There, I said it.  And I’ll say it again: triggered email is only as good as your data.  I know, I know…now I have to back that claim up.

If you’re sending triggered emails in response to one-time events (for example, welcome emails, website confirmation downloads, etc.) then chances are your data is pretty good.  Someone does “something” (subscribes, purchases, downloads, etc.) and you trigger an email in response to whatever that something may be.   

These are often the most easy-to-implement triggered messages, which is why so many marketers have started to not only use, but optimize them.  Like many of you, we here at ExactTarget have made leaps and bounds in our triggered emails over the past year, including:

• Defining what the “somethings” that result in a trigger are
• Capture those “somethings” and feeding the data into our CRM database of records
• Triggering an email out of ExactTarget using our triggered email interactions
• Tracking the holistic performance of the triggered emails
• Making adjustments on the fly (without involving our web developer, which makes him very happy) for maximum performance.

Typing the list above makes it seem easy.  Get the data, then trigger an email.  We’d like for all our email messages to be sent using the process above.  But what about the following, more complicated, scenarios? 

• The “something” event is comprised of multiple data points
• The data lives in multiple systems
• Your data isn’t clean

Not so easy.  At least, not for us (and I’m guessing that means not for you, either).  Take, for example, a satisfaction survey we’d like to send 90 days before a customer is due to renew their contract with us, followed by a reminder email if they haven’t yet completed it, or a thank you email if they have.

In theory, this would be an easy series to trigger:  Send #1 = Renewal date – 90 days.  Send #2 = Triggered thank you upon completion OR reminder email 7 days after survey invite sent. But…

• We have multiple (sometimes hundreds) subscribers stored per account in our CRM system.  Not all contacts should receive the message.
• The data about what is due to renew / when it is due to renew is stored in a separate area of our CRM system, with no easy way to tie a subscriber to the renewal opportunity.
• Because we don’t delete data from our CRM system, the subscriber may no longer work at the company.  This information is often manually typed in to a data field (i.e. “Patricia NO LONGER THERE.”)  Look familiar?
• The extensive survey is hosted by a third-part vendor, which means there is no real-time visibility into whether someone has completed the survey within our own system.

The list goes on, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of manual data cleaning that goes into pulling a satisfaction survey list and sending the series.  So while this seems like an ideal campaign to trigger, it’s just not easy.  And I’m guessing that we’re not alone in this challenge.

While I don’t have a solution to the overall data issues that impede implementing more triggered / automated emails, I can tell you this – understanding what data is needed, where it lives, and what obstacles stand in the way of easily getting that is a huge first step in the right direction.  As the old saying goes, not knowing is half the battle.  So if you’re looking to automate or optimize your triggered email marketing and have found yourself in a similar situation, understanding your data is a good place to start.

Cheers,

Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications