How Send Time Optimization works
Important: Send Time Optimization (STO) is an add-on feature that must be ordered for your account. Please contact your account manager or Oracle sales.
When contacts arrive at the Send Time Optimization stage in a campaign, it will look up the contact’s ID against the selected Send Time Optimization attribute group to retrieve the earliest optimal send time from the moment of arrival (to the stage) through the next 24 hours. We refer to this 24 hour time frame as the “send period”.
Send Time Optimization example
To better explain how it works, let’s assume that a segment of contacts arrives at the Send Time Optimization stage on Monday, 9:00 am. This means the send period is Monday, 9:00 am through Tuesday, 8:00 am. The Send Time Optimization stage references the Send Time Optimization attribute group and retrieves the optimal send times for each contact for Monday and Tuesday, the days within the send period. Here is an example of the Send Time Optimization attributes and the data retrieved:
|
ID |
MONDAY |
TUESDAY |
|---|---|---|
|
6431679764 |
12 |
7 |
|
7974317975 |
6 |
5 |
|
3284084084 |
|
7 |
|
6854635377 |
0 |
23 |
|
2564367589 |
|
|
From there, the Send Time Optimization stage looks for the earliest optimal send time within the send period. Using the same Send Time Optimization attribute group example, here is a chart showing the optimal send time that has been determined for each contact in bold and the reason why it was selected.
|
ID |
MONDAY |
TUESDAY |
REASON |
|---|---|---|---|
|
6431679764 |
12 |
7 |
Monday at 12:00 pm is the earliest optimal send time during the send period. |
|
7974317975 |
6 |
5 |
Tuesday at 5:00 am is the earliest optimal send time because Monday at 6:00 am is outside of the send period (which started at 9:00 am Monday). |
|
3284084084 |
|
7 |
Tuesday at 7:00 am is the earliest and only optimal send time during the send period. |
|
6854635377 |
0 |
23 |
The optimal send times for both days are outside of the send period, so this contact will be considered one without STO data and would be routed down the "Without STO Data" path. |
|
2564367589 |
|
|
There are no optimal send times for either days during the send period so this contact will be considered one without STO data and would be routed down the "Without STO Data" path. |
Given the above results, the Send Time Optimization stage would route the contacts as follows:
-
Contacts with IDs 6431679764, 7974317975, and 3284084084 have optimal send times within the send period. The stage will move them to the next stage along the “With STO Data” path at the optimal send time.
-
Contacts with IDs 6854635377 and 2564367589 have no optimal send times within the send period. The stage will move them to the next stage along the “Without STO Data” path.
Next steps
Send Time Optimization attribute group
Send Time Optimization: Campaign use cases
Send Time Optimization: Important usage information
Managing your Send Time Optimization add-on feature