Naming conventions for Nurture programs/engagements

[Tom_Richards]

Hello!

I understand that having a good naming convention is key to being organized in Marketo. For one-off campaigns I was thinking of following the examples given, i.e.,

Campaign: WS 2019-04 Extend Trial Campaign

Email: WS 2019-04 Extend Trial E1

I was not sure about naming conventions for Programs that may last for years. Do you mention the starting year? Just looking for some suggestions. Thanks!

[Grace_Brebner3]

Hey Tom,

I think it's probably a bit of a case of personal preference - the most important thing will really be to pick a method and be consistent in its application. In my instance (which is fairly high traffic) we go down to the day level, and that date is always the date on which the program build was started - as opposed to other options like the date at which the program goes live. I find this better as it's really the only date that's certain - launch dates change, there's a possibility but not always a guarantee that a program will stay live for many months/years, and later down the line for programs that are live for a long time, I like to know at a glance how old that program is as a potential indicator for risk of issues.

There's always tons to consider with naming conventions (thus there's plenty of threads on community about it). A few other recommendations for you - you may have considered some/all of these things already, but in case any of them are helpful...

• I'm not sure what the "WS" in your convention stands for, but you might also want to consider whether it'd be relevant (either now or as a future proof) to include a signifier in you convention for details like brand, product, region, channel, program ID, etc.
• If you choose to add more signifiers, be deliberate about your choice of order - it works best if you sequence them in the same order you'd be likely to folder them (e.g., for me I'd likely sequence in exactly the order listed above).
• As a side note (in case you're not aware) local assets within a program inherit the name of the program as a preface to the name of the asset - it's not shown in the menu tree, but is shown if you search for that asset in a smart list or smart campaign flow step. Point being, if your program's name is "WS 2019-04 Extended Trial", then your asset can be named "E1", and will show in those sources as "WS 2019-04 Extended Trial.E1". If you don't do this you end up with "WS 2019-04 Extended Trial.WS 2019-04 Extended Trial E1" which is cumbersome in those sources, making it hard to accurately choose assets.
• Personally for naming local assets I always preface with its number in sequence (relative to the other local assets of its type within the program), then a concise but descriptive name - e.g. a smart campaign may be "01 Send Email" and an email might be "01 Autoresponder Email".

Hope that's helpful.

[Chris_Wilcox]

Yes to all of Grace Brebner's comments. Here's the general layout we use with our programs. We use send date for Email Send programs, Webinar date for webinar programs, and date created for other program types. I realize we're not consistent which might drive some people nuts, but it works for us. We also have some shorthand to identify the type of program (EM=General Email, SUB=Subscription, etc.) In regards to assets inside programs, we do the same thing as Grace. Number in the general order of the program then a description of the asset.

Programs: YYYY-MM-DD-[Abbreviated Program Type]-[Description of Program Content]-[Audience (if applicable)]

Assets: ## [Asset Name]

[Nicholas_Hajdin]

For evergreen content, I typically use the year and replace month with 00 for searchability. IE 1900-NUR-Product ABC-TOFU Content Track. This way, you know what "always-on" campaigns you launched in 2019.

[Tom_Richards]

This is all very helpful. There are a couple of ideas in the thread so I have a couple of concepts to see if I'm using the best of them.

For nuture/automated emails.. Auto to show it's automated, and can be used for sorting. The 00 is the neutral month. Cust for Customer, Lead for someone who hasn't purchased yet. Overkill?

• WS Auto 2019 00 Onboarding Bronze Cust (The emails will just be "email 1, etc.)
  
• WS Auto 2019 00 Free Trial Lead

For one-offs. This one would run in May.

• WS 2019 05 Price Increase Campaign Cust (The emails will just be "email 1, etc.)
  

[Grace_Brebner3]

Personally I don't know that I like the "auto" as (to me at least) this should be understood automatically based on the folder structure and the channel - and those components provide more information beyond just the fact that they're automated as opposed to manual. Using my instance as an example of how I prefer to manage and differentiate this, one of my highest level root folder splits is always-on marketing programs and point-in-time marketing programs. Below that I folder by channel (so, always-on includes things like web content, nurture, trigger alerts, etc, while point-in-time includes newsletters, promotional campaigns, etc). My naming convention is then a short code set that represents BRAND-REGION-CHANNEL-YYMMDD-Program Description. I know not everyone agrees with my way of doing dates but... well, it works for me and I prefer it being concise

So, for example, my users and I always know that "BR-AU-WC-190321-Aussie eBook" is automated, because a Web Content channel default program would always be automated and typically have a long lifespan.

As a side note I also like the use of either dashes or underscores within the job number component (this bit "BR-AU-WC-190321-") as (personal preference) it makes the menu tree more scannable and the program description more distinct.