This section presents some guidelines for creating campaigns in an environment that includes a staging server. It also includes some detailed examples that show the typical steps involved in creating and editing campaigns that you test on a staging server and then deploy to production.
Campaigns that you verify on a staging server must include test profiles rather than real customer profiles. You can create these test profiles through the Business Control Center that is running on the staging server. The test profiles should be external user profiles. Make sure at least one of them includes a valid e-mail address (for example, your own e-mail address) that will allow you to receive and verify any e-mails sent as part of a campaign. For information on how to create profiles, refer to the ATG Business Control Center User's Guide.
Important: In addition, make sure you do not store real customer profiles on the staging server. If you do so, any customers whose profiles exist on both the staging and production servers and who belong to the qualifying segments will receive campaigns twice, once when the campaigns are deployed to staging and again when they are deployed to production. Typically, this behavior is not desirable.
For each campaign, edit the test profiles so they will be included in the segments used by the campaign. For example, if the campaign sends an e-mail to a segment that includes all customers whose first name is Henry, change the first name property of the test profiles to Henry.
Any landing pages that you add to a campaign should refer to the staging server. After testing is complete, edit the campaign to include landing pages that refer to the production server ( see Staging and Production Workflow: Simple E-Mail Campaign). This step is important so that your report data is correct. If you included production landing pages in a test campaign, visits by test users to those landing pages would be reflected in the data for the Email Campaign Details report.
The same principal applies to other campaign elements that reference Web site pages, such as slots and promotions. Configure them first to refer to pages on the staging server. When testing is complete, edit them to refer to the production server.
In the case of timer events, use short timers when you deploy the campaign to staging so that testing can be completed quickly. Edit the elements to use real times after testing is complete.
To edit a campaign after testing, revert it so the Author task is active and make any changes necessary. Then redeploy. See the use cases in the next section for details on how this process works.
The Qualifying Users field in the ATG Outreach segment interface always shows the number of qualifying user profiles that are stored in the production database (actual customer profiles). The figure never includes test profiles on the staging server.
ATG Outreach reports do not include data generated by campaigns on the staging server or by test profiles, assuming the campaigns are created according to the recommendations in this section.
After a campaign is deployed to the production site, it is running in two places: on the staging server and on the production server. The Browse Campaigns page shows the status of the campaign on both servers.
Staging and Production Workflow: Simple E-Mail Campaign
This section presents a use case that shows how a campaign is created for an environment that uses a staging and production workflow.
Ann is a marketer at a company that sells home furnishings online. She is creating an e-mail campaign with ATG Outreach and wants to test it on a staging server before deploying it to production.
The campaign e-mail is intended to go to a segment called “Newsletter subscribers.” This segment currently includes 350,000 profiles.
Ann wants to test the campaign to make sure the e-mail looks correct before sending it to customers. Ann typically has campaigns reviewed by three other people at her company. Each reviewer has a test profile in the external profile repository on the staging server. Each profile includes a valid e-mail address. No customer profiles are stored in the profile repository on staging.
Ann updates the three test profiles on the staging server so they will be included in the “Newsletter subscribers” segment.
She creates the campaign and adds a Send Email Communication action. She selects the segment “Newsletter subscribers.”
Ann selects the appropriate e-mail template and enters the content for the campaign. She includes links to a number of landing pages that she has configured to be used in the e-mail. The links all point to landing pages on the staging server.
Ann completes the Content Review and Approve for Staging Deployment tasks, which deploys the campaign to the staging server. The three users who have profiles on the staging server receive the e-mail. They open the e-mail, check its format, and click on the landing page links to make sure they work correctly.
When the testing is complete, Ann reverts the campaign to the Author state. To do so, she selects the Reject Production Deployment option in the Approve for Production Deployment task. The workflow reverts the deployment from the staging target and returns the project to the Author stage so the campaign can be edited again. She modifies the landing page links so they point to the production server.
Because she is using a Staging workflow, Ann cannot deploy directly to production. Instead she redeploys to the staging server.
When staging deployment is complete, Ann deploys the campaign to production.
Staging and Production Workflow: Timer Element and Visits Page Action
The use case below develops the example in the previous section. As before, Ann wants to create an e-mail campaign that she tests on a staging server before deployment to production. The e-mail is intended to go to a segment called “Newsletter subscribers.” This segment currently includes 350,000 profiles.
The e-mail includes a landing page link that generates a Visits Page event for that particular page. Ann has configured a follow-on stage that sends an e-mail to people who trigger the Visits Page event.
The campaign also includes a Wait for Timer action. The timer element waits for two weeks and then sends a “Reminder” e-mail to anyone who has not triggered the Visits Page event.
Ann updates the three test profiles on the staging server so they qualify for the “Newsletter subscribers” segment.
Ann creates the campaign and adds a Send Email Communication action. She selects the segment “Newsletter subscribers.”
Ann selects the appropriate e-mail template and enters the content for the message. She includes links to a number of landing pages, one of which has been configured for the Visits Page event. The landing page links all point to the staging server.
Ann creates a follow-on stage from the Visits Page event. She creates a Send EMail element as the follow-on action. She creates the content for the e-mail, including the appropriate landing page links to use in the e-mail. All the links point to pages on the staging server.
Ann also creates a Wait for Timer action. She selects the same target segment for the action (“New members”). For testing purposes, she sets the timer to 10 minutes.
Ann creates a follow-on stage from the Timer Expires event. She creates a Send EMail element as the follow-on action. She adds the content for the e-mail, including the appropriate landing page links. Again, all landing page links point to pages on the staging server. She also checks the box: “Don’t do this if the following stages have been reached” and selects the stage that was the follow-on to the page visit.
Ann deploys the campaign to staging. The three users who have profiles on the staging server receive the e-mail. One of them opens the e-mail, checks its format, and clicks the landing page links to make sure they work correctly. He verifies that the follow-on e-mail is triggered when he clicks on the landing page with the Visits Page event.
The other two test users wait for 10 minutes to verify they receive the “reminder” e-mail.
When testing is complete, Ann reverts the campaign to the Author state. She changes the Wait for Timer action from 10 minutes to two weeks. She also changes the landing page links so they point to the production server.
Ann re-deploys the campaign to the staging server and then to the production server.
