using programs in engagement programs - make sure lead receives email each week

[Anonymous]

We use programs in our engagement programs and are noticing that some customers are not receiving emails for weeks and months at a time.  The way the product works today, if a lead doesn't qualify for the program, it does not move on to the next program, it just doesn't get anything at all during that cast.  

Why why use programs - we a/b test all of our emails and are not using the email program.  So one, we are checking to see if someone has received any of the emails variations previously.  We also make sure they haven't recieved any similar emails in a previous blast.  If they received a version of the email previously, they won't receive any emails that week.  

We also check to make sure that the email isn't irrelevant.  Like if they are already certified, we won't send them an email about getting certified.  There are also a lot of other situations like this where we need to use programs in nurture (if they already installed the Optimizely snippet, don't send an email asking them to install the snippet).  

Lastly, we think this issue is being multiplied because much of the content in Stream A is the same in Stream B.  In our instance, streams are defined by customer status of red, yellow & green where customers can switch streams regularly.
 

Question 1- if they have already run through a program in Stream A before, will they skip that program in Stream B?  Or will they go through the program and get stuck?

Question 2 - What is a creative way that we can make sure that someone receives an email every week when they don't qualify for the program?  My one idea was to have the nurture run the same number of times that there are emails in the stream for the day of the send and then put communication limits in place so that they only receive 1 email a day. Will that work in this scenario?  Any other ideas?

[Josh_Hill13]

Hi Heather,

Question 1: They should not receive duplicate content if that content was already received in that Engagement. So they should receive Cast A and then skip Cast B and move on.

Question 2:
Perhaps it would work better if you could separate leads into different Engagements or a wider range of Streams based on this Customer Status. You will need a traffic cop to manage leads between those engagements.

It gets a little complex since I don't know much about your nurture. Maybe we should chat?

[Sam_Chou1]

Hi Heather,

If you are using Programs in your Engagement Program - are you also creating Program Member Status = "Exclusion" ? This is from Edward Unthank's preso.

If you aren't associating these "excluded" leads with your Programs, they will still go through the smart campaign flow in that cast, and won't be emailed until the next cast (2 weeks apart?) Instead of creating smart campaigns that filter for "not was sent email, not installed optimizely, etc." - you should just go ahead and batch add anybody that fits those criteria into each Program as Member Status = "Exclusion." 

That way they skip the cast b/c Program Membership implies the lead was already sent that asset previously, and they will immediately move to the next available cast that they are eligible for. This is also very useful for casts that are shared across streams. Let me know if you want to chat!

[Anonymous]

SAM!  I think you totally just solved our issue.   Thank you, thank you, thank you.  We've been going around with support for this for months.

Josh, thank you as well!  

I'll follow up when we implement the changes to tell you how it works.