No matter how interested somebody may be in your product or service, NOBODY wants to receive five or six emails a day from you — except your mom, maybe! But when leads qualify for multiple campaigns, it’s easy to lose track of how many emails you may be sending them. Bombarding your leads with communications is a good way to increase your “unsubscribe” count, but not much else.
Global communication limits, which can be established in most MA systems, enable you to prevent this overload from happening — but provide little insight into how 
many leads in your upcoming email send that will be impacted. It’s not until after the email is sent that you are left wondering why the numbers that were delivered are so different than your list count, and at that point it’s too little too late.
That’s why you should consider a Communication Limits Smart Campaign instead. This simple four-step process can be set up to catch leads reaching their communication limits, and plan communications accordingly. This approach:
- Helps return precise lead counts
- Maintains delivery accuracy
- Allows for scheduling corrections to ensure the maximum number of leads receive your message
In the following example with Marketo, three smart campaigns, a list, and an alert email are used to accomplish this task.
Step 1: Clear List Campaign
Set up a smart campaign to clear the previous day’s leads from the list. The smart list is simply a “Member of List” step. The list needs to be created previous to any lead clearance or capture of new leads that are approaching their limits.
The flow is a “Remove from List” step. This is done to clear the list of previously captured leads.
And it is scheduled to recur every day at a specified time. It proves to return the best results if this is run in the morning, prior to any of that day’s sends.
Step 2: Limit Check Campaign
Next, set up a smart campaign to check a specific region or list for a certain number of emails sent during a period of time. The smart list contains a “Member of (Smart) List” and a “Was Sent Email” step. The idea is to capture the previous six days and predict which leads may hit their limit on the seventh day.
The flow step contains an “Add to List” step. This would add the leads that are at their to the list you just cleared in step 1. (You will create lists prior to activating any of these campaigns.)
And it is scheduled to recur every day at a specified time.
Step 3: Send Email Campaign
Finally a simple email with a link to the list is sent. The smart list step sends to a specific email address, so that every day a fresh list of leads at their limits is delivered to the person or group responsible for monitoring the data.
The Flow step contains the name of email to send.
And again it is scheduled to recur every day at a specified time.
Step 4: Create Lists and Email
The last requirements for this solution are to create your list(s) for capturing leads, and to build the alert email that will be sent. Based on the count, communications can be rescheduled if a significant number of leads will not receive the message because they hit their communication limit.
Less is Often More
We’ve all been the targets of email bombardment at times, so we all know how we feel about the companies that do it. Being respectful of your leads’ inboxes is a subtle, but important, factor in creating a positive impression of your company with your prospects. With a Communications Limits Smart Campaign, you can easily and simply control the quantity of your messaging and keep communication at its most effective.
If you need help with campaign execution or setting up a Communication Limits Smart Campaign, schedule a call or drop a note to our team.
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Robert Daniels is a DemandGen Campaign Specialist, helping clients fully leverage their marketing automation systems through expert execution and deployment of demand generation projects.
The post Overload Control: Setting up a Communication Limits Smart Campaign in Marketo appeared first on DemandGen.