Terminology

The following information lists some terminology used in Marketing Programs.

Element	Description
Programs	A program is a container for organizing, designing, and executing multistage, triggered, and recurring marketing programs using new or existing campaigns, lists, and segments. You can establish multiple stages for a marketing program. Each stage can have multiple campaigns, lists, segments, and segment trees. Subsequent stages can be based on a customer response or any other event. For example, a visit by a sales person to a premium customer might trigger a follow-up email to that customer for the selected product. For more information, see Designing Marketing Programs.
Stage	A stage is a group of campaigns that happen during a certain phase of a program. It can also contain responses and leads. For example, you might have a two-stage program where stage 1 has campaigns to generate demand and stage 2 has another campaign to convert responders from the previous stage into leads.
Responses	Response handling is essential in triggering follow-up stages. Whenever prospects or contacts respond to an offer treatment through any channel (by inbound email, the Web, a call center, or sales representative, and so on), their responses can be captured in detail. You can use this data to determine which contacts to pursue as opportunities. For more information, see About Using Response Management.
Waves	Waves are a method of phasing the delivery of a campaign or stage over time, or for phasing the delivery of treatments over time or for different vendors. For example, you want to extend an offer to millions of customers, but do not want to add more inbound call center staff to handle the load. Using waves, you can phase the delivery of treatments over any time delay (in hours or days) you need. For more information, see Setting Up Waves for Campaign Loads.