SOLVED

Wait Step Issue

Go to solution
Anonymous
Not applicable

Wait Step Issue

I'm running into a issue with a campaign wait step. The campaign runs on the 15th each month (scheduled), then sends an email and waits 30 days before calling a second campaign. The issue is even though more than 30 days have passed, members seem to be stuck in the wait step permanently and the campaign never calls the second campaign. Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong here?

Dashboard view

pastedImage_1.png

Here are the flow steps (Smartlist references the Chronic Non-Responders/Unengaged smartlist built into Marketo)

pastedImage_2.png

And the campaign that is called. (filters to make sure the member is still part of the non-responder list and has not opened the email sent) No members have passed into this campaign.

pastedImage_3.png

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
Trevor_Parsell
Level 6

Re: Wait Step Issue

Hey Devraj,

That makes sense. My thinking was that the "Request Campaign" flow step may not show up as initiated if the lead is disqualified from the campaign being requested but I confirmed that is not the case.

I agree with you that this is related to adjustments made to flow steps after the campaign was launched. When a flow step is added to a campaign with wait steps, there may be similar issues to what happens when a flow step is deleted:

Delete a Flow Step - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

View solution in original post

16 REPLIES 16
Devraj_Grewal
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Wait Step Issue

Gary,

What you can first do is look at the results tab for the first smart campaign to make sure the "Request Campaign" step did initiate. If so, then run a smart list with these two filters:

"Campaign was requested" is (this requested campaign)

"Member of smart campaign" not in (this requested campaign)

The smart list will show those who have successfully had this smart campaign requested but did not actually qualify for the smart campaign. If so, it is possible the requested campaign's smart list needs to be modified.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Wait Step Issue

Ok, I looked at the first campaign and didn't see any instance of the request campaign step being triggered, which is the step that happens after the wait 30 days step. It's' worth noting that this first ran on June 15th, so it should have triggered mid-July.

Also ran the smart list with the two filters you suggested. The result was 0.

Devraj_Grewal
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Wait Step Issue

Alright so if the request campaign didn't fire at all no one has come to that step yet and all people are still in the wait step. I would double check the date that everyone went through step #2 to make sure it actually was 30 days ago.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Wait Step Issue

I did a spot check on a bunch of members, and definitely had members added to program on June 15th. Also, the history tab for the campaign shows 10,292 people qualified on June 15th. (see screen shot further down thread) Still not sure what's going on here.

Devraj_Grewal
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Wait Step Issue

Those people may have qualified for the smart campaign on June 15th, but what is the date that they all received that step #2 email and subsequently entered the 30 day wait? You can check the "Results" tab to confirm this.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Wait Step Issue

Looks like June 15th they were sent the email. Screenshot of email insights for the email in June. Not sure why it's only 9.76k verse 10,292. Maybe it excludes bounces from the report.

pastedImage_0.png

Devraj_Grewal
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Wait Step Issue

My guess then is that this wait step may have changed duration. Note that when a wait step's duration is changed or removed altogether, those in the wait step will still wait the original duration while new people entering that wait step will proceed with the new duration. Is there any chance this wait step was longer than 30 days and then shortened to 30 days? If so, these leads still may have time in the wait step before they request the campaign. Check out Audit trail for this smart campaign to verify that the wait step duration was not modified.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Wait Step Issue

That's an interesting theory. I checked the audit trail as you suggested and couldn't find any change to the wait step in or around the date of June 15th when this would have executed. I did however see that I added a step to the beginning of the flow(later on June 15th) after the campaign had executed and sent the email to the start to add the lead as a member to the program, probably when I noticed the campaign ran, and the email sent, and folks were in the wait step, but were not added to the program as members (which is odd in and of itself). Looks like I then ran another campaign later on June 15th to correct the membership issue for folks that were just sent the email and then made them members of the campaign.

Trevor_Parsell
Level 6

Re: Wait Step Issue

Hey Gary,

Can you show a screenshot of the "Chronic Non-Responders/Unengaged" smart list criteria? Have you confirmed that the people who are not engaged are showing up correctly in that smart list?

You may have to adjust the Non-Responders/Unengaged smart list criteria in order to ensure that leads who are hitting that list also qualify for the "Remove non-opens" campaign.