How to create stream separation with 1 email?

[Henri_Froelich]

I have an initial list generated from a form on our website.

I'm trying to create an email with 2 clickable call to actions (CTA1 - CTA2) where the e-mail recipients "first click decision" determines which stream of product interest they will flow through AND will exclude them from entering the second stream even if they click on it after returning to their email.

Example

1 - User receives and open email

2 - Clicks on CTA2, visits destination to a YouTube video

3 - Returns to their email

4 - Clicks CTA1, visits a web destination

I'm trying to find the appropriate Marketo solution to have the above user, having clicked on CTA2 first fall into a CTA2 stream and be excluded from the CTA1 stream despite having visited after the CTA2 click.

[Priyank_Joshi3]

Henry,

You can set your nurture steam' transition rule with exclude parameters to add filter say - Visited Webpage is NOT link to video.

Thanks

Priyank

[Henri_Froelich]

Priyank - thank you for your reply.

My concern is that if I create the same exclusion for the opposite logic decision making process through an exclusion Visited Webpage is NOT [link to webpage] would that not mutually exclude the email recipient from both streams or will Marketo automatically have already made the stream transition decision on the first click?

[JD_Nelson]

You could create a member status for each CTA, then have 1 smart campaign watch for both clicks. Have the flow set their program member status appropriately, then only allow them to run through the flow once; thereby, if they click the email again, their program status won't be updated because they've already run through it. You can now run other campaigns based off program member status.

[Henri_Froelich]

Thanks JD - I've not dived into the member status too much but have a questions.

I'm assuming this is similar to lead scoring where clicking, say, CTA1 attribute the campaign member a number and clicking CTA2 a different value and using these values with a smart campaign to attribute the appropriate values into the appropriate streams.

So, for example, user clicks CTA1 - value attributed could be 1. User clicks CTA2 - value attributed could be 50. My reasoning for creating a wide gap would be to avoid confusion if the same link is clicked more than once.

The logic structure you're implying is to say if the member status is less than 50, smart campaign attributes lead into CTA1 stream, else, goes into CTA2 stream. Am I understanding you correctly?

[JD_Nelson]

Don't think of it like scoring; it's more like adding to lists, but using member status will just save steps and time.

So, your smart campaign for CTA1 could say if click cta1 then add to list; then run other smart campaigns by IS IN list.

The race conditions should be ok as long as the click has some action behind it. If cta1 goes to a page where they will read content or take other actions before possibly coming back to the email, you should be fine. There will be times that people click and immediately close and click cta2 but I would argue that they weren't worth getting the click-order anyway since they didn't follow much after. Sorry if that doesn't make sense.

[Henri_Froelich]

Thanks JD - that does make sense and actually streamlines the process. But in the behavior example you describe where CTA1 is clicked and immediately closed for clicking CTA2 - can you exclude that person from the CTA2 list because of their first behavior at clicking CTA1 (and vice versa for CTA2)?

[JD_Nelson]

If your trigger is  "Click Link IS CTA1" OR "Click LInk IS CTA2" and you set the schedule to only allow people to run through it once, then you are effectively excluding people that click CTA2 after CTA1. Now; the caveat here is that it is a 'race condition' as Jim mentioned below; but as long as either CTA would, in theory, would take more than a minute or two before clicking the second CTA, you should be MOSTLY ok. The argument could also be made that if someone clicks CTA1 and immediately closes and clicks CTA2, is their real intent CTA1? I would say that was more for CTA2; so in that case you hope the race logic plays a factor (but that's just me). Hope it works! Always test!

[Jim_Thao7]

This is classic race condition logic with high risk.  You're creating a race condition and then leaving it to Marketo to be the ultimate decision maker because they are the ones that are in control of logging the click event in a timely manner. 

IMO, you have to decide from a process perspective what you would consider the most logical approach.  For example, if they click on both links, is CTA 1 or CTA 2 more important to you. 

Let's say a lead clicks on both CTAs, CTA 2 before CTA 1 within a millisecond of each other and Marketo logs the click event for CTA 2 before CTA 1.  This would work as expected.  However, let's then say for another lead, Marketo logs CTA 1 before CTA 2.   This would then break the logic.  The thing is, you can't control the logging of the event, Marketo does.  You can only hope that Marketo logs it according to the click (which they usually do a good job of, but it's not 100%).  You also won't be able to legitimately tell which click happened first when this type of thing happens so I wouldn't worry about it too much anyways. 

Because of this race condition logic, you have to create smart campaigns  with logic in place that decides which one is prioritized, CTA 1 or CTA 2 or take the race condition risk. 

[Henri_Froelich]

Jim - thanks for your response.

I've created 2 lists

Logic of list

CTA1 smart list is

Filter 1

"Clicked linked in Email"

     Email is x

     Link is y

Filter 2

"Member of Smart List"

     Person NOT is CTA2 smart list

CTA2 smart list is

Filter 1

"Clicked linked in Email"

     Email is x

     Link is z

Filter 2

"Member of Smart List"

     Person NOT is CTA1 smart list

A separate Smart Campaign then assigns members of each lists to their appropriate stream.

Does that logic feel right? Can Marketo pick up the first click appropriately fast enough to make that work in your opinion?