Understanding Program
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With Oracle Responsys Program™, you can build orchestrated, multi-stage marketing programs driven by individual behavior.
Program brings together your audience data, your message content, and all your digital channels. You can design individualized, behavior-based programs timed for every stage in a customer’s lifecycle.
After you design your program and associate a list, campaigns, and filters with the elements in your sequence, it is a simple matter of validating, testing, and publishing your program.
As the program is running, you can analyze it in real- time so you know what’s working, or where things are getting stuck.
Program elements
Each program has at least one entry point, and can include activities such as messages, timers and switches.
About entry points
Entry points are events and interactions that can trigger the program.
Standard predefined entry points are described below. In addition, you can define custom events as needed.
Get an audience
Important: Available only if the Audience Designer is enabled for your account.
Creates enactments from a published audience result set.
Intelligent Audience Selector
Important: This feature is available as part of the Advanced Intelligence Package add-on that must be ordered for your account. Please contact your account manager or Oracle sales.
The Intelligent Audience Selector is a starting event that determines which contacts to bring into your program based on the behavior of current and past program members. In this way, the Intelligent Audience Selector can increase the program's engagement rates over time. This stage is for recurring programs only and not intended for one-time programs. Learn more about the Intelligent Audience Selector.
Scheduled filter or view
Queries your list or refreshes a predefined SQL view to pull in individuals that satisfy the rules you defined in a filter or the SQL view. You can set the filter or the SQL view refresh to run only once or periodically (daily, weekly or monthly).
Interactions
Customer activated
Typically used to trigger a program stage when an individual fills out a form, for example a newsletter subscription or order form.
Customer deactivated
Can be used for a hard bounce of a previous message, or when individuals are removed from your system.
SMS received
Important: Available only if Oracle Responsys SMS is enabled for the account.
Triggers the program when an SMS message with the specified code and keywords is received from a customer.
Cart abandon
Important: Available only if Rapid Retargeter is enabled for the account.
Detects that a shopper put items in a shopping cart but did not complete the purchase.
Browse abandon
Important: Available only if Rapid Retargeter is enabled for the account.
Detects that a customer browsed your website but did not progress to the shopping cart.
Purchase
Important: Available only if Rapid Retargeter is enabled for the account.
Detects that a customer made a purchase.
Connect
Detects completion of a Connect import job that was designated to raise an event.
Custom event
Events that you define. For more information about custom events, see Defining Custom Events with the Account Page.
REI custom event
A signal from an external source that alerts Oracle Responsys when notable customer activity occurs and should be recorded, or alternatively when a notable activity occurs to a customer. Icons for these events can be personalized but will always be yellow in Program and REI. Learn more about REI.
Beacon_entry
Important: This event is only available if REI is enabled for your account.
Detects when a customer enters a beacon's range. Learn more about this event.
Note: Oracle Responsys provides an open solution that will work with any Geofence and Beacon SDK / Product.
Beacon_exit
Important: This event is only available if REI is enabled for your account.
Detects when a customer exits a beacon's range. Learn more about this event.
Note: Oracle Responsys provides an open solution that will work with any Geofence and Beacon SDK / Product.
Geofence_entry
Important: This event is only available if REI is enabled for your account.
Detects when a customer enters the area you have indicated as a geofence. Learn more about this event.
Note: Oracle Responsys provides an open solution that will work with any Geofence and Beacon SDK / Product.
Geofence_exit
Important: This event is only available if REI is enabled for your account.
Detects when a customer exits the area you have indicated as a geofence. Learn more about this event.
Note: Oracle Responsys provides an open solution that will work with any Geofence and Beacon SDK / Product.
Catch event
Receives enactments sent by another program.
About end events
Each program must end with one of the following events.
End event
Ends the program flow.
Throw event
Sends enactments to another program.
About activities
Activities are actions that a program executes, for example sending a campaign. You create campaigns using Oracle Responsys, then send them using an activity such as Send email campaign.
Start collaboration
Important: Available only if Distributed Content Collaboration is enabled for your account.
Initiates the collaboration process.
For information about Distributed Content Collaboration, see Distributed Content Collaboration--Overview.
Send email campaign
Note: On running validation, Program will display a validation error if you select a campaign whose approval status is either Needs Approval, Pending Approval, or Rejected State (if campaign approval is enabled for your account).
Sends the associated email campaign.
Push interactions
Menu of send activity stages for mobile app campaigns
Important: Available only if Push is enabled for the account.
Send push campaign
Sends an associated Push campaign.
Send in-app campaign
Sends an associated In-App campaign.
Send message center campaign
Sends an associated message center campaign.
Important: Available only if Multichannel is enabled for the account.
Send web push campaign
Important: Available only if Web Push and Multichannel are enabled for the account.
Sends an associated Web Push campaign.
Mobile interactions
Important: Available only if Mobile SMS is enabled for the account.
Send SMS campaign
Sends an associated Responsys SMS campaign.
Send MMS campaign
Important: Available only if MMS is enabled for the account.
Sends an associated MMS campaign.
Prepare campaign
Personalizes messages before the campaign is sent to ensure that messages are ready at the specified time.
Set data
Important: If it is enabled for your account, this stage can update up to 10 fields for a list or profile extension table. If it is not enabled, you will need a Set data stage for each field you would like to update.
Sets a list field or profile extension table (PET) field either to a value, changing it by a specified amount, or to a value supplied by an event or an entry tracking variable.
Warning: If data redaction is enabled for your account, ensure sensitive customer data from redacted columns are only written to columns designated for redaction. If your program contains sensitive customer data, writing the data to a column not designated for redaction will expose that data. You can contact a Responsys user with the Data Director or Account Administrator role to find out if a column is redacted or not.
