Does anyone have a work around for a wait until the x of the month in a wait step? | Community
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Michelle_Tizian
Level 10
April 30, 2013
Solved

Does anyone have a work around for a wait until the x of the month in a wait step?

  • April 30, 2013
  • 25 replies
  • 3635 views
I am setting up a drip campaign and the wait step is specificially for the 20th day of a month.  But I'm not seeing that as an option and I saw that someone submitted this as an idea: Wait until the x of the month

Does anyone have a work around for this? 

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Best answer by
Michelle, as your leads are added to the new campaign, you can add them to a Static List and then have a recurring smart campaign that runs as a batch on the 20th of each month on the leads in the Static List.  After it runs, it would remove the Leads from the Static List and the process would start all over again.

25 replies

May 1, 2013
When is the email before the 20th day of the month email going out? Could you set one wait step to the 20th of a specific month and every wait step thereafter for 1 month?
May 1, 2013
Rick, that sounds like a good workaround, but if you wait 1 month after a specific date, does that wait until the same date one month from now or does it wait 30 or 31 days?  How does it handle a situation where it is the 31st of the month and you tell it to wait 1 month and the next month has 30 days or 28/29 days?
May 1, 2013
Hm, now that is an excellent question, Elliott! One that I have just publicly asked - https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PbKRAA0
May 1, 2013
It's not perfect but I use tokens and date tokens in my programs. I put all send dates (e.g. 20-01, 20-02, 20-03) as date tokens in my program setup. In the flow I choose date token for the wait steps. This enables the flow to mail every 20th of the month. Make sure to add an additional wait step of 10 hours to make sure it doesn't send at 0:00.
May 1, 2013
I did some digging around and it looks like 1 month is exactly 1 month.

Example:
  • campaign triggered on Jan 13
  • 1 month wait step
  • rest of flow on Feb 13
January is a 31 day month
  • campaign triggered on Sep 14
  • 1 month wait step
  • rest of flow on Oct 14
September is a 30 day month

So a one month wait step will last till the exact day of the month, and they both resumed after the wait step within an hour of the time that the step began. I know that doesn't exactly solve the concept of "wait till X of month" but still you can trust a 1 month wait step beginning on the 20th to resume on the 20th.
May 1, 2013
Thanks Rick.  I'm still curious to know how it handles a situation where it is the 31st of the month and you tell it to wait 1 month and the next month has 30 days or 28/29 days.
Michelle_Tizian
Level 10
May 1, 2013
Thanks guys!  But what if my campaign flow looks like this:
After someone completes a conversion from one campaign, they are then added to campaign #2 which has the following set up.  I have to be able to add new leads to the campaign below at anytime of the month.

email 1 - welcome letter

email 2 - website login instructions 1 hour later, same day.
The reason for the 20th day of the month is because new trial subscribers usually get an email from the editor for the current issue of a publication. 

email 3 - 1st publication access follow up trial #1- on 20th day of month

email 4 - 2nd publication access follow up trial #2 - on 20th day of month

email 5 - trial has ended - continue subscrption now,  login access terminated - 1 week after email 4

email 6 - last chance to continue subscription, reactivate login access - 1 week after email 5. 

remove from campaign add to trial effort #3.
Trial Effort #3 will recycle them. 

So does Rick's suggestion mean that I have to assign a month to start a drip campaign so the subsequent wait steps of the 20th will follow?  What if it's the 16tth of the month and someone needs to be added to the campaign?  or what if someone is added on the 25th of the month?

Accepted solution
May 1, 2013
Michelle, as your leads are added to the new campaign, you can add them to a Static List and then have a recurring smart campaign that runs as a batch on the 20th of each month on the leads in the Static List.  After it runs, it would remove the Leads from the Static List and the process would start all over again.
Michelle_Tizian
Level 10
May 1, 2013
Thank you everyone and a big special thank you to you Elliott.  That will be my work around.  I was on the right track when I created the static list, but I got stuck with the wait step on the 20th.  So I'm going with your suggestion and test it out. You made my day!
May 2, 2013
OK. I know this is a lot of random testing, but I THINK I've cracked the code. If the wait step begins in the on a day other than the last day on a month with 31 days, it will end on the same number day. BUT if the wait step begins on the last day of a 31 day month and the next month is less than 31 days, then it considers a month to be 31 days. At least this is what it seems like the logic is. Now there are some obvious outliers and lags where the wait step can end anywhere from 4 minutes to 8 hours (and 31 hours in the first example) after the begin time. See below for my tests.

·         Example 1 (+1 day 7 hrs 44 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Mar 1, 2013 @ 4:14pm
o   Remove from Flow – Apr 2, 2013 @ 11:58pm
·         Example 2 (+4 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – May 1, 2012 @ 10:59am
o   Remove from Flow – Jun 1, 2012 @ 11:03am
·         Example 3 (assuming 1 month = 31 days, +7 hrs 22 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Jan 31, 2013 @ 1:13am
o   Remove from Flow – Mar 3, 2013 @ 8:35am
·         Example 4 (assuming 1 month = 31 days, +7 hrs 30 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Jan 31, 2013 @ 1:14am
o   Remove from Flow – Mar 3, 2013 @ 8:44am
·         Example 5 (assuming 1 month = 31 days, +11 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Oct 31, 2012 @ 8:01am
o   Remove from Flow – Dec 1, 2012 @ 8:12am
·         Example 6 (assuming 1 month = 31 days, +3 hrs 24 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Oct 31, 2012 @ 2:51pm
o   Remove from Flow – Dec 1, 2012 @ 6:15pm
·         Example 6 (+2 hrs)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Feb 22, 2013 @ 4:54pm
o   Remove from Flow – Mar 22, 2013 @ 6:54pm
·         Example 7 (+3 hrs  52 min)
o   Recycle Timeframe to 1 month – Feb 20, 2013 @ 11:24am
o   Remove from Flow – Mar 20, 2013 @ 3:16pm