Please help: Product Docs doesn't answer my question

Hi Amanda,

The doc does not cover Marketo campaign architecture. And it takes time and experience to be at ease with this exercise.

Consider triggers as a monitoring device that waits for a specific event to happen and, when it happens, to triggers (hence the name) a flow of successive actions for the lead for which the event happens. You can consider that a trigger is a real time reaction to the event. On the opposite, a batch campaign is a flow of actions that is executed for a whole set of leads at the same time, and which starts when YOU (the user) decides.

In your case, as often in Marketo, there are more than one way to do what you want, which makes it difficult. Here is one

1. In any case you need a batch that selects the XXX leads and sends the first email. That's one smart campaign or event a email program type.
2. As you do not know when the leads will open that 1st email, the only solution for the second item is to wait for this  "open" event to happen and send the email #2, but only if the click does not happen. That's difficult, since you do not know either how long you should wait for the click to happen after the email was opened... So one solution here is to create a second batch that selects all leads who opened the first email (email opened filter) and did not click (not email was clicked filter) in a period such as the day before. but in any case, you cannot do it real time since you do not know how much time you should wait for the click not to happen.
3. for the 3rd bullet point, you just have to monitor for the click to happen. If the email was clicked, it means that it was opened, so no need to wait for the sequence of events, only the second one is enough. So you will use and "clicks link in email" trigger and send the follow-up email
4. for the 4th item, you can run a batch after X days, targeting anyone who was sent the email but did not open it.

Once this is in place, you can start to manage some additional subtleties. For instance, the fact that an email can be clicked while it has not been opened first. This is due to the mechanisms that are used to detect opens (not very reliable by design, many undetected opens) and clicks (much more reliable by design). This gives you a second reason for not monitoring the opens in point 3/. It also means that in point 4/ you should target anyone who was sent the email and did not open it and did not click it. and it also means that whatever you do, in item 2/ Marketo and you will miss some open.

-Greg

I've only been using it for 2 months; but with trial and error I could figure out how to do similar type of automation. According to your scenario, you need to create 3 different emails under one program. Pick the Engagement Program Type, or Web Content - depending on your type, if it is something ongoing and you want your new members added to the list receive this email. Use Email Send Program if it's one time thing. For ongoing, create these smart campaigns for your actions:

For #1:  Create New Smart Campaign > Smart List > Filters > Member of list/program (whatever is the list you are sending your email to) > Flow > Send Email > Select your email #1 > Schedule

For #2: Create New Smart Campaign >Smart List > Trigger - Email Opened> Select your email #1>Filter - Link is not clicked in email - Add constrain - Link - Select the link>Flow>Send Email> Select email #2>Schedule

... continue with #3 and #4 using a similar logic.

If you use Email Send, Create New Program Email Program and schedule your #1 email within. Pick your list under "Audience"; Pick you email #1 under "Email", Schedule and Approve. Under the same program, create Smart campaigns #2, #3 and #4 according to the logic above.

Hope this helps.