Engagement Program Emails with Different Send Times

[Anonymous]

I need to set up an engagement campaign that sends 2 emails: 1 early in the morning on Mondays and 1 later in the days on Thursdays. Since each stream cadence is set to a specific day and time, I am not sure how to do this. I thought of 2 ways to make it work, but would like another opinion on what the best option is.

Option 1:

Add the Monday emails to Stream 1 and the Thursday emails to Stream 2.  Create a campaign that switches them between streams. When the person receives Email 01 from Stream 1, add them to Stream 2. When they receive Email 01 from Stream 02, add them back to Stream 1.

Option 2:

Create 2 Engagement programs. Program 1 sends the Monday emails and Program 2 sends the Thursday emails.

If there are better options than these, I would love to hear suggestions. Perhaps an engagement program isn't even the best program type to use.

Thanks guys!

- Nick

[Josh_Hill13]

You could do this as you suggest.

however, irregular cadence flows are best done within a smart campaign with Wait Steps. But maybe not in your particular use case.

I suspect Option 2 is easier to manage if the same leads are in there. Switching leads back and forth is error prone.

[Dan_Stevens_]

I agree with Josh here - I wouldn't even use an EP for this.  Especially since all three of your casts are now being done within a single smart campaign in a single program (vs. three separate programs in an EP).  Which also clouds reportability and content attribution/success.

If you were to do this as three separate programs within the EP, I would do it as follows. Assuming that your defined cadence is setup as "Every week on Monday @ 12:05am", the three "send email" smart campaigns would look like this (sent over the course of three weeks):

Program 1:

This will go out on Monday at 12:05am

Program 2:

This will go out on Thursday at 1:00pm

Program 3:

No wait step is necessary here since it will be sent during the week 3 cadence at 12:05am on Monday

Now if this needs a more aggressive series of casts - where the Thursday email is sent the same week as the Monday email, you can potentially combine Program 1 and Program 2 into a single program (but still deal with the reporting/attribution I mentioned initially - which may not be a big deal since the second program/email is just a teaser):

Program 1:

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

HI Nick,

If you want to do it with EP's use only 1 EP with 2 streams, at least is will guarantee that your lead is not in both streams at the same time.

But really, I would rather use a simple flow here: you can use waits that wait until the next monday, your time then a second wait until the following thursdays, your time.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your response. Just to clarify, when you say "use a simple flow", do you mean to use a Default program with an Email Blast channel rather than an EP?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Use a default program type (and not an email type). The channel you want to use is the one that seems the most appropriate (which are not always the ones that come with Marketo by default ) and then add your 2 emails and the smart campaign in this program.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Greg,

Quick question about the wait steps in the flow. I only want the emails to send on Mondays and Thursdays. If I set it up like this, will it accomplish my goal? (NOT send every 1 day)

[Anonymous]

Dan Stevens​ Here is how I currently have it set up in a Default program. One of my concerns is that I specified "1 Day" (because I do not want to miss my desired time if I do "3 days" - I am not sure of when Marketo counts each day) but made the wait end on the day and time that I want.

My other concern is reporting. It is set up in 1 smart campaign in 1 program.

Here is some more background that might make it easier for you to understand the program: A 'change data value' trigger initiates a 10-week instructional program. As you can see, instructions go out on Mondays, teasers go out on Thursdays.

[Josh_Hill13]

I would use a small time like

Wait 1 hour until Thursdays at 6am to ensure that the Email release is correct.

If you do Wait 1 day until Thursdays, someone could come in at 6pm on Wednesday and wait 24 hours, miss the first cast, and have to wait until the NEXT Thursday.

[Dan_Stevens_]

You bring up a good point here, Josh.  But in this case, if someone enters the EP (if an EP is used) any day after Monday, they won't be included in any cast until the first one the following Monday.   If EP is not used, would there also need to be a wait step as the first flow step to ensure the first email is always sent on a Monday?  Something like:

[Anonymous]

Perfect. Thanks Greg!