Question about using random samples for send email flow

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

My company has been using MailChimp as our mail platform for marketing emails, but are now transitioning to Marketo. MailChimp has a feature that "batches" the email send over a period of time - e.g. for a 5000 person list send the email out in 20 batches 5 minutes apart.  I've been told that we use this feature since our emails to clients would get flagged (and not reach the inbox) when we'd send emails as a single large batch. (e.g. too many emails hitting the server at once from an outside source would cause a flag). 

Anyway, I'm trying to set up a flow that will replicate this function.

My thought is to do the following:

Step 1: Send Email

Choice 1: Random Sample is: 5% then  Send Email is  [Email being sent]

Default Choice: Do Nothing

Step 2: Wait 5 minutes

Step 3: Send Email

Choice 1: Was Sent Email is [Email being sent] then Do Nothing

Choice 2: Random Sample is: 5% then  Send Email is  [Email being sent]

Default Choice: Do Nothing

Step 4: Wait 5 minutes

Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until have reached 95% sample

Last step: Send Email

Choice 1: Was Sent Email is [Email being sent] then Do Nothing

Default Choice: Send Email is [Email being sent]

My question is this:

If I use "Random Sample" in repeating flow steps while removing the group of people who have received the email in the prior flow step, will the new Ransom Sample be 5% of the original list?  Will it definitely exclude those who have already received the email?

Any other suggestions about how I might accomplish my goal would be appreciated.

Note: I've used Marketo before, and never seen an issue with large batch sending causing flags in this way. I'm wondering if the flagging happened because we aren't using a branded version of MailChimp with an SPF set to our domain. Any suggestions as to how I might convince my current colleagues that this sort of batching is unnecessary now that we're on Marketo would be helpful as well.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

For the random sample piece, use this in a separate smart campaign to get your lists, from product doc

5. Use Random Sample by itself - Random Sample is a special filter. Use it by itself to put your leads into pre-made lists. Then just use "Member of List" to make your smart list super fast.

Your customer success manager should be able to provide the right details on why you can send large batch emails all at once. It's part of setup for email: Configure Protocols for Marketo - Marketo Docs - Product Docs I have run into an issue once where we had to setup a dedicated IP to ensure the emails weren't being marked as SPAM.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Emily -

I think the separate campaign to split the list is probably the best idea...

Personally, I don't think it's necessary - I've sent very large batches from Marketo before without issues - but this company is very new to the concept...

- Jocelyn

[Anonymous]

Perfect! I highly recommend getting some documentation from your Marketo rep, or even have them help you with a presentation to slowly win your team over.

[SanfordWhiteman]

(e.g. too many emails hitting the server at once from an outside source would cause a flag). 

They're not completely wrong here.  Receiving mailservers almost always enforce some rate limits, and sometimes those limits are too low to allow marketing widely across the domain (which is no accident).

However, they're wrong to think that "20 batches [of 250 leads] 5 minutes apart" is going to make a difference.  The strictest enterprises enforce limits like 100 emails per hour or 500-1000 per day from untrusted source IPs.  Even if you had a dedicated IP, if your lists contain 1000s of addresses at those domains, it simply isn't feasible to get messages to all of them -- and the more you try, the worse you look.  That's when you need to figure out your highest-value leads and try to market only to them.

Of course, whether you encounter such policies depends on the industries and/or technical "personalities" you market to.

[Phillip_Wild]

Emily Dick​'s answer is the right one! But here's some further info on "Random Sample", just for clarification...

If you use it in a flow step, then the population used for sampling is the total leads who entered that flow step. So if you are removing people as you go in previous steps, it won't work as you intend. Hence the need to use separate lists and then action accordingly.

As other have mentioned, you shouldn't need to batch Marketo sends. But if you are using Random Sample for another purpose (A/B tests is my favourite use case!) you can do something like the following:

Flow step is "Add to List"

Choice 1: If Random Sample is 33 then add to List A

Choice 2: If Random Sample is 33 then add to List B

Default: Add to List C

Default takes the remainder after you subtract the choice "random sample" amounts from 100%. In the example above, 34% of the leads who entered that flow step would be added to List C.