Question About Engagement Programs

[kenmckown]

So I am investigating Engagement Programs to replace our standard nurture programs. I have been researching how they work and have run into a couple questions.

As an example, our nurtures are built as Smart Campaigns. We pull people in with triggers such as a person status change, then setup 5-8 emails that flow using wait steps. We also remove people from the flow if for example their status changes, becomes a customer, etc.

What I have run into with Engagement programs, is that they seem to flow without any steps to remove someone. Is it possible to setup something to remove them from the program?

The transition rules seem to work as a way to move people from one stream to another, which is beneficial for moving someone from say a BOFU campaign to a MOFU campaign, but I am not seeing how to remove someone from the BOFU by itself.

Just curious if I am missing something obvious.

[Christiane_Rode]

You can remove people from an engagement program. but there are caveats to removing them -- basically, only remove them if you never wanted them to be there. You can also pause people in your campaign, but they can still transition between streams if they meet the transition criteria (even if they haven't received content).

[kenmckown]

So this would require building a separate program that is constantly running to remove/pause them when they reach the criteria if I am understanding this correctly?

[kenmckown]

I forgot to add my second question. I was trying to build a program to insert into the Stream, but it won't let me build an Email Send program.

[Darshil_Shah1]

You can only add email assets or default programs in the Engagement program stream. Additionally, you'd need campaigns (with the right flow steps and smart list criteria) to pause/add/remove people from the engagement programs; you can manage transitions between streams using transition rules; however, for the rest, you'd need campaigns to manage the operations. Some links from the documentation below for your reference: 

1. Add to Engagement Program
2. Change Engagement Program Cadence
3. Change Engagement Program Stream
4. Change Program Status
5. Adding a Program to an Engagement Program Stream
6. Transition People Between Engagement Streams
7. Add Content to a Stream

[kenmckown]

Follow-up. If all five emails are in a stream, do we have to move them to a new stream for different timing? For example:

EM1 is immediate, EM2 is two weeks later, EM3 is three weeks later, and so on. The stream setting only allows to set one timing method?

[Darshil_Shah1]

Unless you want to send all the emails on the same day and time (next week/2, weeks later, etc.) As you can see in the set stream cadence dialog, you can set the first cast date and schedule for the subsequent casts (i.e., cast content every x week(s)) on specific days of the week. 

In this example, an email will go out on Thursday. We then skip a week and send again on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the following week. And then loops again. Also, the content will go out on the date you select for the first cast, so make sure it coincides with the day of the week you choose; otherwise, it will go out twice in the first week.

Check this article on Experience League: Set Stream Cadence.

However, if you wish to have different send times/days for emails, then you'd need multiple streams and manage the transition b/w those; alternatively, there's a more advanced way through which we can control the casts by changing the member cadences to Paused and to Normal using operational campaigns, but it's a bit tricky to setup and test.

[kenmckown]

I appreciate all these responses, but I want to present a scenario, and am trying to see if Engagement Programs benefit us.

The way our nurtures work are we set a trigger to pull people into a Smart Campaign, for example someone meets a specific lead criteria, between each email is where this breaks for me.

Send EM1

Then do a series of checks such as Opt Out, Global Suppression (Smart List), Filled out a Form, and Had and Interesting Moment in Salesforce.

It seems from my understanding, each of these would need to be a triggered Smart Campaign for each email send. That seems excessive, because I would have to build multiple Smart Programs for each way to remove them, especially since some of them cannot be triggers.

[uditmathur]

Hi @kenmckown ,

Although i have not fully grasped your requirement, but from what i have understood you add lead to a SC based on certain action performed which send an email to them (presuming an welcome email as its an action based response).

After the email is sent you check if that lead is present in any of your restricted list & if not you continue interacting with leads.

If this is what your use case is then it is a very simple use case for Engagement program.

• Create a recurring batch campaign using filters like "member of SC", "filled out form" etc.

in the flow use "add to engagement program" & add people who qualify to your engagement program. Any one who does not qualify will not be added to EP.

Hope this helps 😊

[kenmckown]

Yes, this makes sense for adding them to it, but my concern is more removing them.

As an example, a nurture has five emails, after EM1, we do a "Remove from Program" based on those criteria, for the EP, would I have to create a Smart Campaign for that? That is what I see as excessive, as I would have to build one for each email send so that it gets checked between each email send.

Does that make sense?

[uditmathur]

Hi @kenmckown ,

Its not advisable to remove leads from engagement program as this will effect your reporting matrix for that EP.

I would rather suggest you to create an Empty stream & name it say " Not fit Leads" & then create a transition rule to pull all the leads who does not qualify for continuing in the EP. This way you will not loose any reporting matrix & because the stream will be empty your leads will not be sent any further content.

[kenmckown]

Just wanted to circle back around on this, curious if this is feasible with Engagement programs, trying to weigh the benefits to switching from the way we do things now, as opposed to Engagement Programs.