When you nest a program within a stream of an engagement program, do the smart campaigns in the program still need triggers in the smart list?

[Anonymous]

If you place program A within the stream of an engagement program B, and activate it, will users be pushed directly into the flow steps of the smart campaigns within program A, or do you still need triggers and smart list criteria?

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Justin,

1/ You should move this question to the "product and support" section. it's a miracle I saw it, as it is in the "Community Feedback & Help". May be Scott K. Wilder​ may help relocating it.

2/ To answer your question : no, you do not need to add filters. And you do not want to add trigger as the smart campaign you use has to be a batch campaign. The only exception is if you want to add filters to filter OUT some leads and prevent them entering the flow. Also remember that Marketo will not send the lead to the program if the lead is already a member of the program. This also means that you have to make the lead a member of the program with a "change program status" flow step.

EDIT : Hi Justin Plappert, although you apparently do not need to add filters, the doc says you should add a "Member of Engagement Program" filter. So the recommendation is that you add that filter.

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Actually, you must use a filter when using programs inside an Engagement Program (within the smart campaign that sends out the email): - you must use "Member of Engagement Program" at a minimum.  If you need to further filter leads from receiving the email, you can add them as necessary. And then, of course, no need to do anything with the "schedule" tab since the EP cadence will take care of that.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

H Justin,

Dan has a point, it might be impossible to leave the smart campaign with no filter at all. In this case, you may want to use an "is anonymous = false" filter (which is the dummy filter to use when you do not know what to use) or "member of engagement program" (which is a redundancy, since the smart campaign being called by the engagement program, the lead is a member anyway.

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

The reason "member of engagement program" is a required filter is because you have the ability to add any Marketo program to EP streams outside of the EP - without physically storing/nesting the program within the EP.

For example, if you have an events program sitting outside the EP, you can simply drag that program into an EP stream and select the "send event invitation" smart campaign. That smart campaign must include a "member of engagement program" filter if you want this to be one of the casts that get sent to your EP members.

The same is true for any program nested WITHIN an EP, as Marketo doesn't physically see nested programs within an EP - just those smart campaigns linked to a program contained within an EP stream (and why adding this filter is not a redundancy - it actually tells the EP to use this program as one of the casts within the EP).

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Dan,

You made me doubt, so I ran a test and I have been able to send the email without the "member of engagement program" filter. In fact, I have able to use any valid batch smart campaign to send the programs email. But to be valid, the SC has to have at least 1 filter, but any filter will work. Including but not restricted to "Member of engagement program".

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Yes, of course you can send a batch email using a Marketo program without the "Member of EP" filter in it.  But you will not be able to include the "send" smart campaign within an EP stream and have the EP send it out as part of the EP casts.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what Justin's question was.  I thought it was specific to using Marketo programs within EPs. 

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Dan,

Truly, the docs says exactly as you say.

Nevertheless, I have been able to send the SC as part of the EP cast without the "member of EP" filter. I ran the test, as I said, and it worked perfectly well.

Would be interesting to know from Product Management why does the doc says : "The smart campaign must have the Member of Engagement Program filter in it for this to work properly." while the reality is that it does not seem to have any impact. The only control that is done is that whether or not the lead is already a member of the program. The "Member of EP" control seems to be redundant, since any way, the EP sends the leads to the SC, so obviously the EP knows what lead is a member.

At the end of the day, if a control is required, it would probably be much better/safer (and more consistent with other "cross-flow" calls) if Marketo was requiring that the called Smart Campaign be a triggered campaign with a "campaign is requested, source = engagement program cast". Probably too late for a change, as it would impact strongly existing customers, though. And it might also be more difficult to send the email to a large list in a short period of time with a trigger than with a batch due to how Marketo handles priorities.

The "member of EP" filter would make sense, IMHO, if is was used to filter the programs that a user can add to a EP stream. Currently, the filter shows all the programs in the DB and, once the user has chosen a program, it shows all the batch SC in the program.

Just added the idea :  

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Indeed you're right, Greg.  I just did a test and it worked as well.  Which is strange, since when we first started using programs within EPs a couple of years ago, I couldn't figure out why the emails weren't being sent.  And it was because the MoEP filter wasn't in the smart list of the SC.  But as you and I just proved, this is no longer necessary. 

I would, however, still advise using that filter so that you're certain that the email is only being sent to members of the EP.  Perhaps the requirement was for those programs that aren't built specifically for; or contained within the EP program structure (like I mentioned above, where you can essentially drag any "send email" smart campaign from any program into an EP stream - even if it physically exists outside of the EP).

[Anonymous]

I moved your post to Products and Support​