Thoughts on Structuring a Rigid Time-Based Email Flow that Sends Unique Emails based on User Engagement (Without Using Dynamic Content)

[Charlie_Mohn]

Marketo Nation,

I am trying to migrate a series of emails from another system into Marketo. These emails in our other system were all set up individually and go out on set days after someone downloads our app (e.g. Day 1, Day 3, Day 7, Day 12, etc.).

The complication is that we want to send unique emails at certain steps in the process based on the user’s engagement with the app (uploaded documents, invited others, etc.). We would prefer not to use dynamic content for these emails, because we would like to layer on additional dynamic content based on certain user profiles.

We also cannot just create separate nurture journeys, because we need it to be updated in real time, and not just at the beginning of the journey. For example, if someone invites someone in the app on day 6, the email they receive on day 7 should reflect that.

We have looked in to using a standard Marketo Stream nurture flow, but we are struggling with how to guarantee that the emails will go out on the exact days we specify (e.g. Day 1, Day 3, Day 7, Day 12, etc.) and not accidentally send emails too close together and annoy our users. Using that same example, if we created an “Invited another user” stream, and they invited another user on Day 6, how could we prevent the system from “resetting the clock” on when they get an email in the next stream (we would need to keep the exact same email cadence as users move between streams).

Any thoughts on the best way to do this (without just recreating all of the emails individually) would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Charlie

[Floyd_Alvares2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Charlie,

My take on the build:

You could still build an engagement program that has the relevant streams and create a logic that allows each user to individually enter the engagement program and flow through in their own cadence.

• The way I  have set this up would be to set the cadence for the stream to run everyday at say 11:00 am.

     You will not be able to send the email in the recipient time zone if you are using a default email program in the stream.

• Then instead of just populating emails in the stream, I would put the emails into a default program and send the email via a smart campaign and pause the record for the duration of days required.

Summary:This allows each user to go through the engagement program in their own cadence and if you move the user to another stream, the user should retain their "pause" from engagement program and on resuming they will be moved into another stream. The engagement stream will go through the cadence everyday, find the records that are in "normal" status and execute the relevant programs.

Regarding the actual content of the emails? I do not see an alternative other than using dynamic content or individual emails. You could add individual emails depending on their journey as a choice step in the send email flow step.

Just my 2 cents.

Let me know what you think

Thanks

Floyd

[Charlie_Mohn]

Hi Floyd! Thanks so much for the suggestion. I hadn't thought about structuring it that way. Specifically, I hadn't thought about using the "Send Email" matching choice logic to send an email that is unique to that customer's engagement with our app.

I'll follow up if we run in to any issues. Thanks again for your time!

[SanfordWhiteman]

What do you mean by "layer on additional dynamic content"? Please give a complete example.

[Charlie_Mohn]

Hi Sanford - we were also hoping to reserve dynamic content for providing unique content based on job title and company type. We were concerned that also using dynamic content for app engagement would simply create too much complexity. Does that make sense?

Thanks!

Charlie

[SanfordWhiteman]

It does make sense, and certainly Dynamic Content™ -- my term for the parts of Marketo that are literally labeled as Dynamic Content, like segmented content blocks and dynamic snippets -- ends up being tied to a single segmentation and isn't a fit for  multiple ways of slicing-and-dicing content.

But there's another kind of little-d, little-c dynamic content, and that's Velocity. Velocity tokens have access to all segmentations, all custom objects, and all lead fields at once.  As such, they're ideal for working with infinite permutations of content, without of course having to pre-compute all the variations. For one of many examples, I've used Velocity to display different blog content based on a combo of user-supplied preferences, history fields, and custom object interest data. Something to think about at least.

[Floyd_Alvares2]

^ adding to Sanford's point on velocity.

Now you can also layer dynamic content using both "Marketo segmentations" and Velocity in the same section in the email templates. Something like the example below.

Also if our suggestions have resolved your question, I would request that you please mark it as answered

Thanks

Floyd

[Charlie_Mohn]

Hi Floyd - Thanks for the additional context. Also, happy to mark this as answered.

[Charlie_Mohn]

Hi Sanford - Thanks for the suggestion! I'll take a look.

[Josh_Hill13]

Please look at my guide to thinking about time and nurture

Master Nurturing and Marketo Engagement Programs

you may want to combine the systems or use an Irregular Cadence and not use Engagements at all.