Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Anonymous
Not applicable

Engagement Program Email Sends

Quick question about the functionality of engagement program streams.

If we use the same email in two different streams within the same Marketo engagement program, will the system not send the same email to a lead who already received it in the first stream?  I know this functionality works within the streams, but I'm curious about the impact of leads that transition from one stream to another.

Thank you!

18 REPLIES 18
Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Hi Christine,

Yes, that works also between Streams.

-Greg

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Great, thank you again for your input, Gregoire!

Dory_Viscoglio
Level 10

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Hey Christine, as long as it's exactly the same email (clones don't count), Marketo knows whether the email has been sent and will not resend as an email in engagement.

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

The foolproof way to do this is by utilizing Program Membership.

Smart List:

Member of Engagement Program is true, is ANY

Member of Program (this one) is false

Flow:

Send Email

Change Program Membership to 'Sent'

Each email in a different program and once the email is sent, you're automatically part of the program. This way you can never qualify for the Smart List of the Smart Campaign requested by the Engagement Program.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Hi Stijn,

I came into an organization with several Streams in 1 Engagement Program. Within each Stream, there are 6-7 different Programs. Each Program consists of a Smart Campaign to send the email, the email, and a Smart Campaign to handle data changes for records that click a link in the email. I was recently informed that we should NOT be placing the Program into the Stream, because doing so prevents the Stream from "pushing" lead records from one Program to another (based upon passing the qualification rules in the Smart List of the Smart Campaign that sends the email.) I was informed that I should rather place only the email in the Stream.

However, when I see your comment above (Nov 3, 2015) - it makes me question whether Programs should or should not be used in Engagement Streams. What is your perspective? We were told that the Pros of using the Programs we currently have, is the use of the aforementioned Smart Campaign to send the email, and another Smart Campaign to handle data changes. But the Cons are that Program will Prevent the Stream from "pushing" lead records from one Program to another.

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Hi Tiffany,

Thanks for getting back on this and providing a detailed explanation. Here's what I think is best, based on my current knowledge of the system:

Engagement streams will broadcast once every x time, be it weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Upon a 'cast' it will start at the top for each lead in the stream and cycle through the received content until 'new' content is found for the lead. This can be the first piece, the second, the third, etc.

There are 2 ways the system determines the new content.

  1. Based on loose emails, living IN the engagement program.
  2. Based on programs and membership status.

The first one is straight forward.

You create your emails in the engagement program and send them out. This is useful for an onboarding where the text is predetermined, but not so much for content items requires a much larger scale and flexibility.

The second one is the harder one and relies on managing the program membership.

The great thing about this is that each program has it's own assets (email, landingpage with form, thank you page, thank you email, etc.) and can utilize it's own tokens. This is great for scalability as you can create a Content Item Program where all you need to do is fill in the tokens and activate the triggers.

Another great advantage is that you can make anyone a member of this program. If someone downloads a content piece from your website for example, you can make them member of the program. The engagement stream will then skip this particular content item since the lead is already a member of the program.

It also makes it easier to have separate emails sent out based on (let's say) lead status. In the program you have an email for leads and one for customers. You can use the same content program in an engagement stream for leads as for contacts. You'd just select a different Smart Campaign when you add the content piece.

Lastly, it makes for easier mixing and matching because you can just drag and drop the content programs into the stream.

My first choice has always been the latter for the flexibility and scalability. These are my top 2 concerns when building out a Marketing Automation platform.

The most important thing to think of is that when you create a Smart Campaign you add these 2 filters (no triggers required).

Member of Engagement Program is True, Program is ANY

Member of Program is [Your Program], Member is FALSE

Screen Shot 2015-12-03 at 8.49.02 PM.png

I hope that's a well enough explanation. If anyone in the community has anything to chime in, or if my knowledge is out of date, please post a reply.

Thanks,

Stijn

Dan_Stevens_
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Agree with Stijn here in that using programs instead of simple emails within an EP offers so much more flexibility.  Since our reporting is so focused on program membership, it allows us to determine which specific program is contributing to responses, MQLs, etc. - vs. the entire engagement program. 

We use this single, common filter in each of the "send email" smart campaigns within the nested programs in EPs - for the following reason:

  • It's advised to limit EP membership to the local EP - not ANY engagement program (that could be cause for unwanted issues down the road).  Stijn, just out of curiosity, why do you use ALL?
  • Checking for program membership isn't necessary since Marketo won't send the email if the lead is a member of the program and the EP

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It's also worth noting that if you include any additional filters in the "send email" smart campaign that disqualify a lead from being sent the email, not only will Marketo skip the send, but it won't send anything.  Ideally, the lead will move to the next program for which he/she qualifies and be sent that email.  Unfortunately, that's not the case with the current functionality of EPs.  See more here: If a lead doesn't qualify for an Engagement Program cast, does it proceed to the next email?

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Hi Dan,

Thanks for adding some great tips here.

The reason we choose ANY is because we want to be able to mix-and-match our content programs. Based on the business unit, lead status or buyer persona we might want to serve out different content. For this we can simply clone the engagement program and add/remove content. This makes our content items super flexible in their use as they can be used by ANY engagement program.

Set it up once, use it every time.

Dan_Stevens_
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Engagement Program Email Sends

Ok, got it.  Your use cases are much different than ours.  We build campaign/subject-specific EPs that align to the types of campaigns we have active at any given moment.  For example, today we have two primary EPs - one for "Cloud" and another for "Digital Business".  Depending on the type of content with which a visitor may engage on our website, they will be assigned an "area of interest" code (part of their lead record in Marketo).  Our EPs are constantly listening for this code and adding users to the appropriate and most relevant EP.  So in our case, it's imperative that the user is a member of a specific EP in order for us to continue the discussion/engagement using relevant content of the appropriate EP.