If Branch Element
Use
If Branch Elements to introduce
IF and
IF NOT statements into your Campaign logic to split a single Campaign phase into two paths.
If a specified statement is true then recipients will be directed along one path, and if it is not true then the recipient will be directed on another. The split is defined by a Segment or series of Segments, resulting in a 'true' output and a 'false' output.
If Branch elements can also be used in conjunction with
variables to specify what treatments a particular recipient will receive as they pass through the element based on a defined set of criteria.
How you can use If Branch elements
Example 1 - you may want to split the audience depending on their contact preferences. If they agree to be contacted via email, send them to the email phase of the campaign. If they do not want to be contacted, you may want to communicate with them in a different way, or not at all.
Example 2 - in an engagement style campaign, use If Branch to identify whether recipients have made a purchase in the last month. If they have you send them an email with related products, and if they haven’t you send them some special offers to re-engage them with your brand.
You can only add audience segments to the 'true' branch of an If Branch element (represented by the green plus on the edge of the element).
All recipients that do not meet the criteria specified in the 'true' branch will move to the 'false' branch (represented by the red plus on the element edge).
Procedure
- Open a campaign or create a new campaign in Campaign Designer. Click the plus button on the edge of the element you want to add the If Branch element to (the plus button can be blue
, red or green ).
- Select the If Branch option from the drop-down list.
- To set up the If Branch, click the If Branch element.
- In the 'true' section of the slide-out pane that opens, click the green plus button
.
- Click Select existing segment if you want to select an existing audience segment. The Segment Library opens. Click the Select button next to the segment you want to add to the audience. If the segment is not a Master Segment, a copy of that segment is added to the campaign and can be edited. Master Segments cannot be edited from within campaigns.
Note: |
Segments are connected with OR in an If Branch. For example, if you have one segment specifying all 19 year olds and a second segment specifying all females in an If Branch, the resulting audience would be all 19 year olds and all females, not all 19 year old females.
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- Click Build segment from the drop-down list if you want to build a new segment. The Campaign Designer screen opens.
Building Segments
Procedure
First you need to select the database table that the segment is based on, this is called the resolution level. For example, do you want to create a segment of Customers, Orders, Households, etc.? From the Select Table drop-down, select the resolution level table for the segment. You can either navigate to the table or you can search for it by clicking the search icon.
- Click the Select button.
After you have selected your database table, the segment is locked to that datasource and you can't use columns from other datasources in the Segment rules, as they are not linked to the selected table. For more information, see 'Resolution Levels'.
Select an operator to specify how the rules are connected:
All of the following rules apply |
Equivalent to the AND operator |
For example, Gender=F and Age=30 returns all females that are 30 years old. |
Any of the following rules apply |
Equivalent to the OR operator |
For example, Gender=F and Age=30 returns all females and all 30 year olds. |
- To add a rule or group to the Segment, click the Add
icon and select Add Rule or Add Group from the drop-down list.
- Rules - a rule is a set of parameters that identifies the people you will either include or exclude from the campaign. The database columns available for a rule are determined by the top resolution level table.
- Groups - a group is a sub-branch of calculations that have a different resolution level to the top resolution level table. For example, you could use a group to create a list of product orders (resolved to your ORDER table) based on a variety of criteria. Then you can join that list to the main segment (resolved to your CUSTOMER table) to identify customers who made those orders.
- Select the database column for the rule from the Select Column drop-down. You can navigate to the column or you can search for it by clicking the search
icon. Click the Select button.
Click here to see a description of column data types. For example, columns can be set up to contain dates or numeric values only.
