Need Help Setting Up Re-Engagement Campaign

[Traffic_Agency]

I am setting up a re-engagement campaign with users who have been inactive recently and want to ensure it is set up correctly. We plan to send a chain of three emails to leads to encourage them to update their email subscription preferences and become "active" again. If a lead is sent the 1st email and updates their preferences, I want to make sure that they don't receive any of the following emails.

At the end of the campaign, if they didn't take any action, they will be purged from the database. Here is how the campaign is set up:

I've created three smart campaigns within a default program:

1) Email #1 - 05/29/2019

Smart List: Member of recently inactive list

Flow: Wait until May 29 >> Send Email #1

Schedule: Will run once on May 29

2) Email #2 - 06/05/2019

Smart List: Was delivered email #1 >> Not filled out form for subscription preferences between May 29-June 5

Flow: Wait until June 5 (one week since email #1 sent) >> Send Email #2

Schedule: Will run once on June 5

3) Email #3 - 06/12/2019

Smart List: Was delivered email #2 >> Not filled out form for subscription preferences between May 29-June 12

Flow: Wait until June 12 (one week since email #2 sent) >> Send Email #3

Schedule: Will run once on June 12

Record Purge

Wait one week since email #3 sent. If person was delivered email #1, #2, and #3 and didn't fill out the email preference subscription form between 5/29 - 06/19, then they will be removed.

Additional Question:

1) Since I have assigned a "Wait" step in the Flow, am I able to schedule the campaigns whenever I want and they won't actually run until after the wait period? For example, if I run the first smart list on May 28th, it won't send the email until May 29th based on the criteria, correct?

I would prefer this so I don't have to remember to run the campaign and instead Marketo will automatically do that.

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I would appreciate if someone could review this and confirm that it is set up correctly. Thanks!

[Grace_Brebner3]

Hi traffic agency...

First up, fyi,Community Guidelines do encourage the use of real names and not generic company accounts - it's nice for us all to know who we're talking to 

But - to your questions... If your intention is to only send subsequent emails if the sub prefs form isn't submitted between sends, then yes, your logic will work - for the most part (though it's worth noting the difference between "was delivered" and "was sent" and making sure you're happy with using delivered - or even if you'd rather just keep to your original target list + form inactivity filter).

I say for the most part because your additional question introduces a risk of error. I don't see the point in using wait steps for this case if you know exactly when you want to run the campaigns? It's better to just schedule them for a single future run at that point in time: when your smart list criteria includes the absence of an activity, any wait steps before the send is actioned will introduce a risk of sending to people who did end up completing that activity in the gap between running the campaign and ending the wait step - which, depending on when you run the campaign, could be minutes or could be weeks. I would remove the wait step and schedule the campaigns to run on the date you'd want the wait step to have ended.

Hope that helps.

[Traffic_Agency]

Thanks for your response, Grace. As a follow-up, do you recommend that we use "was sent" rather than "was delivered"? Can you explain your reasoning?

Also, I didn't realize you could schedule these to run at a specified time. I will go ahead and remove the "Wait" steps and schedule each smart list for the time I was hoping to send the emails out. But, I want to make sure that those that took action (completed the form) aren't sent any of the following emails. Do I still risk that those who filled out the form will receive the rest of the emails if I only set up an action for those that didn't fill out the form?

Thanks so much!

Lauren

[Grace_Brebner3 · Accepted solution]

Hey Lauren,

Was sent = Marketo attempted to send that person an email.

Was delivered = the email reached the inbox.

Basically, was delivered = was sent - hard and soft bounces. It's really up to you but personally I'd consider bypassing the whole point and having the follow up be anyone in the original list that hasn't filled out the form. The question is really who are you targeting? Is it people who received the email and haven't actioned yet, or people who are on the list and haven't actioned yet? The difference is probably going to be minimal, it's almost a philosophical question really - but I'd personally be more inclined to say people who are on the list. 

To your last question, no, you don't risk that. If your criteria for each campaign is effectively "is member of list X (or was sent / delivered ), and hasn't filled out form X in date range Y to Z" with a flow of "send email", people who have actioned (i.e., have filled out the form" won't qualify in the smart rules and therefore won't be targeted with the flow step activity.

[Traffic_Agency]

That's a good point, Grace. I did switch it to just use the original list of those who I emailed in each of the three smart lists. I didn't originally do that because I thought there was a possibility that people who already filled out the form would receive the rest of the emails (which I didn't want to happen), but the criteria is set up to only email those who did not fill out the form so it should work. 

Perfect, that's exactly how mine is set up! Thanks for your help!

[Jaclyn_Tan1]

Is there a reason why you don't want to drip the emails within one send smart campaign and use "remove from flow" if they fill out a form? Also, have trigger campaigns for inactivity to delete from your database (i.e. hard bounced or did not click ALL 3 emails).