Reporting on the same Email Program Multiple Times

[Anonymous]

We have an email program, and we want to send this out multiple times to the same leads. Each time we send this out,we want to report on the stats separately, but don't want to duplicate the program. Currently we changed the program status and use this to calculate reporting, but would not be able to use this to report on multiple sends. How could this be achieved?

[Grace_Brebner3]

Hey Bethany,

Can you detail more the context of the program? What kind of email is it? Are there any variables that change each time you send it (e.g. is it always the same content, same objective?) What's the reason why you don't want to create a new program for each send? What metrics are you trying to report on?

The answers to the above would dictate whether biting the bullet and doing a new program for each send is the best approach, or whether simple tweaks to reports/smart campaign processes would suffice.

As one point - I make a rule of thumb that an email program should only ever be used to send a single email to a single group at a single point of time - no resends, no multiple email strings, no further data processing, etc. Newsletters, legal updates, product announcements can be good examples. Email programs are great for setting things up quickly, but for use cases beyond the above they can make your job much harder - so for anything that doesn't meet that criteria I always go for a default program (obviously unless it's an event/nurture!).

[Anonymous]

Hi Grace!

It actually is the default program type (sorry for the confusion!) This is what we are trying to achieve.

We created a custom campaign (similar to a drip campaign but not using the nurture program) where leads would flow through each program every so often if they meet the criteria. We do update this content periodically, so when leads run through our last program, we would like them to start back at the beginning and flow through again if they still meet our criteria. The issues we are having is we want to report on these leads separately (as far as sent, opened, delivered, bounced, etc) and we don't want to duplicate any email creatives (because it would be a lot of work on our end to constantly update these in all places). We report on our current campaigns by using program statuses - we have formulas that reference these in SFDC to calcuate stats (i.e. if email is deliver change status to Email Delivered, etc).

Thank you,

Bethany

[Grace_Brebner3]

Hey Bethany - thanks for the extra detail. Helps a lot! Good to understand a little more about the purpose of the program.

If you're just looking to see email performance metrics, is there a reason why you don't want to use an email performance report to look at, say, month by month performance? Do you really need to report on how each individual lead behaved?

Using program statuses is unlikely to be the right strategy - since people cant go back to an earlier status and adding new statuses for every additional cycle is definitely not scalable. Using a series of email performance reports with date filters is going to be the simplest way to get a sense of how the performance is generally going, but will not give you a lead-by-lead breakdown, nor will it show you a comparison of engagement of first time they went through vs 2nd vs 3rd - though you could likely achieve this with smart list filters and comparisons.

Is there a reason why you structured it as a default program over a nurture? An alternative solution that I can think of would be a nurture with nested default programs, and streams for each cycle (e.g. 1 = 1st cycle, 2 = 2nd cycle, etc). You wouldn't have to create new content for each send as they'd all be referencing the same default programs, and you'd have better visibility over the 1st/2nd/3rd engagement differentiations with a stream performance report. Doesn't solve the individual break down puzzle, but does give a bit more visibility.

It's an interesting puzzle!

[Anonymous]

Hi Grace - thank you for the information!

Initially we chose a default program because we could customize it exactly how we wanted it to function. We are open to converting this to a nurture program at this point. Would you be able to provide some more information on the below?

1. Assuming we would have to report on all stats in Marketo and this would not use program statuses, but the email performance metrics?

2. Could you explain further how it would be possible to report on each cycle? For example, lead 1 has gone through our entire program (step 1 - step 25), and now starts back at step 1. Lead 1 opened and clicked the first time she was sent step 1, but did not open or click the second time she was sent step one. Would I be able to see the Open/Click rate for Step 1 (cycle 1) is 100%, and Step 1 (cycle 2) is 0% (pretending she is the only lead in the program).

3. Based on this discussion - it doesn't seem I would be able to send a lead the same email twice. Can you confirm? Refresh Content Exhausted Status

4. What are the benefits of switching to a nurture program vs a default program?

[Grace_Brebner3]

Sure

1. Yes. An engagement stream performance report will show basically the same data as an email performance report, but broken down by stream and then email as opposed to just email. So you'll get deliverability, opens, etc.
2. Yes. You'd set up the program such that, when Lead 1 completes the entirety of the "program" (now Stream 1), they move to stream 2, and start at the top again. The stream report would show that email in stream 1 has a 100% OR/CTR, and that email in stream 2 has a 0% OR/CTR, if she is the only lead in the program.
3. Not true. If you create a nested default program for each email, and set the send campaign to allow leads through every time, the will be able to receive the same content more than once. There's a lot of resource in the community on how to do this
4. Default program will allow you to do sends based on specific time passing since a specific action, which may be beneficial. Nurture programs are more specifically designed for ongoing, large scale, always on campaigns like this, so allow a lot of this functionality to be achieved a bit easier (drag and drop! yay!). Nurture programs also give you access to the engagement stream performance report, which you can't get with a default program, and which is really the easiest way to get that #2 info.

Side note - if reporting on this stuff at an individual level is really important, you may want to look into something like Litmus - it's great for email testing but also allows you to input analytics tracking code into your emails with an individual ID for each recipient. You can't track clicks with it, but you can get a lot of other valuable analytics data at both a high level and a granular individual level. It is a subscription service but pretty cheap, to be honest.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! Very helpful!

[Grace_Brebner3]

Glad to hear it!

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[Anonymous]

Will do once I attempt implementation!