smart campaign sends the email twice after a wait step

[Tom_Liolios4]

Hi there,

I have a smart campaign set up that needs to send an email after a wait step. In the wait step I use tokens to specify when the wait is over.

The wait step works properly, however, when it is time to send the email, Marketo sends the email twice.

That is not how I set it up.

See below the flow steps:

And here the results of this campaign:

As you can see, the time of sending is correct. However, it is strange that the same lead gets the email sent twice.

Any thoughts on why this is happening?

Thank you!

Tom

[Anonymous]

It seems like the config is right and there might be something else causing this. Is this happening to all leads in this campaign or only some? Can you check if Step ID is same for both the entries (by clicking on 17679601 & 17679602)?

Also, are the leads set to run through this campaign once or multiple times?

[Josh_Hill13]

It sounds like the person registered twice, and as Chirag noted, your flow may allow the person to qualify every time.

Could be another reason.

[Tom_Liolios4]

Well I have set it up for leads to only flow through it once.

The step ID is indeed the same. What would that mean here?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I would set it up to let users go through once every 30 days if you're using the same campaign to send invites for other webinars that this user might also be interested in later on.

[Dan_Stevens_]

We, too, have been experiencing some issues with how flow steps are supposed to function.  For example, when we call (request) a smart campaign in the middle of the flow, we're finding that the subsequent flow steps are being executed before the requested campaign has finished.  The way flow steps are supposed to work - when a "request campaign" flow step is used - is similar to a sub-routine in code: the flow branches to the campaign that was requested, runs through all of the flows in that campaign, and then returns to the source campaign (if necessary, and if not "removed from flow") to continue on with the rest of the flow steps.  All in a sequence.  And that's not happening for us.  Where this is causing an issue is when the requested campaign includes a "removed from flow" - or even specific flow steps that need to occur before returning to the source campaign - and the flow steps are causing errors and/or executing on actions that shouldn't take place. 

I know this isn't what's going on here for you, but perhaps there's a larger, underlying issue with how Marketo processes flow steps.

[Steven_Vanderb3]

Hi Dan,

I don't believe that is how Request Campaign is expected to work.  The action you're telling the flow to make is to trigger the corresponding campaign - that's it.  When it's done doing that, it moves on.  The requested campaign is added to the campaign queue to execute in order of priority.

[Josh_Hill13]

That's correct. Once requested, the original flow continues and the Requested Campaign is triggered and runs on its own according to the Queue Priority.

This is why Requested Campaigns can be carefully setup such that the race condition is controlled.

[Josh_Hill13]

Use Wait Steps or daisy chain it if order of operations is needed. Several threads on this.

[Dan_Stevens_]

Steven, this is news to us.  For years, we had always thought a "request campaign" was like a sub-routine - that had to execute in its entirety before returning to the originating campaign.  This was the guidance we received from our Marketo consultant all along.

If you are absolutely certain that it doesn't work like this, can you let us know.  We will need to modify and re-architect several smart campaigns that were built with the expectations/guidance we initially had.

I wonder if other customers had this same expectation/understanding when using "request campaign"?

Sanford Whiteman​

Grégoire Michel