How to Run a Reengagement Campaign in Marketing Cloud

A Technical Solution

There aren’t a lot of resources out there for how to configure Marketing Cloud to reengage contacts. So how do we clean out an org to save space or turn stale prospects into new opportunities? For such a Reengagement Series, we used Automation Studio, Journey Builder, and ultimately Salesforce in order to manage and engage with unengaged subscribers in Marketing Cloud. 

Step 1: Automation Studio (Need Reengagement)

In Contact Builder, we created the Need Reengagement data extension that is populated with unengaged subscribers. The data extension is repopulated (overwritten) on the third Monday of every month with the results of the following SQL query, which collects all subscribers that have not opened an email sent to them in the past 30 days.

SELECT 

a.SubscriberKey AS [Contact ID], 

a.EmailAddress AS [Email Address]

From _Subscribers a

Left Join _Sent s on a.SubscriberKey = s.SubscriberKey

Left Join _Open o on a.SubscriberKey = o.SubscriberKey

Where DateDiff(d, s.EventDate, GetUTCDate()) <= 30

And o.SubscriberKey is null

Step 2: Journey Builder (Reengagement Series)

The Journey runs on a monthly basis starting on the third Tuesday of every month. The Need Reengagement data extension is used as the entry source. There are email activities and engagement splits, which result in sending a thank you email if the previous email was opened. If no emails are opened, the Unengaged checkbox field on the related Contact record in Salesforce is updated to equal True. 

Step 3: Unengaged Contact Management

Once a Contact record is marked as Unengaged in Salesforce, the record will no longer be included in the reports that populate the Salesforce Data Extensions that we send to. Those reports are imported into Marketing Cloud data extensions on a daily basis so the effect is almost immediate. The Unengaged Contacts are also imported on a daily basis into the Unengage Salesforce Data Extension, which is available for ad hoc email sends, if needed.

In Salesforce, we have automation in place that unchecks Contact records checked off as Unengaged, which removes them from the Unengaged Salesforce Data Extension and makes the contact available for inclusion in the other Salesforce Data Extensions based on their criteria. Unengaged is unchecked if the Total Number of Gifts on the Contact record changes, eg the Contact has made a donation. The field is also unchecked if a new Individual Email Results record is Opened, eg the Contact has opened an email.

Note the last piece mentioned related to Individual Email Results records. This is an object that should be available to you in Salesforce based on the Marketing Cloud Connect integration that was configured. You can add a related list to Contact records in Salesforce and see the emails that have been sent to them and whether the contact opened the email or clicked on any links. You can also create reports and dashboards with that data, which would allow your Salesforce users to have insight into how your email marketing metrics. We hope that this makes sense. Let us know if you have any questions.

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