Engagement Program Sending Same Content Out Twice

[Mikes_Jones]

So I'm kind of stumped right now.

We just had an email from an Engagement Program go out. However, instead of moving onto the next email in the stream, it jumped back to the beginning and sent the first email out again.

I thought Engagement Programs prevented content from being sent out twice? Also, why would the stream jump from the next email back to the top?

The emails are nested under a program, with a smart campaign called "add to engagement" which has a flow to send out the particular email. Is it possible that the smart campaign over-rode the engagement program? Even so, the smart campaign flow is set so each lead can only run through it once.

Just trying to get some help here - super confused and a little worried too, as the first email is an "introductory" email and now it seems like 7,000 plus leads just got sent the intro email again after already being 8 emails deep into our nurture campaign.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Emails will be sent only once if they are directly inserting them in the streams. Of you insert programs in the stream, this control is done based on program membership.

For the second point are you sure that no one has changed the content order ?

-Greg

[Mikes_Jones]

When you say Program Membership, are you talking about the leads that show up under "results" in the smart campaign (which is nested under a program).

None of the individual programs themselves have any "members" listed.

And yes, the order was not changed.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi again Malik,

No, I am talking about being a member of the PROGRAM, not a member of the smart campaign.

See Dan's screen shot above to see how to make this happens in the smart campaign that send the email.

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

It's also important to use program statuses properly in nested programs within and EP since the engagement score is derived completely differently from when individual emails are used in EPs.  Engagement score is measured simply by taking the number of program members who've achieved success in that program divided by the total number of members.  So if you don't define program membership properly upfront and let's say 3 of the leads reaches a "success" program status, the engagement score will always show 100% since those are the only members in your program. 

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Dan,

Fully agreed, but my point was that, if you use a "wait 1 day" in the same smart campaign, you may miss some delivered (although only a few, of course), while with a second, triggered, campaign in your nested program, you are sure that you would capture them, whatever the delay it takes to deliver.

-Greg

[Mikes_Jones]

@Grégoire Michel  would you create multiple trigger campaigns under each program to capture more than one program status?

For example, a smart campaign for:

- sent

- opened

etc

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Malik,

First thing, no need to manage all steps send, delivered, opened or clicked in program statuses. Email performance reports are in Marketo for this purpose, so no need to duplicate. You may only need 2 statuses :

• On List, or targeted, to indicate the lead is a members
• Engaged, which will be the success status. You will need to define the success : Opened ? Clicked ? Your organisation choice.

-Greg

[Mikes_Jones]

Thank you Grégoire Michel and Dan Stevens​ for all your input thus far.

Just one last question that maybe one of you guys can answer. We just got new email templates created, so we are in the process of replacing all of our emails in our Engagement Program (nested in programs) with new emails (same content, just new layout). I'm assuming that Marketo is going treat these emails as "new".

So since I am now using program statuses, will leads skip these new emails since they are already members of the program or will Marketo treat these like new content and send it out again?

Thanks!

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Malik Zafar,

Yes, this is correct.

The emails will be technically new so:

• if you insert them as emails directly in the streams, they will be sent to all members of the stream as Marketo will see them as completely new content
• if you just replace the old emails by the new emails in the smart campaigns, within your subprograms, leads who have received the old emails will not receive the new one, as this is controlled by program membership, as long as you have made them members of the programs (not just tyhe smart campaigns).

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Greg, are you sure about point #2?  Per my clarification comments further up in this thread, where program membership isn't required if the program is embedded/inside the EP:

If you have an OUTSIDE program (not embedded within the EP) and you add it (specifically the email send campaign) to an engagement program, the following is true:

• Leads who are members of that program, will not run through it again
• If you are not a member of the program, but did receive the email that is sent in that program, the lead will get it again.  I think this is the situation you experienced.

If the program is INSIDE the EP, the following is true:

• If the lead has run through the program, they will not run through it again (even if they are not program members).  So while it's not required, you should still do it for engagement score purposes.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi again Dan,

So I ran a test

You are fully right, when the program is embedded, the lead does not even need to be a member of the embedded program to be filtered out of the second cast.

Here are the programs I used :

The funny thing is that even with the program that is not embedded in the EP, I have not been able to send the emails twice, despite all my efforts and the fact that the leads are not members of the Embedded and non Embedded programs.

I also replaced the email in the smart campaign of the embedded program, with the same result (email not sent).

I removed the programs from the stream and added them back, same result...

I replaced the smart campaigns in the programs, to ee if I would send the emails again, to no avail

-Greg

[Mikes_Jones]

Grégoire Michel​ so just to clarify - if I create new emails within the sub-programs in the EP, leads will not receive the new email?

EDIT: Okay nvm, I was able to confirm with the "send email out" smart campaign under the program. I switched out the previous email for a new email,  went to schedule and saw that the same number of leads were going to be affected, despite the email technically being new.

Sweet - thanks a bunch.

[Dan_Stevens_]

Thanks for testing, Greg.  I'm sure this will be helpful for others since none of this is fully explained in the actual product documentation.  Justin Cooperman​, any hope in getting the documentation updated with the insights contained in this thread?

[Justin_Cooperm2]

I'll forward to the right people.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Dan,

Running a  full test. I'll keep you posted.

Greg

[Mikes_Jones]

Thanks!

[Dan_Stevens_]

I'll chime in and say no.  These are very low engagement metrics - in fact, no engagement at all.  The only reason why we were capturing this "delivered" program status is one of our KPIs that we were measuring was number of "touches" (number of leads that were potentially "touched" by our outbound marketing efforts) - we're no longer measuring this.  If you really want to know this information, Marketo is already capturing it for every email that gets sent out.  So you can report on it at the aggregate level for each program or at the lead level with a smart list.

If you want to create a general program status so that program membership can be achieved/tracked, just create an "on-list" program status as your first value within the program channel.  Then, as part of your email send campaign, all you need to add is a "change program status" flow step to "is On-List".  Simple as that.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Malik,

The way Marketo knows that it has sent a email within a program is not by the email itself but through program membership.

So your "add to engagement" smart campaign should add the leads to the program.

BTW "add to engagement" is a little confusing to me. I would rather called thsi SC "send nurturing email"

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

To build on what Greg says, it's important to move leads - that are sent emails from embedded programs within an engagement program - into a defined program status in that program (since the only membership is at the ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM level at the get-go).  As part of the 'email-send' smart campaign, we use a "touched-delivered" program status to create program membership at the embedded program level:

[Dan_Stevens_]

Malik Zafar​ - I think the guidance we're providing you requires some additional clarification.  While it's a good practice to follow what we've said here in terms of program status/membership (especially since the engagement score relies on this for accurate scoring), I did refer back to the EP launch presentation and think it's important to call out two very important points:

If you have an OUTSIDE program (not embedded within the EP) and you add it (specifically the email send campaign) to an engagement program, the following is true:

• Leads who are members of that program, will not run through it again
• If you are not a member of the program, but did receive the email that is sent in that program, the lead will get it again.  I think this is the situation you experienced.

If the program is INSIDE the EP, the following is true:

• If the lead has run through the program, they will not run through it again (even if they are not program members).  So while it's not required, you should still do it for engagement score purposes.

Hope this helps!