Marketo Communication Limits

[ShreyaResilinc]

Hi,

Does Marketo provide notification when a record has reached its communication limit? If not, is there any way to find out records that have reached communication limits?

Also, what is the use of the block non-operational emails checkbox, in the enable communication limits setup? If we set it to "No", will setting the per day/per week limits help?

[Darshil_Shah1]

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@ShreyaResilinc wrote:

Hi,

Does Marketo provide notification when a record has reached its communication limit? If not, is there any way to find out records that have reached communication limits?

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Marketo doesn't provide any notification/alert; however, details are logged in the Activity Log specifying that the email send was skipped because the person reached their communication limit. Evidently, this is only logged when a marketing (i.e., non-operational) email is being sent to a person who has reached the communication limit. 

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Also, what is the use of the block non-operational emails checkbox, in the enable communication limits setup? If we set it to "No", will setting the per day/per week limits help?

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Block Non-Operational Emails checkbox is used to prevent non-operational emails from being sent when a person has already reached their communication limits. When this checkbox is enabled, non-operational emails will not be sent if the person has reached their limit. Conversely, if this checkbox is unchecked, non-operational (marketing) emails will still be sent even if the recipient has reached their communication limits, while operational emails remain unaffected. This is useful when you want all marketing emails to be delivered regardless of frequency limits (but it may lead to email fatigue, so uncheck this if only required).

[ShreyaResilinc]

Thank you for clarifying @Darshil_Shah1 

A follow-up question to the 1st one i.e Does Marketo provide notification when a record has reached its communication limit? 

Is there a smart list/trigger to identify this or do we need to look into individual record's activity log? The latter could be time-consuming. 

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

Marketo doesn't offer a direct report/notification for this (having this would be nice though!). There are a couple of  workarounds you can use: you can query email activity/inactivity within a set timeframe based on expected sends (though you won’t be able to distinguish b/w operational/non-operational email unless you specifically add emails in the constraint, i.e., all the marketing emails sent in that time frame). See below snapshot (you’ll have to change # of emails sent, i.e. the “Min. Number of Times” constraint value depending on your instance’s communication limits)

Alternatively, you could also use those filters to update Program Status to a value such that you can report on e.g., “Skipped Email”. 

[ShreyaResilinc]

Okay. This helps a lot. Thank you @Darshil_Shah1 

[Darshil_Shah1]

You're welcome, @ShreyaResilinc! Glad to be of help. 

[ShreyaResilinc]

Hi,

I have a follow-up query to the Marketo Communication Limits topic. If the limit is set to 1 email/day but we have 3 engagement programs running on a single day with emails in all three going out at the same time (set to recipient time zone), will records bypass the communication limits? The audience is segmented but there maybe a slight overlap and they may qualify for more than one engagement program.

[uditmathur]

Hi @ShreyaResilinc ,

Simple answer to your query will be NO, if you have set the communication limits to 1/day than only 1 email (non operational) can be sent to same mail id during that day (12am-12am).

All operational emails will still be sent.

Since you have designed your mails in EP than mails not sent will be sent on next cast still following the communication limits (daily & weekly).

[ShreyaResilinc]

Hi @uditmathur 

But, I see a few records that have been sent two emails from two different engagement programs even after communication limit of 1email /day is set up.

What could the reason for this be?

[uditmathur]

Hi @ShreyaResilinc ,

Check 

• If any of the mails have been marked as Operational.
• If you are using programs within streams, check if in the SC qualification rules " If person is over communication limits" block non-operational email check box is un selected.