Email constraints in Engagement Program Casts

[Tom_Liolios4]

Hi all,

I have a tricky question regarding an email to be sent in my engagement program.

I have an email in an engagement stream, which I only want to send to people who did NOT get sent autoresponder 1 and 2.

I am using a campaign in an engagement stream in order to send the email. The campaign allows me to define rules regarding who gets the engagement email.

What would be the best way to tell my engagement program that I only send the engagement email if leads did not get either one of the 2 autoresponder emails?

See a screenshot below for the flow step I currently have in place. This flow steps says: Only send the engagement email to leads who did not get sent one of 2 emails.

I am concerned about the "one of 2 emails" part. I am afraid that this means: if lead did not get autoresponder 1, but did get sent autoresponder 2, he will still receive the engagement email.

Are my concerns just? And how could I improve the flow step?

Thanks a lot for your tips!

Tom

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Set it up that way:

Was sent email -> Email 1 or Email 2 --> do nothing

default : send the nurturing email.

But this means that the leads you exclude will receive nothing during the cast

So, one way to automatically skip some leads from this campaign is to make these leads a member of the program (using a chage program member status flow step), as soon as they are sent the autoresponder 1 or 2.

-Greg

[Tom_Liolios4]

Thanks Grégroire! That is a good tip!

Then if autoresponder 1 or 2 was sent to the lead, the engagement email is not sent. That is indeed what I want.

You are correct that in this cast, they will not receive an email. Instead of having to wait a week for the next cast, I would indeed like them to move to the next content right away.

Just for my understanding, you are advising that all leads who receive these autoresponders should become a member of the program that is nested within my engagement program?

So: Lead downloads Whitepaper --> smart campaign of whitepaper program sends autoresponder --> smart campaign also makes the lead a member of the program within the engagement program. So this will ensure that the lead skips the first email in the engagement stream, and right away receives the next content?

Thanks again!

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Yes this is it. Because Marketo will ignore that content if the lead is already a member of the nested program and will automatically move to the next content in the stream.

-Greg

[Jim_Thao7]

This acts as an "OR" so your concerns are just.

What this means is, if a record was not sent 1 "OR" 2, they should be sent the email.

To answer your question directly, if the record was not sent autoresponder 1 and was sent autoresponder 2, they will qualify for Choice 1 and therefore be sent the email.

Is there a caveat to filtering out these records in the smart list before they make it to the flow?

[Tom_Liolios4]

Thanks Jim! Yeah too bad that it doesn't work the way I set it up.

But Grégroire posted a nice solution above!

Unfortunately using the smart list in this campaign would not be the best solution. I have heard that using the smart list in this case will ensure the leads to never move to the next content in the engagement stream.

[Josh_Hill13]

Not at all. Smart List constraint would work on this Program with Not Was Sent Email 1 AND Not Was Sent Email 2.

The leads will be blocked from the flow and just receive the NEXT cast. Where in the docs does it say they will end up Paused in the Stream?

[Tom_Liolios4]

Hi Josh,

Well in the community I read something about leads being stuck in a never-ending loop in engagement programs. My understanding was that using smart lists in such nested programs would be the cause.... something with leads never qualifying for a campaign, and therefore, being stuck. But I am glad to hear that using smart lists in this case would also work! Thanks!

[Grégoire_Miche2]

If you make leads member of the nested program, the engagement program will immediately move to the next content.

If you filter out the lead from the campaign or from the flow step, Marketo will still try to send the leads to the smart campaign, and the leads will receive nothing on the cast. Then on the following cast, they will be sent the following content on the stream. The consequence of this is that lead blocked in the SC will receive NO content during ONE cast.

-Greg

[Tom_Liolios4]

Thanks for the further explanation Grégroire. As in this case, leads would not receive any content during one cast, I will implement the approach you highlighted earlier! Thanks!