Ensuring contacts don't receive too many emails at once

[MattSoule]

We have multiple workflows set up, and I wanted to see if there is a way to make sure emails aren't receiving too many emails at the same time. We have delays set up within the workflow, but is there a way for it to know when emails were sent from another workflow? Thank you!

[ConnorSlivensky · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

There's a couple of ways to do this depending on the tools you have access to I believe. The simplest way I can think of is creating an active list that has "recieved [any] marketing email in the last x days,weeks etc. and use that as exclusion critera. 

You could also add workflow triggers to check if a contact has been,is currently in, or completed a given workflow.

You may need to mess around with it a bit but I think that's going to be as close as you can get to what you're looking for.

[AStefanov]

Hey @karstenkoehler , I am currently having the same issue. I have created multiple Lead nurturing workflows and some of the content is downloadable and will be associated with other LN workflows. So i do not want contacts being enrolled in multiple workflows. The solution, you are suggesting makes perfect sence, but can you please explains what conditions do you put for this custom property, that it is checking if a contact is already enrolled in another workflow. And do you need to put somethink at the end of the workflow or the contacts are no longer part of the custom property, once they exit the workflow?

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @AStefanov,

That's all included in the screenshot above: The workflow first checks whether the property is empty, it then fills it and clears it at the end. Each nurturing workflow would have to follow this logic. For the duration of the workflow, no other workflow could pick up this contact.

Make sure to add additional enrollment triggers into your nurturing workflows, such that the triggering activity must have happened within the last 24 hours. Otherwise your contact will go from one nurturing workflow into the next.

Best regards

[AStefanov]

Thank you @karstenkoehler 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @MattSoule,

My favorite way to solve for this is a custom property named "isbeingnurtured" on a contact level. This property can be either "True" or "False".

It is used for enrollment triggers (to only let in contacts with "isbeingnurtured" is none of "True"), as a first workflow step (set "isbeingnurtured" to "True") and at the end (clear "isbeingnurtured").

This screenshot shows what this would look like in action:

Effectively, this property is checking whether a contact is already "occupied" by another workflow. And if yes, they're not being let into any more. This way, you can prevent several nurturing workflows overlapping. However, if you have any system/backend workflows, these are not effected. You'll simply not use the "isbeingnurtured" property in those.

What I love about this is that you can also suppress contacts from regular marketing email sends who are currently being nurtured. Just build an active list of contacts with "isbeingnurtured" = "True" and use them as an exclusion list.

Hope this helps!

[ConnorSlivensky · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

There's a couple of ways to do this depending on the tools you have access to I believe. The simplest way I can think of is creating an active list that has "recieved [any] marketing email in the last x days,weeks etc. and use that as exclusion critera. 

You could also add workflow triggers to check if a contact has been,is currently in, or completed a given workflow.

You may need to mess around with it a bit but I think that's going to be as close as you can get to what you're looking for.

[MattSoule]

Thank you!