Icon |
Data type |
Description |
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Text |
The column can contain alphanumeric data (text or numbers). |
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Integer |
Numeric data that has no decimal values, for example, an order number. |
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Real |
Numeric data with decimal numbers. |
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Date |
For columns containing dates. Valid formats are:
- CCYYMMDD
- DDMMCCYY
- CCYYDDMM
- MMDDCCYY
- DDMMYY
- MMDDYY
- DDMMCCYY
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Time |
Times - hour, minutes and seconds. Valid formats are HHMM and HHMMSS. |
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DateTime |
Dates and times, for example, DDMMMCCYY HH:MM:SS. |
- Select the inclusion criteria from the Equal to drop-down. The inclusion criteria displayed depend on the column’s data type, for example, text or numeric:
Equal to |
Returns records that meet the specified value. |
Not equal to |
Returns records that do not meet the specified value. |
Between |
Returns records based on a range of values. |
Contains |
Returns records that contain the specified text string (case-sensitive). |
Does not contain |
Returns records that do not contain the specified text string (case-sensitive). |
Greater than |
Returns records with a value greater than the one specified. |
Greater than or equal to |
Returns records with a value equal to or greater than the one specified. |
Less than |
Returns records with a value less than the one specified. |
Less than or equal to |
Returns records with a value equal to or less than the one specified. |
Has no value |
Returns all records for which there is no value. For example, if applied to the Income field, the records returned will be for customers who have not provided their income details. |
Has a value |
Returns all records for which there is a value. For example, if applied to the Income field, the records returned will be for customers who have provided their income details. |
- Select the values for the contents of the column. Click the value picker
icon to view the values available for the column and the counts for each value. Click the x in the value picker field to clear the contents.
- Enter values either manually or by selecting them from the value picker.
Note: |
Values entered manually are case sensitive. For example, for a Country column, 'Switzerland' will return results, whereas 'switzerland' will not. When the Select Value field contains a value, it has a colored background:
Grey background |
The format of the value is valid and there are matching values in the database. |
Yellow background |
The format of the value is valid but there are no matching values in the database. |
Red background |
The format of the value is not valid, for example text in a numeric column. The Calculate segment button is disabled when the format is not valid. |
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Nulls - if you want to select columns that contain no value, use the Has no value option to specify null.
Value blue bars - the value picker displays available values and their respective counts, along with blue bars that represent the frequency of that value relative to the size of the table. The counts and the blue bars will reflect the selected operator. For example, in the Age column, the counts and blue bars will change if you first select the Equal operator (all age values displayed) and then select the Greater than operator (only values greater than your selected value are displayed).
If you want to view records that are currently selected in a rule or segment, click the Record Viewer icon. Record Viewer at Group and Segment level is only active when the counts have been refreshed. Record Viewer at Rule level is always active because rules recalculate automatically. See 'Record Viewer' for more information.
- Click the Calculate segment button
at the top of the screen to verify that your selected criteria return results that you expect. The button is blue when you create a new segment, open an existing segment, change the segment rules or the data has changed. This indicates that the counts are not up-to-date (or have never been calculated if the segment is new), and you should recalculate the segment counts.
Note: |
If the Calculate segment button is gray, the count currently shown is up-to-date. Rows always calculate automatically. Groups and Segments must always be manually calculated using the Calculate segment button. |
- When you have finished creating the segment, click the Finish button. The segment is saved in the campaign document. If you want to save a copy of the segment in the Segment Library, click Save Copy and select the folder you want to save the segment in.
- You can also add a description of the document. If you want to change the description at any time, click Settings at the top of the Segment Builder screen, enter your new description and click Apply.
- If you want to save the document as a Master Segment, click the Master Segment check box at the bottom of the save dialog. If you do not see the Master Segment check box, you do not have permission to create Master Segments.
Note: |
Segments are connected with OR in an If Branch. For example, if you have one segment specifying all 19 year olds and a second segment specifying all females in an If Branch, the resulting audience would be all 19 year olds and all females, not all 19 year old females.
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- Click the Calculate button
to verify that your selected criteria return results that you expect. The button is blue when you create a new segment, open an existing segment, change the segment rules, or the data has changed. This indicates that the counts are not up-to-date (or have never been calculated if the segment is new), and you should recalculate the segment counts. When you calculate in an If Branch element, it is always against the audience specified in the campaign's Audience element, not the whole database.
Note: |
If the Calculate button is gray, the count currently shown is up-to-date.
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- To view the records that are currently in your 'true' branch or 'false' branch, click the Record Viewer icon
.
See the Record Viewer topic for further information.
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