Utlizing engagement program

[joshua67]

I'm facing little difficulty using the engagement program.

I'd like to include a nested email program in the engagement program but unfortunately, unable to send email at recipient time. Is there any workaround?

I need a nested email program to AB test emails. eg: Whole emails, subject line, personalization etc.

Any advice is welcome.

[Beth_Massura · Accepted solution]

Hi Joshua,

If you use a nested default program in the engagement program, you can add additional flow steps to the email-sending smart campaign that's referenced in the engagement program stream to control the send time a bit as a workaround to Recipient Time Zone.

I just have a couple examples here - you'd want to account for all time zones in some fashion but you can use "starts with" to group all Europe time zones in one step, for example, if approximate send time is good enough. It's unlikely that it'll be worth the time to set up a flow step for every individual time zone. Use wait steps between to account for the time differences.

You'd also want to have one final flow step to send to anyone who was not accounted for previously, such as those who had a time zone change while the campaign was running:

I don't believe, however, that this method works with Champion/Challenger tests - based on this community thread you may have to also incorporate random sample in order to send different versions of email content. That could get quite complex. Perhaps you can consider what is the most critical component you want to account for - the send time based on time zone or the tests.

Cheers,

Beth Massura

2022 Adobe Marketo Engage Champion

[Darshil_Shah1]

Hello @joshua67,

Not sure if you're still looking for an answer for this or not, but if you're, then firstly you should determine whether you have a solid use case for using nested default programs in your engagement program stream. Please note that nested programs in an engagement program can't be any other type than the default program (I.e., you can't nest an email program as per your post). Also, to clarify, the A/B test is supported only in email send programs, however, you can use champion and challenger email tests to test different versions of emails if you have email assets in your stream. 

That being said neither the recipient time zone nor the champion vs challenger email test features are available with the nested default program(s) in your stream. They are only available with plain email assets in the stream. Perhaps if you don't have a solid use case for using nested default programs, and can do with email assets in the stream, both of your requirements could be fulfilled with something OOTB rather than having to build and maintain a custom setup. Hope this helps. Let us know if you have questions.

[Katja_Keesom]

Indeed the option to send in the recipient's time zone is only available for email programs (which can't be used as a nested program in an engagement  program) or in individual emails you put directly into the stream.

Although in general my advice would be to use nested default programs in an engagement program, as it will give you more flexibillity to use the same content in different places and prevent people from receiving it more than once, in this specific case for the purpose of the test you could consider running this piece of content as a separate email without putting it in a default program.

Another option would be to use a completely different email that is not part of an engagement program for your test on recipient's time zone and decide your broader course of action based on that.