Help? Wait "Until" step is limited... need to schedule email trigger

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm using an Event Program that is integrated with a webinar... and I have a trigger set up to send a "reminder" email to go out before the webinar starts, which would include the unique link for the user to join the webinar.

The PROBLEM is... I want it to go out 15 mins BEFORE the webinar starts... and in the marketo Wait flow step, the only option is to wait until the start of each consecutive hour, i.e. 9am, 10am, etc... (see screenshot)

My webinar starts at 10am and I want the reminder email to go out at 9:45am- But there is no option for me to select an "odd" time like that.

I CAN'T do a "batch" email program (schedule an email) because batch email programs lose the UNIQUE webinar integration which I need for each person to get their UNIQUE webinar link to join the webinar.

Any suggestions on what I could do? Thanks!

[Edward_Masson · Accepted solution]

Hi Ryan,

I'm not sure I understand the Batch Email issue with a unique webinar link. That should be already set the moment you've updated the prospects status in the webinar event program to 'registered' and that then passes the update to your webinar application that your connecting your program to.

Curious, what Webinar application are you using?

I have set up multiple reminder emails to go out, granted not 15 minutes before but, the unique webinar link is in all of my emails as a token.

The scheduling of a smart campaign gives you more editing on the time to start processing in minutes.

You can start the batch smart campaign to start at 9:45am

Or another way is to set up a process to put the whole audience into a 45 minute wait step and schedule the batch to process at 9:00am before your emails go out.

Just need to figure out your Webinar populating link issue.

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone, thanks for the input. You are all right, it was something so simple that I missed. I didn't see the "schedule" option on the smart campaign because I had the trigger criteria in the smart list section.

I removed the wait step and now am just using the batch schedule feature. Thanks!

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Ryan,

I fully concur with Edward: reminders are easier to manage in a separate batch, not after a wait, so that you can plan it at the exact time you want. The second advantage or running a separate batch is that you can adapt the target of the reminder. Let say you have a lead who has been registered manually to your webinar (on a sales person request) and is not a member of you main batch, then that lead will not receive any reminder.

Now, if you really want to keep it that way, create a token in the program that contains the campaign. Call it "Last Reminder". Then, on you wait step, click the gear icon on the right. In the dialog, set it up that way:

set the time to what you want, but it will not give you the possibility to set the minutes, only the hour.

-Greg

[Josh_Hill13]

Agree. Batch works just fine. In fact, I've had triggers accidentally go off incorrectly.

Also, if the reg count is fairly high, it may take Marketo 10-20 min to push out all of the emails anyway.

But if you really want to remind people 15 min ahead, make sure your ICS token is available in the first email and the thank you page.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

You also need to know that the way Marketo handles priorities for campaign is of importance here:

• A batch starting with a "send email" flow step is a high priority
• a flow step occurring after the end of a wait step is a low priority

Therefore, your wait step has the risk of not going out exactly 15 minutes before and can even be so late as it will be shot after the webinar time, while a batch will have  much greater chance to run at the exact time.

In case you have a high volume, you can even use an email program nested in your webinar program and use the headstart function to make sure the email is shot at a very precise time.

Even with these precautions, as Josh wrote, the time necessary just to shoot the emails might be over 15 minutes.

-Greg

[Geoff_Krajeski1]

This is critical to understand that users coming "out" of a wait step get lower priority in the Campaign Queue.

One of the issues many encounter originally...

[Adam_Benitez1]

As everyone has said, batch is the way to go, but if you really want to keep it in the trigger, try creating 2 wait steps:

* The first one would be on the hour
* The second, immediately following it, would be a 45 minute wait step (assuming your webinar is scheduled on the hour as well)

Also, as previously mentioned, if there area a lot of campaigns firing at the same time or a lot of leads in the webinar, the wait may actually end up

taking a lot longer and possibly occurring after the webinar has begun.