Email Program vs Default Program for 6 emails sent on different dates/times to same audience

[KAllen2205]

Hi there, 

What are the best practices for setting up an email campaign consisting of 6 emails sent on varying times/days (ie Tuesday one week, Wednesday the following, Thursday after that, etc). These 6 emails are a one-time send, no contacts will be added throughout the campaign.

There are a few things I have tried: 

1. Multiple Email Programs in a folder: I set up a folder with 6 different email programs nesting each email under the 6 email programs and added the contacts to each email program. I noticed this makes it challenging to show all emails in one report in an organized manner.

2. Default Program with multiple Email Programs nested: I have also tried utilizing a default program nesting all 6 email programs, this seems to allow me to create a folder under the default program for reporting that the one report shows all 6 emails together.

3. Engagement Program: Set up an Engagement Program with the 6 emails in stream one. I set a date each email is available in the stream so it would only send on that date.

I'm not sure if any of these ways are considered best practice, and would love to understand what would be the best way to set it up. I appreciate any advice on how you would set up this type of campaign, thanks!

[Corey_Bethel · Accepted solution]

Hi @KAllen2205,

Great question! This sounds like a drip campaign to me, and there are several ways you could set it up, which is looks like you've tried a couple of them. I like to set this type of campaign up with a single Default Program with all 6 email assets inside that program (not inside Email Programs). And then use Batch Smart Campaigns to schedule/send each email on it's respective time/date. So it would look something like this:

Default Program

Campaigns (Folder)

01 - Send Email 1 (Smart Campaign)

02 - Send Email 2 (Smart Campaign)

03 - Send Email 3 (Smart Campaign)

etc.

etc.

Emails (Folder)

Email 1 (Email Asset)

Email 2 (Email Asset)

Email 3 (Email Asset)

etc.

etc.

Smart Lists (Folder)

Target Audience (Smart List)

[KAllen2205]

Thank you, that is very helpful!

Does the smart campaign to trigger the email send typically look like this:

Smartlist:

Member of list (or smart list) xx

Flow:

Wait until (date, time) xx

Send Email xx

[Darshil_Shah1]

I believe you should set these as one time batch send campaigns rather than trigger campaigns. Also, instead of adding a wait step in the flow, why don’t you schedule each campaign per the date/time each should send out emails, e.g., Tuesday at 10 AM, Wednesday at 9 AM, etc.? I hope this helps clearing out some clouds. Feel free to reach out if you have more questions.

[Corey_Bethel]

@KAllen2205 , as @Darshil_Shah1 said, it would be best to set the smart campaigns up as Batch campaigns. With a batch campaign, you can set the date/time you want it to run, so a wait step won't be needed. Your setup looks good, except remove the wait step:

Smart list:
Member of list (or smart list) xx

Flow:

Send Email xx

On the Schedule tab, select Run Once from the top bar, and then select Run later and set your date/time to send.