar]

Oh, interesting, Josh. I haven't heard anyone mention a listen campaign yet. How would I do that? Do you just mean that I would set up a new smart campaign outside of this program (maybe in my operational campaigns?), where the smart list would include a trigger for the particular form I'm "listening" to, and a flow step to change their program status? Is that what you mean?

[Mike_Reynolds2]

Marisa,

The best way I've found is to create a triggered smart campaign to listen for the form being filled out. Since you're using it in more than one location, it would probably be a good idea to add a "Web Page" constraint to the "Filled Out Form" trigger. This will let you specify that it should activate when the form is filled out, but only when it's posted on the page specific to this program. Then in the flow, you can just change the program status to whatever is most useful for you.

Also, in terms of the program statuses, if the channel you're using isn't the best fit for your need, you can always create a new one. Here's the documentation on how to do that: Create a Program Channel - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

If you're using an Email Program, that program type will only allow you to use the Email Send channel, but you could get some more control (and use the custom channels) by using a default program type and smart campaigns for your email sends. As another alternative, you could also consider editing the Email Send channel used by the Email Program. The doc here Delete a Program Status From a Program Channel - Marketo Docs - Product Docs  shows how to delete a status, but you can also just click the "add step" button to create a new one.

[Marisa_Rybar]

Thanks Mike, but that doesn't really answer my question. I know how to create new programs with different channels, but I want to keep this email under this specific program and don't want to separate it. That said, I think Josh Hill gave me a good idea for how to change the program status if I'd like.

My last question (that it looked like you were responding to) was in regards to the program statuses because I'm not sure it's necessary to track them. So, the question I've arrived at now is how people use program statuses in analyzing program/lead performance. Do you have any suggestions on this?

Thanks again so much. Your time is appreciated!

[Caryl_Mostacho]

Hi Marisa Rybar​

I had the same question when I first started using Marketo! Program status' seem extraneous especially the Email Blast channel because you could just pull a SmartList or use the Email performance report to determine delivered, opens, clicks, unsubscribes etc. 

It's when I started to need reporting on other channels that I realized updating program statuses were important. For example, there's the Program Performance Report. Your report will show up pretty much empty unless you're updating your membership statuses.

What kind of Program are you using? Is it the Default Program (brown folder) or the Email Program (Mailbox)?

Program Performance Report - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

Understanding the Opportunity Influence Analyzer - Marketo Docs - Product Docs