Does the Random Sample flow step work in a Trigger campaign?

[Marisa_Rybar]

Hey everyone,

I am building out a new sales territory, which is assigned in a totally unique way in comparison to how the rest of our territories are assigned. The way this new territory needs to be set up is that there are 7 states which are going to be shared by 4 different sales teams. This is what needs to happen:

• Sales Team 1 should receive 32% of incoming leads in this territory
• Sales Team 2 should receive 26% of incoming leads in this territory
• Sales Team 3 should receive 22% of incoming leads in this territory
• Sales Team 4 should receive 21% of incoming leads in this territory

The way I'm thinking this needs to be set up is that I have a smart campaign with a trigger of "person is created" and the states defined as filters, then the flow steps set up with the random sample as established above.

However, I wasn't sure if the random sample flow step would work outside of a batch campaign with a static list because that's the only way I've seen it referenced in other discussions, in which case I would imagine the way it would need to be set up would be that I'd have a smart campaign listening for when new people are created in this shared sales territory, with a flow step to add them to a new static list. Then, I'd have a second smart campaign set up with a trigger "Is Added to List" and the flow steps set up with the random sample as established above.

My other question though is this. Will this random sample work as a triggered campaign with the "person is created" trigger, or on a static list as it grows, or can it only work once on a static list through a batch campaign? (In other words, will the random sample flow step recognize the changes in list size and adjust the %'s accordingly?)

Here's how I have it set up right now (but haven't turned it on since I don't know if it will work):

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I would like your advice.

I have done an email blast.

As I did not want sales people to receive all the MQL's at the same time  I switch off that alert.

• Then I transfer all the MQL leads to a list and from them call the from a Batch campaign with the random filter. I have tried 2 for 2 times at 12 an at 13. It worked great.

below it is the second run as I excluded the ones already sent to sales in the 1st run

I wanted to automatized this so I put a trigger in the batch campaign so that when a person  reaches MQL and it's added to that list  gets send to Sales ( as the random filter is 10... I am not sure how this will work....

Any advice?

Then to make sure the All sales areas receive the same % of lead I am creating segmentation. Any advice on how to set this up?

[Devraj_Grewal · Accepted solution]

Marisa,

The random sample functionality will work for trigger or batch campaigns. Also make a note that it's best to include all of the random samples as their own choice condition in the same flow step:

Change Data Value

Choice 1: Random sample is: 32

Attribute: Sales Region: [DP]

Choice 2: Random sample is: 26

Attribute: Sales Region: [LANG]

The way you have it set up now is that after that first 32% gets that state region updated, they will then qualify again and could have their region updated again since it takes the next random sample of all those still in the flow. If you list them all in the same flow step as different choices, all people running through will have that state region updated and only once since you cannot qualify for multiple choice conditions in the same flow step.

[Marisa_Rybar]

Ah, great suggestion. Thank you, Devraj! Like this?

[Devraj_Grewal]

Actually, since these are the only 4 options and you want all those in the flow to have one of those values for the sales region, then instead of Choice 4, make that last sales region the default value. This ensures that any remaining will be assigned that last sales region to total 100%.

Ex.

Choice 3: Random sample is: 22

Attribute: Sales Region: [BANG]

Default: Sales Region: [TWIN]

[Marisa_Rybar]

This is super helpful. How's this?

[Devraj_Grewal]

That's it. This ensures that every person in the flow at that step is assigned to one of those sales regions.

[Marisa_Rybar]

Awesome, thank you so much for your help today!

[Phillip_Wild]

I was recently told by Support that Random Sample does not in fact work in trigger campaigns. Are you finding that this is working for you?

[Kyle_Chandler1]

Hey Phillip, are you able to provide some more context to what support's feedback was? We are looking to leverage a similar model with a trigger entry campaign approach rather than a standard batch static list. Was the feedback from support that the random sample would not work with individual trigger events?

[Phillip_Wild]

It was a while ago, so I'm not certain anymore - but I think the situation was that you couldn't do the following:

Trigger: Was Sent Email (or any trigger, really)

Filter: Random Sample is 10

This wouldn't allow only 10% of the qualified audience based on the trigger through. Everyone would go through. That's my memory, anyway. Easy enough to test.

So given that situation you would have to push people to a static list, and then perform the random split as a flow step on that static list.

[Jeff_Smith3]

I know this is thread is a bit old, but I think this topic is unclear to a lot of people (including myself until recently), so I wanted to post. Phillip is correct. Random sample should not be used in a trigger campaign...only batch and recurring. For context, we are using random sample in a lead assignment round robin for leads where the territory isn't known. Here is what I was told yesterday by Marketo support:

"It appears your team is requesting the campaign and using the trigger function to filter records into the flow. Because trigger campaigns process one lead at a time instead of evaluating the entire group at once it's going to give you these inconsistent results. If your team can convert the campaign to a reoccurring batch or on-demand batch campaign this will evaluate the group of leads as a whole and distribute them more evenly."

The trigger for us was firing upon lead creation, which randomizes that sample of 1 each time, and the results became skewed and very apparent that it isn't an even way of distributing leads at random.

[Phillip_Wild]

I take it back. I remember now....it was that if you had people flowing through ANY trigger program, you couldn't have a random sample in the flow step, since people would be flowing through one-by-one and Marketo wasn't smart enough to alternate them based on the random sample logic. That's the advice I was given at the time.

That does contradict the answer above so I'd be interested to see if that's actually true or not.