A program is an automated customer engagement journey, designed to guide your interaction with a customer towards a specified goal. It starts from a single entry point and can spread out to multiple branches of a decision tree until reaching an end point.

Once a contact has entered a program, they can progress along one path only until the end. Their trajectory along the program is determined either by their actions or by filters applied by you.

Programs can be activated manually or scheduled to become active at a specified date in the future. Similarly, they can be deactivated manually or scheduled to stop at a certain time. Contacts can enter and progress along a program only when the program is active.

Programs can be differentiated in two ways: by their type and by their objective. The type refers to the program structure, the objective refers to whether the program goal relates to customer life cycle management, or if it is simply operational.

You can create the following program types:

Transactional programs

• These are programs that are triggered by a specific action of your contact, typically with a single, limited objective, e.g. a purchase confirmation. Transactional programs start with the following entry points: Form, Data change, New contact and build from there.

Recurring programs

• These are programs which are regularly launched according to a predefined schedule and to the same recipient list or segment, e.g. win back churning customers, a monthly newsletter, or daily deals.
• Recurring programs start with the Recurring filter and Entry from program entry points.

Batch programs

• These are programs which launch campaigns at a specified time to a specific list or segment, and which can contain follow-up steps according to a defined schedule or based on contact responses, e.g. seasonal offers, event invitations, product launches. Batch programs start with the Target segment entry point and will only run once when the program is activated. The program will be running until all contacts are processed, therefore the end date cannot be scheduled.

Program can also have different objectives:

General purpose programs

• These are concerned with administrative (e.g. shipping confirmation) and revenue generating (e.g. ‘deal of the day’ emails) tasks.

Customer lifecycle programs

• These relate to targeting based on customer behavior and aim to maximize customer retention.

Workspace nodes are placeholders for functions with customizable variables that you can define, and are split into three types, available via the Automation Center toolbar:

• Entry Points

These are how the contacts enter the program. They can be triggers (e.g. form submit), scheduled events (e.g. recurring filters), or ad hoc actions (e.g. batch email). A program can have multiple entry points if the logic flow permits.

• Actions

These are actions taken by the Automation Center to guide the contact through the program.

All nodes have a Properties page where you can select the content (i.e. form, segment, email, etc.), preview and even edit it. Open this by double-clicking on the node. Workspace nodes can be deleted and connected by clicking the corresponding buttons on the Workspace Actions bar.

For a full list of all nodes and a description of how to use them, see Transactional entry points, Batch entry points, Recurring entry points, Action nodes and Channel nodes.

• Channels

These nodes determine how contacts receive your messages. You can send emails, SMS campaigns, Mobile Engage push messages or add contacts to a contact list, Web Channel or Digital Ads campaign.