Duplicate Emails when Campaign is Requested

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I have a lead nurturing campaign set up that is using a Request Campaign flow step that triggers a set of actions include in the campaign it calls on, which includes the sending of a number of emails.

The trouble I'm having with this is that for duplicate leads in the database (aka two leads with the same email address), the email is being sent twice.  The campaign is set to allow someone to flow through it only once.  I'm fairly certain the double emailing is taking place because the campaign is executing too quickly to speak back to itself and say, "Stop.  This email address already flowed through the campaign step(s)."  

Is there any way to prevent this from happening?  For the sake of accurate data, reporting, nurturing progression, and the way I need to kick this off initially for various populations of people in my database, it is absolutely essential that there be a "Request Campaign" step as part of the lead nurturing as opposed to just running a Smart Campaign with all the flow steps included.

Any and all help and advice is very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Hi Robby,
When you have a single batch campaign with a "Send Email" flow step the Marketo mail system is smart enough to not send the same email twice to the same email address. This is a special function of the batch send email flow step.

Since you are using a "Request Campaign" each record is treated as it's own send email flow step. If you have two different records (aka leads) with the same email address, then each will be sent an email. And, each lead will be flowing through the campaign only once, so timing isn't the issue.

Hope this helps you understand what is happening.
Regards,
Sheila   

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the response, Sheila.  I appreciate the insight.  

Outside of merging all the dupes and using a simple smart campaign (not feasible in this scenario), are there any workarounds you might suggest?

Best,
Robby