The basics of campaign setup (Legacy)

The campaigns tool allows you to engage with your customers through multiple channels. You can create a campaign by going to Campaigns > Create New Campaign.

Campaign options

Type

You can choose from three types of campaigns:

• One-Time – Send personalized messaging a single time to a segment of your customers.
• Behavioral – Contact customers on an ongoing basis when they trigger a particular event (like signing up for your newsletter) or meet certain criteria (like three days after an order). The campaign's content can be sent immediately when the event happens or through a recurring (evaluated daily or weekly) or continuous (evaluated hourly) method.
• Web – Display a message to customers that visit your website. Learn more about web embeds or web modals. Web campaigns are not covered in this article.

Name

Naming conventions are important when managing campaigns. Be specific to make campaigns recognizable in other areas of the app, such as reporting. After selecting a campaign, click Untitled Campaign to set a campaign name.

Tags

Tags make it easier to identify campaigns. To add a tag, click Add Tags to select an existing tag or create a new one, using the following steps:

1. Type the desired name into the Type or select tag field.
2. Press the Enter key.
3. Click Save to create the tag.

Enrollment

You can target customers for enrollment into a campaign in three ways:

• Match a segment – Target customers that match a predefined segment or create a new segment and click Apply to add the segment to the campaign. Segment targeting can be used for One-Time or Behavioral campaigns.
• Match an event (Behavioral Campaigns Only) – Target customers based on events and reach them following an interaction with your brand. For example, when a customer matches the event “Sign Up”, you can send an email welcoming them to the site.
• API – Programmatically send customers app push notifications by issuing HTTP requests containing your credentials, campaign identification, message, and customer ID to an Optimizely endpoint.

Enrollment rules

When segmentation is not enough, add enrollment rules that are more specific about who receives the campaign's content. When applying an enrollment rule, review the reachable audience as it may change.

Schedule

Set the campaign send schedule. The options vary depending on which type of campaign is being sent. Campaigns that send immediately when matching an event cannot be scheduled. All campaign types include the ability to schedule additional touchpoints after the initial send.

Note: ODP does not collect a customer's time zone by default. It must be provided to Optimizely with the API or a third-party integration and placed in the customer time-zone field using the IANA format.

One-Time

Send the communication exactly once. 

• Send Date – Date to send.
• Send Time – Time to send.
• Time Zone – Time zone in which to start the send.
• Use recipient's time zone when available – The touchpoint sends at the specified time in each customer's time zone. The first time zone to send is the time zone selected in the Date & Time account setting, followed by all remaining time zones in order. If a customer's time zone is unknown, they receive the communication in the time zone from settings.

Recurring (Behavioral campaigns)

Send the communication in a repeating fashion.

• Start Date – Date to start the campaign.
• Ends – Date to end the campaign.
  1. Never – Never stop sending.
  2. After [#] occurrences – The last send will be the #th occurrence.
  3. On – The last date that sends. If you select Use recipient's time zone when available, the last time zone to send is the last time zone of the last day of sends. This last day of sends begins on the selected date in that time zone. If timing is specified as 3:00 PM US/Eastern and the last date is set to 2019-01-01, then the last day of sends will begin at 3:00 PM US/Eastern on 2019-01-01. The last time zone to send will send around 24 hours later on 2019-01-02.
• Repeats – Depending on the selection made here, different fields will become available, marked as Daily (D), Weekly (W), and Monthly (M) accordingly.
• Timing – Time to send.
• Time Zone – Time zone in which to start the send.
• Use recipient's time zone when available – If this is selected, the touchpoint sends at the specified time in each customer's time zone. The first time zone to send is the time zone selected in Step 5, which defaults to your account setting, followed by all remaining time zones in order. Any customers for whom a time zone is unknown receive the communication in the account time zone specified in settings.

Continuous (Behavioral campaigns)

Send the communication as customers qualify for the segment.

• Start Date – Date to start the campaign.
• Timing – Time to send.
• Time Zone – Time zone in which to start the send.
• Ends – When the campaign will stop. 
  1. Never – Never stop sending.
  2. On – The last date that sends. If you select Use recipient's time zone when available, the last time zone to send is the last time zone of the last day of sends. This last day of sends begins on the selected date in that time zone. If timing is specified as 3:00 PM US/Eastern and the last date is set to 2019-01-01, then the last day of sends will begin at 3:00 PM US/Eastern on 2019-01-01. The last time zone to send will send around 24 hours later on 2019-01-02.

Additional touchpoints

Use additional touchpoints to add content to a campaign. A touchpoint can be disabled without being deleted, meaning that a customer going through a campaign will not get that touchpoint.  You can also clone a touchpoint from another touchpoint (if the content will be similar).

Scheduling

Additional touchpoints after the first are scheduled relative to when the previous touchpoint went out. For campaigns sent on an ongoing basis, ODP assesses each customer individually based on when they received the last touchpoint.

1. Delay – Set the delay in hours, days, or weeks. The full time must pass before considering the optional Send Time. If the previous touchpoint goes out late for any reason, ODP uses the actual send time instead when scheduling the next touchpoint. For example, a delay of two days requires 48 hours to pass before the next touchpoint.
2. Send Time – The Send Time is optional but can be used if a touchpoint should go out at a specific time. However, it must be considered when the Delay expires. If the Delay expires after that time has already passed, the campaign will wait for the next day.

Example:

• A campaign is sent at 12pm on Monday.
• The next touchpoint is scheduled for two days later (Delay) at 11am (Send Time).
• The next touchpoint will go out on Thursday at 11am. Two days later (or 48 hours) is 12pm on Wednesday, which is already past 11am, so the campaign waits until the next time it is 11am.
• For11am on Wednesday, use a Delay longer than one day and shorter than two days (such as 30 hours), along with the desired Send Time. Thirty hours later is 6pm Tuesday, so 30 hours later at 11am would send at 11am Wednesday.

Activate and paused campaigns

Preview and test

The preview function allows you to review the touchpoint on-screen, while the test function allows you to send a test through the touchpoint. Both options are available within the editor.

Go Live

1. Select the campaign's name from the breadcrumb menu.
2. Click Save to ensure all touchpoints are up-to-date.
3. Click Go Live.

Pause

Touchpoints begin sending when a campaign is live. If a campaign needs to stop, return to the campaign and click Pause.

Emulate

The emulate mode helps determine which customers would receive campaign communications on specific days without actually sending any live communications. The emulated campaign runs per the schedule set for an understanding of campaign delivery but does not deliver anything. 

Note: The emulate mode requires an opt-in. If you wish to use this functionality, please contact your Customer Success Manager or the Support Team.