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

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Tom,

I strongly suspect that you are having duplicates in your database. The lead Tom Tolios is present twice in the campaign and therefore the trigger is called twice.

To check this hypothesis, click the lead name in the results. The lead detail pages will open and you will be able to check form the URL if the lead ID's are the same.

-Greg

[Tom_Liolios4]

Grégoire Michel​ Steven Vanderberg Thanks for helping out here.

The strange thing here is that:

- the lead is not a duplicate

- the smart campaign is not used for other webinars then only this specific webinar

I did request a support ticket, but the support agent is facing the same issues as I am. They have not been able yet to resolve.

The smart campaign is triggered by "Fills out form X". A lead can only run through it once.

After the wait step with the token, the email should go out.

The only 'new' thing about this set up for me is the usage of tokens in the wait step, but I cannot imagine that to cause an email to be sent twice.

[Steven_Vanderb3]

I sent a message to the agent helping you as well, but it looked like you triggered the campaign twice a few minutes before you switched the campaign setting to only allow someone to run through the flow one time.  You've had two iterations of your record hanging out and exiting together in your Wait steps.

[Tom_Liolios4]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for helping out!

This could be a reason yes. I did see, however, the support agent having the same issues with the email being sent twice.

I think for now I should set up another campaign, and test it again. See if the issue happens again.

Thanks,

Tom

[Steven_Vanderb3 · Accepted solution]

Her situation was different.  Your wait steps are set to wait for a specified date, but that date is now in the past, so her lead record just kept moving through the flow. Step #6 and Step #8 send the same email so she got them in succession. If you check the Step IDs on those emails you'll see they are different.

[Tom_Liolios4]

Hi Steven,

Ah yes, didn't consider this. Thanks a lot! I expect that my next test will be successful.

I'll let you know if something odd occurs again.

Thanks for the insights.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Tom,

We probably could have helped you better with some screenshots of your calling flow, as we could have probably been able to see this point

-Greg

[Steven_Vanderb3]

I'd say file a Support ticket.  It's going to be hard to diagnose without being able to see the whole campaign, how the lead qualified for the campaign, and the source of the qualification (if it's a trigger campaign that is sending the email).

[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.

[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

[Josh_Hill13]

Dan, it was always my understanding that the called campaign functions independently of the calling campaign. I have never heard anything otherwise.

Both Ed and I have written about this

How to Architect a Robust and Scalable Marketo Instance

Smart lists on the other hand, do have to wait for all nested smart lists to be tabulated before giving a final count.

[Dory_Viscoglio]

Dan, if it's any help, I was under the impression that request campaigns function separately and those do not need to complete before going to the next step in the original campaign. Just the act of requesting the campaign needs to complete, then the next flow step is actioned.

It is certainly frustrating when there is conflicting information received from consultants!

[Dan_Stevens_]

Thanks for your input and confirming, Dory Viscogliosi​, Josh Hill​, and Steven Vanderberg.  Now back to the drawing board on some of our campaigns.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Dan,

Sorry for not answering earlier, but connections for us in Europe are still difficult.

I concur, the "request campaign" is a "fire and forget" flow step and the called campaign will run it's own life totally independantly from the calling one.

-Greg

[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.

[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?

[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.