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Michael_Florin-2
Michael_Florin-2
Level 10
May 23, 2019
Question

Request Campaign vs. other triggers

  • May 23, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 6227 views

Hello!

We have built a system of lead entry and scoring campaigns, which heavily relies on "Request Campaign" flows. Under heavy traffic our campaign queue gets pretty crowded and processing tends to slow down which causes various headaches.

Now I have heard that "Request Campaign" is actually not an ideal way to connect two Smart Campaigns. Records would flow faster, if for instance "Add to list" and "Was added to list" was used as the connector.

Can anybody confirm that is true?

Thank you!

Michael

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4 replies

Grace_Brebner3
Grace_Brebner3
Level 10
May 23, 2019

Hey Michael,

In high traffic cases, yes this is typically true: Marketo basically has an internal prioritisation system that decides which types of processes are run at a higher vs lower priority - and request campaign flow steps are known for falling in the lower priority bucket. In low traffic cases it's not noticeable, but in high traffic cases you'll definitely see that "add to list" alternative processes will run faster.

    J_Grant_Gray
    J_Grant_Gray
    Level 3
    May 23, 2019

    From Scott Nash‌ Under the Hood II session:

    https://nation.marketo.com/thread/45832-under-the-hood-ii-batch-campaigns-recording

    for reference and guidance

    Per this comparison, add to list is quicker.

      Michael_Florin-2
      Michael_Florin-2Author
      Level 10
      May 24, 2019

      Thank you, Grace & Grant!

      Yes, I know that trigger campaigns run with different priorities. But I'm wondering if that is actually relevant for my case. If we talk about trigger priorities, we're talking about what runs earlier and what runs later, right? But I need to process stuff faster - not relative to other campaigns, but absolute.

      So if I have 10 campaigns that request each other in a chain, and 50.000 new records hit that chain at the same moment - which unfortunately is our reality - and the processing of the whole chain takes 4 hours, can I somehow cut that time down by not using "Request Campaign" and "Campaign is Requested" anymore?

      Well, Grant, if Add to List is four times as fast as Request Campaign, this might actually do something. I'll test it.

      Thanks again!

      Michael

      Josh_Hill13
      Josh_Hill13
      Level 10
      May 24, 2019

      So this is a challenge. I have been dealing with this for years and you really have to look at your architecture and ask yourself some questions:

      1. Does this really need to be a trigger?
        1. For Scoring flows, I'd say 100% of campaigns should be batches. Seriously. 
        2. Contact Me and Freemium Trial flows should be Triggers/Fast Track that are part of your Lead Lifecycle system.
      2. When you say Lead Entry, I take that as some sort of Lead Lifecycle management initial processor.
        1. Ed Unthank has thoughts about daisy chaining these with Request Campaigns. Check his site at etumos.com or my articles on marketingrockstarguides.com.
        2. Think hard about what really needs to happen RIGHT NOW vs. LATER. I'd say you can have a fairly efficient LLC with Request flows that do hand offs for various reason. In fact, I run a fair amount of Request flows but they branch off from 3 centralized Flows that are the only CORE entry points for most of the records.
        3. Do not use Person Is Created except in your FIRST entry trigger. Otherwise you will overwhelm your trigger eval queue. 50000 records x Number of Person Is Created Triggers = X (50000 X 10 = 500,000) which will take forever and BLOCK everything. Same is true for ANY other trigger like List is Imported or Data Value Changes. Be real careful how and when you use these.
        4. A LOT of things can simply be batched, especially Engagement Transitions (read my slides on this). Really zero reason to ever use a trigger for Engagements.
      3. Put this all on paper/whiteboard/lucidchart and consider when things actually need to occur to drive business,
        Josh_Hill13
        Josh_Hill13
        Level 10
        May 24, 2019

        Also, you can trick Marketo by placing an Empty Send Email flow step at the TOP of any Trigger campaign to instantly push it to the TOP of the queue.

        Any Wait Step more than 4:59 mins will instantly DROP your trigger or batch down the queue. 

          K
          kmurphy
          Level 1
          September 29, 2019

          Hi @Michael Florin, did changing to an "Add to list"/"Was added to list" setup improve your speed issues?

          I've been looking at building out our operational structure following the modular Etumos Architecting Best Practices (Edward Unthank, Marketo Summit) - YouTube  method, but with such heavy reliance on requested campaigns I'm unclear if this would be setting us up for instance-wide slowness at a scale of 100k leads/month or week or quicker as we grow.

          I've received ad hoc advice to avoid anything beyond 1 link in the "Request Campaign" daisy chain, but the Etumos method uses a minimum of 4 just off the initial "Person is Created" flow down to the level of lead scoring, enrichment, etc., all of which are triggered simultaneously from the initial "controller campaign".

          Using "Add to list"/"Was added to list" seems like a simple enough modification, but is that the real solution, or is there some inherent flaw with architecting Marketo to daisy chain potentially dozens of campaigns simultaneously at scale? @Sanford Whiteman‌ would be curious to hear your thoughts on this topic.

          Thanks,

          Keenan

          Michael_Florin-2
          Michael_Florin-2Author
          Level 10
          September 30, 2019

          Hi Keenan - I didn't execute that change. I didn't like the idea of "Add to list/Was added to list" all that much, as it looks clumsy to me. And I didn't read from this thread or from talking to Marketo support, that "Request Campaign" is per se bad. So I kept it.

          What I did do though, was to create more exceptions - let's call them "jumps" - in the chain. Guided by the permanent reasoning: Does a record need to go through this step or can they skip it? New records usually need to take all steps but existing records might be able to skip some. So in Step #3 I added constraints to "Request #4" that filter on the jump criteria and if they meet, let records jump to #5 or even #6 or #7. That seems to have taken some pressure off, so the process runs pretty smoothly since.

            K
            kmurphy
            Level 1
            September 30, 2019

            Yes it's definitely messier with an additional list for every campaign. 

            But glad to hear that design approach has helped minimize pressure, thanks for the update!

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