With Connect you can define three types of messages: trial, main, standard and follow up. How you define your messages depends upon how you plan to use them. You'll define your message type on the Define Message page.
- You'll use trial messages to test your campaign message content on a small, randomly selected subset of a segment before sending it out as a main message to the rest of the customers in that segment. If you say the message goes to All Segments, then the message will go to all customers in the entire segmentation model (or the audience model, if you haven't defined a segmentation model for the campaign).
You can use can use the results of these trials to "fine tune" a message before sending it out as a main message to a larger to the rest of the customers in the associated segment, segmentation model, or audience model. Trial messages are only available for one time campaigns.
For more information about trial messages, see Using Trial Messages.
- Main messages are just that: the primary messages of your campaign. You will associate each main message with either a specific segment or all segments. If you make the latter choice it will go out to all customers in your segmentation model (or audience model, if you've not defined a segmentation model for the campaign).
- Automatic main messages are the primary main messages for a campaign. You need to create a trial message or a set of trial messages before creating an Automatic main message. The subject and the content is picked up automatically from the Winner Trial messages.
Automatic main messages can be configured to pick:
- The subject and the content from a single winning trial message.
- The subject from one trial message that has most email opens and the content from another trial message that has most message clicks.
Automatic main messages can be schedule to:
- Launch at a specified date and time.
- Launch when one of the trial messages crosses a particular threshold (for instance, when the number of messages clicked is greater than 10,000). For more information, refer to the "Automatic Main Messages" in the documentation set.
- Follow up messages follow up your campaign's existing trial and main messages. For example, you might arrange to have the system send out a follow up message to customers who click a specific link in a main message. You can't create follow-up messages for unsubscribe campaigns.
For more information about follow up messages, see Defining Follow Up Message Details.
Keep in mind that the Connect system is designed so that customers never receive a trial or main message from the same campaign twice. Customers who receive a trial message from a campaign will not receive a main message from the same campaign, and vice versa. Because of this, it's a good idea to target trial messages to small groups of customers.