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A
Anonymous
February 28, 2017
Solved

Automate email on date field

  • February 28, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 6401 views

Goal of my email campaign is to email internal employees a survey at the following anniversaries:

  • 6 month
  • 1 year
  • 2 year
  • 3 year
  • so on...

I have created the following Marketo fields:

  • Employee First Name
  • Employee Email Address
  • Employee Start Date (date field)

I want to set up my smart list to trigger and send the emails on the anniversaries above. Im just not sure which criteria to use to grab exactly 6 months ago (or 1 year ago) because it makes you pick a specific date. We want this to be triggered and always running...

I called Support and they tried a work around using the Wait step in the flow but that won't work because not everyone started on the same day (obviously).

Any help or insight would be awesome, thank you!

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    Best answer by Joey_Forcelli1

    Thank you Joseph for all the help BUT my test didn't work, everyone on the list received the 6 months pre survey email and 6 month survey email instead of their proper anniversary survey. Here was my set up:

    List:

    Smart List:

    Flow:


    Hey Amanda,

    You need to add the choice steps for each email, see example below.

    Let me know if that works for you.

    J

    1 reply

    Joey_Forcelli1
    Joey_Forcelli1
    New Participant
    February 28, 2017

    Hey Amanda,

    You are on the right track, you need to setup a trigger campaign to add the new employee leads to the program and then use the advanced wait step to deliver you emails.  Depending on how your data is coming in (new lead is created with all fields available vs new lead is created, fields updated at a later date) your trigger will change.  Here is how I would set it up for new leads with all three fields available:

    • Employee Survey Program
      • Smartlist: New lead is created AND employee start date is not blank.
      • Flow:
        • Wait: wait 6 months after {{lead.dcemployeestartdate}}
        • Send Email:  6 month survey
        • Wait: wait 6 months
        • Send Email: 1 year survey
        • Wait: wait 1 year
        • Send Email: 2 year survey

    Hope this helps.

    J

      A
      Anonymous
      February 28, 2017

      Hi Joseph,

      Thanks for writing back so quick! I was thinking something similar but I didnt know if it had the logic to handle date fields from previous years...meaning if I have imported a current list of employees with a start dates ranging back for example of 3/1/2015 when this campaign runs will it send the 2 year survey on 3/1 of this year?

      Joey_Forcelli1
      Joey_Forcelli1
      New Participant
      February 28, 2017

      Hey Amanda,

      Ahhhh, it's tricky but I think we can still make it work.

      So, with how the wait step works, if the date has already passed (6 months after start date) then the wait step is skipped all together but the next flow action still happens (in this case sending the email).  So under the setup I outlined above, an employee with a start date of 3/1/2015 would receive the 6 month right away then wait as outlined.

      To overcome this, you can add the date token to all the wait steps as you outlined and add a choice to each of your email flow steps with constraints around who can receive the email.  For your 6 month email choice 1 would be "dc employee start date" in past "181 days" send email: 6 month survey.  The default choice would be to do nothing.  Again, using the employee with the 3/1/2015 start date as an example, he would not receive the 6 or 12 month survey because his start date was not in the last 6 to 12 months.  Instead he would skip the first couple steps and be waiting to receive his 2 year survey on 3/1/2017.

      Updated Campaign Map:

      Employee Survey Program

      • Smartlist: New lead is created AND employee start date is not blank.
      • Flow:
        • Wait: wait 180 days after {{lead.dcemployeestartdate}}
        • Send Email:
          • Choice 1: if "DC employee start date" in past 181 days, send 6 month survey
          • Default: do nothing
        • Wait: wait 365 year after {{lead.dcemployeestartdate}}
        • Send Email:
          • Choice 1: if "DC employee start date" in past 366 days, send 1 year survey
          • Default: do nothing
        • Wait: wait 730 days after {{lead.dcemployeestartdate}}
          • Choice 1: if "DC employee start date" in past 731 days, send 2 year survey
          • Default: do nothing

      I think we may have it this time

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