Marketo Lead Nurtures - to suppress or not to suppress from other marketing emails

[avaroglu]

I've currently got a Lead Nurture program running which sends the first email on a Monday and then a V2 of that email (new subject line) to anyone who didn't open, on Friday. 
Tuesday - Thursday are more optimal email send days but when this nurture was set up, our consultants suggested Monday/Friday so that it wouldn't interfere with other marketing emails that we do throughout the week. 
I'm wondering, is it best practice to suppress anyone in a nurture program (this is a "welcome"-type nurture series where we are starting at top of funnel and then sharing some content pieces, all the way down to info about our products, and last email is specific to getting in touch with Sales) from receiving other marketing emails while they are in the program? If that is the case, we could change our nurture send day to Tuesday/Thursday and add a filter to all other marketing emails that says suppresses members of the nurture program. Just curious what best practice is? 

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

You're right, there's no definitive "suppress or not to suppress" answer in this scenario. It depends on several factors and ultimately comes down to what approach best serves your goals. Here's a breakdown of both sides, as far as I can think of:

Pros of suppressing non-nurture emails:

• Bombarding leads with multiple emails simultaneously can overwhelm and lead to unsubscribes. Suppressing ensures they receive the focused nurture sequence without distractions.
• Interruptions from other emails might break the narrative and confuse leads about the nurture program's message.
• High bounce rates due to duplicate recipients can harm your sender reputation. Suppressing avoids this.

Potential cons of suppressing non-nurture emails:

• Some leads might be interested in both nurture topics and other campaigns. Suppressing could miss opportunities to engage them further.
• Instead of suppression, you can use advanced segmentation to limit other emails to those not in the nurture program, achieving similar focus without complete exclusion.
• Not all nurtures aim for immediate sales. Keeping leads warm with other relevant content might be beneficial if your nurturing strategy is broader.

Additional consideration:

• Suppressing might be more relevant for longer programs to avoid fatigue.
• Suppression might be less necessary if your other marketing emails align with the nurture program's theme and goals.

I'd recommend doing a small A/B testing for a while, i.e., stop sending the non-nurture emails to a chunk of people in the nurture for a while, and compare it with those receiving nurture and non-nurture emails. Remember, no one size and strategy fits all in cases like this- it all depends on the type of audience you have in your database, type of industry, emails, etc.

[Katja_Keesom]

Slightly off-topic but your second email on Friday triggers me. Sending a second email / reminder to people who (seemingly) did not open the first email is a practice I would always advise against. The reason is that the "opened email" activity has no real connection to human behaviour. The activity is registered as soon as the images in the email are downloaded. So someone who has set their mailbox to automatically download images when delivering the email to the inbox will have a 100% open rate on your emails even before they notice the email in their inbox. Someone who never downloads the images will be a 0% opened, even though they may have read your entire email.

So to determine your next step based on whether someone "opened" your email is quite the random activity and not related to what a person has really done.

[avaroglu]

Thanks this is a great point!! I'm in the midst of making updates to our nurture series based on some of the feedback I've received from the community. 

I did want to follow up on your point about non-openers - in general, if you're ever doing an email re-send for example, we have a piece of content we sent out but we want to re-send with a new subject line to the same audience - would you say it's best practice to resend to people who didn't click the link in the email RATHER THAN people who didn't open? It sounds like non-openers isn't the best metric to go off of. Thanks!! 

[Darshil_Shah1]

I agree with Katja on both points! Sending emails on Monday/Friday is usually not practiced, and on top of that, sending a reminder/re-engagement email for an email that was previously sent might not garner a lot of traction and engagement if you think strategically.

[avaroglu]

Thanks so much!! Would you say best practice for a nurture series is to have the series run once a week (let's say Thursdays for example) and not have any type of re-send? I'm working to revamp my nurture program next week and want to make sure I'm following Marketo best practice guidelines for a welcome series nurture. Thanks!!!

[Darshil_Shah1]

There's no single best practice for the frequency of a nurture series, as it depends heavily on your specific goals, audience, and content type. However, below are some insights and suggestions:

• Weekly sends (Tuesdays/Thursdays): This can be a good starting point, especially for longer nurture series (> 6 emails), to avoid overwhelming leads. However, weekly sends might feel slow-paced if the content is light or time-sensitive. Some people send up to 2 emails a week, but I think 2 nurture emails a week are more likely to cause email fatigue for most audiences; however, this might not be true for all the audience types and industries/types of the product/service you're providing. With nurture emails, I'd recommend being cautious about going overboard to avoid fatigue.
• Re-sending the first email: Consider re-sending the first welcome email to non-engagers (clicks maybe, but be aware of the bot activities regarding the opens and clicks) after a few days (e.g., 3 days) or in the next cat to give them another chance to engage. You can adjust the subject line and personalize it further (or create a shorter version of the original email) for improved engagements.
• Subsequent email re-sends: Re-sending subsequent emails is generally not recommended for the welcome series. The content builds upon each other, and re-sending might lead to confusion or a sense of being spammed.

[avaroglu]

Thanks this has been such helpful information!! 

I'm making some updates to my current nurture - if I want to change the email send day to Thursdays, do I need to set the "first cast" to next week? And if so, would that duplicate any emails that have already gone out? 

Thanks!

[Darshil_Shah1]

You're welcome, @avaroglu! Make sure the first cast date aligns with the day you choose to send the nurture case; if the day of the selected first cast date comes before the day you chose in the dialog, then for that particular week, the Engagement program's stream will cast 2 contents.

[avaroglu]

Thanks! And therefore, if I update the date to next Thursday, 3/7 and have it be every Thursday moving forward, will that affect any of the recipients that were already sent emails? I just don't want them to start over and get the first email next Thursday. Thanks!