Changing engagement program stream and return to initial stream

[RaulEr]

Hi community!

I was reading some posts about transitioning people between streams and the first recommendation is to avoid transition rules and use batch campaigns. Now, is there a way without using custom fields, to tell Marketo to resume a stream that has not been completed?

So, if a record starts stream A, and then does an action that adds him to stream B (that has a higher priority), I'm moving him to stream B. Now, how can I do to send it back to stream A once stream B is done? I guess when a person finishes a stream it becomes exhausted, but I'm not sure how can I achieve this. Btw, I have 4 streams, one with a higher priority than the other.

[Darshil_Shah1]

Well, you can create a batch campaign that would add people back to Stream A when they are done with Stream B (aka- exhausted Stream B content). You can use the "Member of Engagement Program" filter with the constraints shown in the following snapshot:

In the flow, you can change the person's engagement program stream to Stream A by using the "Change Engagement Program  Stream"flow step:

Set recurring schedule for this batch campaign to run after every cast to ensure people with exhausted stream B content are added back to the stream A. As always it is with the engagement program, Marketo will pick the first un-sent content from the stream (and won’t start over and resend the previously sent content) / if you use the Default program as the stream content, then it’ll pick the program that the person isn’t a member of and wasn’t sent to the person in the previous nurture casts. 

[RaulEr]

That was really helpful, thanks @Darshil_Shah1.

Now, what if I don't know what was their initial stream? Let's say I have 4 streams. One of the streams was all consumed now I want to send it back to the unfinished stream, which could be A, C or D.

[Darshil_Shah1]

Cool! A few questions below to understand your setup (and also to nudge you in the direction of setting the engagement program the best way):

• Do you not have any distinguishing criteria for streams A, C, or D that you could probably use to transition the person to the correct stream?
• If not, why do you have different streams? Do you have different cadences for each stream?
• And, how do you determine which of the 3 streams (A, C, or D) should the person be added to when they enter the engagement program?

[RaulEr]

We have 4 streams. Each stream is dedicated to a specific topic and people are added regarding what pdd/whitepaper was downloaded.
So we can use the utm_content field, which is the one I use to see what stream should the person be added to.

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

Awesome! Two cases here based on your nurture strategy and the solution you could explore for each below:

• If a person who was added to Stream A based on the utm_content value doesn't progress to other streams C and D of equal priorities after they exhaust Stream A, then I say, you just use this field’s value to transition the person back to their original stream after they exhaust the Stream B content.
• If you wish to transition people to other streams after they exhaust their initial streams of the same priority (A, C, or D) to which they were added based on the utm_content field’s value, then you'd have a set order you'd follow after they exhaust content in each of the similar priority streams (e.g., A->C->D or C->D->A). I would suggest using this order for transitioning people back to their intended stream after they have exhausted stream B content. You could do that by using the utm_content field’s value, and keeping them moving through the streams in the same order until they are in a non-exhausted stream. In the end, the person will be in their intended stream from which they should be receiving content.

The above points assume that the utm_content value remains in-changed (ex.- usually the initial UTM values are retained for attribution). Alternatively, instead of referencing the utm_content field, you can use Was Added to Engagement Program activity filter with constraints on Stream to determine their original stream to transition back to or create 3 lists for each stream A, C, and D, add people to the corresponding list when you add them to the engagement program initially, and use the list membership to transition them back to their original stream after they exhaust their original content. 

[RaulEr]

Perfect, thanks!