Nested programs in Engagement Stream not sending

[Alex_Firtl]

I have 8 emails that are being controlled by nested programs within an engagement stream. The first email in the stream has been sending correctly, but the remaining 7 haven't sent since I've activated them a few weeks ago. I'm using the Advanced Drip template basically.

The smart list criteria for the 01-Send Email smart campaign is pretty loose. Basically...

1. Are they a member of the engagement program (this is controlled by a Smart Campaign that just adds new prospects to the program)
2. For this particular set of emails, did they interact with a specific piece of content that would qualify them to receive these.

Finally the flow steps might be a bit more complicated than I need them to be, but I don't see why they would be causing any problems. The image below is for the first email which is sending properly, but all the others are updated with the relevant email references (A2, A3, etc)

Any ideas what's going on here? There also aren't any members of these additional programs, but I thought that if they qualified for that email (based on the Smart List criteria above), they would be sent it. Some of these were added recently, so is there something about Exhausted status that's at play?

[Michael_Florin]

I believe you're missing the step that would make a person a member of your email sending nested program. In this case the "Ambassador Fundrasing Ebook" program. You are only making them a member of the Engagement Program, if I'm not mistaken.

That's the reason you don't see program members in your nested programs, and also the reason the condition on subsequent sends fails.

So instead of making somebody a member of your Engagement Program, make them a member of the nested program. This is also necessary to make use of one very important intrinsic feature of Engagement Programs, which is that an EP skips email sends to persons who are already members of the program that sends the email.

[Alex_Firtl]

Ahhh that makes sense! Since all of these emails have the same criteria for sending, I'm assuming it would make sense to add people to the nested programs in one single smart campaign. Basically, something like this

Smart List

1. Member of Engagement Stream is true AND
2. Member of WC-2019-04-08 Program is true

Flow

1. Add to Program A1
2. Add to Program A2
3. Add to Program A3
4. ...so on for each of the relevant nested programs.

[Michael_Florin]

Well, you could do that to retroactively update program memberships - which definitely makes sense. But going forward I wouldn't do it like that. Rather make it a habit to have your email sending Smart Campaign look basically like this:

Smart List: Is member of Engagement Program

Flow Step 1: Send Email

Flow Step 2: Change Program Status in to "Email Sent" (or whatever your progression status is).

If I'm not mistaken you don't need a Smart Campaign that updates program membership in your Engagement Program. That happens automatically just by receiving an email from any stream.

[Alex_Firtl]

I guess I'm a little confused again then. It feels like the criteria is pretty loose to send these emails: (1) are they in the high-level engagement program and (2) are they a member of some other content program that indicates they should receive this particular email?

Is it because I'm not doing anything with them if they AREN'T sent the A1 email, so maybe they're just getting stuck at that point?

[Michael_Florin]

Hi Alex,

from what I'm seeing, you're on the right path. Let me just sum up a couple of things regarding Engagement Programs:

1. All Smart Campaigns directly underneath your Engagement Program are supposed to organize transitions into and between streams. They are not supposed to send emails.

2. You have nested programs underneath your Engagement Program. These nested programs (we like to call them "Asset Programs", as they usually contain asset content in the widest sense) contain the email and the Smart Campaign that sends this email. This is good, and it's actually imperative that an email and the Smart Campaign that sends it, live in the same program. Otherwise you may mess up your tokens (if you use tokens).

3. If you send an email from your Asset Program, the recipient should be made a member of this program. You have to do this through a flow step, as it doesn't happen automatically.

4. If a person is a member of an Asset Program, they will not be sent any email from this Asset Program through an Engagement Program stream. Instead they will skip this stream schedule step and advance to the next one. So by making them a member you also make sure they don't receive content from this Asset Program again.

5. Usually, the main and only criterion (Smart List) in an email sending Smart Campaign is "Is Member of Engagement Program", as your streams and stream transitions are mainly responsible for the decision who gets what. But of course you can add more filters if you so desire. For instance: Has not received Email B or Is not Member of Asset Program C or whatever. But I would not consider this standard practice. If you want to create a specific nurture experience based on what persons have consumed or have not consumed, rather create a second stream in your Engagement Program and have the stream create the experience.

I really hope this helps. Not sure it does though. 🙂

Best,

Michael

[Alex_Firtl]

This actually helps quite a bit Michael Florin. I think I'm starting to wrap my head around what's going here.

Let me bounce another question off of you though. We have a bunch of different emails all in one stream, that are being sent based on whether they've looked at related content or not (I'm actually guessing this is where people are getting hung up in our stream since they don't qualify for some content and thus are just getting stuck).

In order to maintain the structure we have, do you think I could create a Program Member Status along the lines of "Nurture Email > Didn't Qualify" so that they'd technically be a member of the program, wouldn't receive the email right now, and could move on?

I'd probably have to create a set of Smart Campaigns under the Engagement Program (referring to your #1 up above) that would change that Program Member Status to "Not In Program" should they ever meet the criteria that would qualify them, so I'm weighing the benefits against just creating different streams for each topic.

[Michael_Florin · Accepted solution]

This is exactly what we are doing. We have a status called "Exclude" in each Asset Program, and we give persons that status if we want them to skip specific emails. For example: We have a couple of assets - white papers and webinar recordings - that promote the usage of the webcam within our products. If we get to know that persons have actually used their web cam, we set them to "Exlude" in all Asset Program that promote this feature, because we don't want to promote features that already have been deployed.

But still: Think about creating a separate, second stream for specific situations. It's pretty easy, as you can just drag and drop your email sending campaign into a second (or third) stream. You don't need to create a new one each time. And then have Transition Rules that say: If certain requirements have been met, move persons to Stream B or Stream C. If find that easier to maintain than adding too many specific conditions to the email sending campaigns.