Get data
Updates entry tracking variables during the program flow. You can use this activity in combination with the Data switch to send a customer on a different path based on the most current non-profile information.
Add display campaign
Important: Available only if Display is enabled for the account.
Adds customers to the selected Display campaign.
Remove display campaign
Important: Available only if Display is enabled for the account.
Removes customers from the selected Display campaign.
Holdout Group
Important: Available only if Holdout Groups are enabled for the account.
Creates a holdout group used to compare performance of contacts who received a campaign to those who did not.
About timers
Use timers to place a delay between stages.
Timer
A timer allows you to wait for a specified length of time or until a specific date/time before moving program entries to the next stage of a program. For example, you might include timers to allow customers to respond to a campaign before sending a follow-up campaign. You can also use timers after performance switches, which allows time for the test groups to run through the alternate paths of the program to determine a winner.
A timer can be of either the elapsed or target type:
- The Elapsed timer waits for the specified number of days to move program entries to the next program stage.
- The Target timer waits until a specified future date and time to move program entries to the next program stage.
About switches
Use switches to send recipients down different paths in a program.
Data switch
Use data switches to alter the path based on business rules you define. For example, you can skip a message or terminate the program prematurely if a customer completes a purchase from a previously abandoned cart. Program makes it easy to for you to define these rules without using SQL. Learn more about the Data switch.
Allocation switch
Use allocation switches to randomly divert a percentage of your recipients down an alternate path. These can be used for simple split testing, but they are most effective when used in conjunction with performance switches.
Count switch
Use count switches to send a specified number of recipients down a path.
Event switch
Use event switches to send recipients down a path when a specific event occurs.
Intelligent switch
Sends each customer along a program orchestration path predicted by CX Marketing data science in Responsys. For a given optimization goal (Click or Conversion), the Intelligent switch evaluates each customer's behavioral data, then sends them down the best predicted path based on predictive models that analyze behavioral data. The best predicted path is the one that is predicted to be the best campaign, and channel. In addition, recipients are sent along the best path at the best time.
Select one of the following options:
| Option | Path |
|---|---|
| Best Channel, Best Campaign and Best Time (default) |
Important: the following options will require at least 3 outgoing paths. Specify two or more Send Campaign paths, and a timeout path. Set the timeout criteria. A timeout implies that the prediction wasn't received within the time you indicated under Timeout. |
| Best Channel and Best Campaign only |
Important: the following options will require at least 3 outgoing paths. Specify two or more Send Campaign paths, and a timeout path. Set the timeout criteria. A timeout implies that the prediction wasn't received within the time you indicated under Timeout. |
| Best Time only | For the Best Time only option, the system assumes that you are using only one campaign. Note that there should be only 2 outgoing paths from the switch. |
Important: This feature is available as part of the Advanced Intelligence Package add-on that must be ordered for your account. Please contact your account manager or Oracle sales.
Performance switch
Use performance switches to test variations in the timing, content, or message type of two or more paths, then send most of your recipients down the most effective path. The "winning" path can be determined either automatically, based on metrics (rates) you select in the performance switch definition, or manually, based on a review of campaign results in Insight Interactive Dashboards. You typically use a performance switch in conjunction with a data switch that defines the holdout group, an allocation switch that sets up random allocation of the remainder of recipients (the test group), and an elapsed timer or target timer to define the test duration. At the end of the test period, a performance switch sends an email notification to a specified list of people who can select the winning path manually (on the Analyze tab) or who simply need to know that a winner has been selected automatically. Learn more about the Performance switch.
Send Time Optimization (STO) switch
Using the STO switch, you can use your own optimal send time data loaded into a custom Profile Extension Table (PET) with the expected schema, or you can leverage the optimal send time Responsys calculates. To learn more, see Send Time Optimization overview.
Important: To use the optimal send time calculated by Oracle Responsys, the Send Time Optimization Cloud Service SKU or Advanced Intelligence Package add-on must be ordered for your account. Please contact your account manager or Oracle sales.
Stage gate
Use stage gates to pause recipients and release them to the next stage of the program or to stop all program entries.
For more information, see Designing programs.
Validating a program
After you finish designing your program, you can validate it to ensure that all data and rules are in place. Note that validating a program ensures that it is constructed correctly, it does not run the program.
Program automatically validates programs before you can test or publish them. You can also validate a program at any time by clicking Validate on the Design tab.
Testing a program
You can test your program ensure that it is running as you expect.
Testing a program validates it, then runs it against the selected proof list.
For more information about testing a program, see Testing programs.
Publishing a program
When you are happy with your program design, you can publish it so your customers can enter the program.
Note: Accounts created after August 18, 2017 may have up to 75 published programs. This limit does not apply to accounts created before that date.
Before you can publish a program, Program validates it. If validation fails, Program highlights the issues in red so that you can quickly address them. If the validation passes, you can publish the program and Program can begin receiving program entries.
For more information, see Publishing programs.
Analyzing a program
You can use the Analyze page to monitor the progress of individuals through your program. The Analyze page provides the Snapshot view, which shows the state of each stage within a selected timeframe, and the Monitor view, which shows how the audience flows through the program. Additionally, if it is enabled for your account, you can use the Performance Metrics view to see the performance metrics for each of the stages in a program.
For more information, see Analyzing programs.
Program, Element, Event, Entry Point, Starting Event, Activity, Activities, Timer, Switch, Test, Publish, Analyze, intelligent audience selector, intelligent audience
- Getting Started with Program
- Responsys Event Interface
- Geofence and Beacon Event Variables
- Custom Events Overview
- Designing Programs
- Testing Programs
- Publishing Programs
- Analyzing Programs
- Understanding Performance Switches
- Understanding Program Entries
- Working with Multichannel Programs
- Program Best Practices