You can set up your Web Channel campaign for Automation Center (AC), once you have successfully selected your Web Channel campaign template.
Web Channel has two nodes in the Automation Center that allow you to add or remove contacts to your Web Channel campaigns:
- Web Channel - add
- Web Channel - remove
In this article we offer examples of how to build automated programs using Web Channel.
Further reading
Prerequisites
To create a newly built automated program using Web Channel templates, you need to perform the following:
1. Choose a pre-created, designed campaign. For details, see Selecting your campaign template. Optionally, you can select a blank campaign.
2. Define the general settings. For details, see General Settings page description.
Ensure that you set the Recipient source to the following:
- Automation Center
3. Click Save and Continue to proceed to Web Channel creation flow.
4. Create your Web Channel campaign for the Automation Center program.
4. Check when the campaign is saved and verified, it appears on the Campaigns list with the status Ready.
Building a Web Channel Automation Center program
To add a Web Channel node to your Automation Center program proceed as follows:
- Open your Automation Center program and insert the Web Channel - add node at the point where you want contacts to join the campaign.
- Double-click the node to see the options dialog; all the Web Channel campaigns set to use Automation Center are listed. Campaigns which are not yet used in any program are displayed in black and can be selected, while those already used in programs are displayed in gray. Select the campaign you want and save the node properties.
Use only one Web channel - add node in your Automation Center campaigns.

3. Add a Web Channel - remove node where you want your contacts to stop seeing your campaign. This will typically come after a filter that checks to see if the contact has reached your campaign objective (i.e. the conversion criterion).
4. The Web Channel campaign will be activated once the program is launched, and its status will change to running.
5. It will run for as long as the program is active. When the program is aborted or stopped, the campaign will have the status completed.
Editing Web Channel campaigns in live programs
To edit the content or settings of a Web Channel campaign associated with an active program, do the following:
- Pause or Freeze the program. After a few minutes (5-10), the Web Channel campaign status will change from running to AC ready state.
- Make the changes to your Web Channel campaign. Any setting can be changed except for recipient source (which must remain Automation Center).
- When you resume your Automation Center program, the Web Channel campaign will be re-activated and the status will change back to running.
Unpairing campaigns with programs
If you no longer want to use a Web Channel campaign with a particular program, you have the following options:
- In the Automation Center, open the Web channel - add node.
- Change the campaign selection of the Web Channel - add node in your program as follows:
1. Click the Pencil icon next to your program on the Campaigns menu > Automation Center page.
2. Double-click the Web Channel - add node and choose another campaign.
Limitations
There are some aspects of functionality which might result in unexpected behavior.
- 6-hour refresh - Running Web Channel campaigns are updated with new contacts every six hours, which means that it could take up to six hours for a contact to enter a campaign from a program.
-
Lost contacts - Contacts can exit a program flow in a number of ways, for example:
- Reaching a Finish node.
- Being filtered out by a Quick filter, Filter switch or Exclude node.
- Leaving due to the exit criteria being met.
In these cases, it is not possible for us to detect that the contact is no longer in the program, therefore they will remain in the audience of the Web Channel message until the program terminates. It is up to you to use the Web Channel - remove node to prevent this from happening.
If you change the contact identification method from setEmail
(i.e. email hash) to setCustomerID
(i.e. customer ID) or the other way around in your Web Extend configuration, then your Web Channel audiences will be empty and the contacts who had previously entered your Web Channel Automation Center program will not be able to see your campaigns anymore.