Email Programs vs. Design Studio Emails

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
April 8, 2015
5 replies
3533 views

The only previous discussion on this topic was last year, and there was a note that a future release would potentially allow for use of design studio emails in Email Programs. Since it's a year later, and that ability still doesn't exist, I was wondering what most people do.

I initially thought the best practice would be to create email in Design Studio, especially those that we would like to use in the future in way/shape/form. Is it worth it to still do that, and simply clone emails to the email programs? Do you create some in Design Studio to clone, then make some just in the program? Do you save all emails to their respective programs? Do you just use a Default program and run separate campaigns for emails (we did this in the past, but I want the Email Program metrics!)?

I would love to get a feel for how others handle this.

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Sam, like Dan we primarily store our emails locally and do everything through standard programs, not email send programs. I've had some issues with email programs in the past, but I believe that one of the reasons they have not been able to link design studio emails to email programs is due to a reporting limitation.

In short, Marketo will only report on the send, open, and click of an email asset a single time. What that means, is that if you send the same email to the same person twice, your email performance reporting metrics (not necessarily your send flow metrics, but reporting on these is not always your best bet) will only register the first send of an email, the first open of the email, and the first time someone clicks on that email. An example of this being problematic if you use the same asset in a monthly campaign, and only look at an email performance report for the month. If you sent the same exact asset last month, it will only show the new people (didn't receive it last month) in this month's report. But, if someone was sent the email last month and this month, didn't open the email last month and they open it this month, then they're recorded in this month's open metrics on that email performance report. Marketo wants to avoid this in their native reporting of email programs -- which is why they require the assets to be made new for each email program.

I would hope that in the future, if they're able to get past this reporting limitation, that they would be able to have global assets used in email send programs. Until then, I don't see it happening.

Dan_Stevens_

Level 10

We always keep our emails local within each program (the only thing in Design Studio are shared email templates; and common operational emails). We also never use the Email Program type - instead we use a standard Marketo program for the email channel - simply due to the flexibility that exists with regular programs. The main feature that does not exist for regular progams is the automated A/B testing (which is different than the champion/challenger testing which cannot be used with batch campaigns; and you must manually select the winner). Would love to see Email Program A/B testing made available to regular programs.

A

Anonymous

Accepted solution

Sam, like Dan we primarily store our emails locally and do everything through standard programs, not email send programs. I've had some issues with email programs in the past, but I believe that one of the reasons they have not been able to link design studio emails to email programs is due to a reporting limitation.

In short, Marketo will only report on the send, open, and click of an email asset a single time. What that means, is that if you send the same email to the same person twice, your email performance reporting metrics (not necessarily your send flow metrics, but reporting on these is not always your best bet) will only register the first send of an email, the first open of the email, and the first time someone clicks on that email. An example of this being problematic if you use the same asset in a monthly campaign, and only look at an email performance report for the month. If you sent the same exact asset last month, it will only show the new people (didn't receive it last month) in this month's report. But, if someone was sent the email last month and this month, didn't open the email last month and they open it this month, then they're recorded in this month's open metrics on that email performance report. Marketo wants to avoid this in their native reporting of email programs -- which is why they require the assets to be made new for each email program.

I would hope that in the future, if they're able to get past this reporting limitation, that they would be able to have global assets used in email send programs. Until then, I don't see it happening.

Josh_Hill13

Level 10

I don't understand the concern here:

Programs and Send Email flow can use emails no matter where they are.
You can keep cloning the email if you want, whether it is in a Program or Design Studio.
Email Performance Reports should be adjusted for the date range of the activity.
marketo does record multiple clicks vs. unique clicks, but only shows that in RCE. Maybe I'm missing something about what Dory says, because she makes sense, but that wasn't my understanding.
AB Testing can be used as a child program in a regular program, not an Engagement. I know it gets confusing as then you can use Champ/Challenger in other situations.

Dan_Stevens_

Level 10

Josh, a couple points:

You cannot use an email that's not local to an Email Program. When you choose your email, it will only look for emails within the local program. Your first bullet is correct, only if you're not referring to an Email Program (which is the basis for this discussion).
If we use an nested Email Program within a regular program just for A/B testing purposes, the email once again must be local to the Email Program and cannot be contained within the parent program. Too much hassle/overhead to use, IMO.
I've experience many of the reporting issues that Dory has brought up (even with the proper setup of the date ranges)

A

Anonymous

Dan and Dory - that's what we've done historically, too, is avoid the Email Program entirely. My boss really likes the reporting dashboard that is built-in on the Email Programs, and we are hoping to use this final quarter of our fiscal year for a bunch of AB testing, so we are planning on using Email Programs this quarter. We have previously kept emails in the Design Studio, so we can reuse them (for instance, if we gate content after sending it out and want to just send an email followup). Obviously we can still do that and just clone the email to the program, but I was just curious what other companies like to do. So many ways to do just one thing, it's good to step out of our bubble once in a while, I find.

Josh, it's not really an issue or concern. I'm asking how other folks setup their programs and store their emails, more like a poll.

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