Programs are designed to interact with your customers based on their actions and behaviors, and timing is an important factor. In an event-triggered program, contacts enroll right after they performed a specific action. This type of program entrance is available for email and mobile app messaging.

Configure event-triggered program entry

1. Choose a template or existing program, and select Settings. If you are working on an active program, make sure you deactivate it in advance.
2. Enter a name for your program and select a database or query as your contact source.
3. Select the Add contacts when the following events occur.

   The autoresponder, onboarding series, and customer satisfaction programs use this option by default to enable a triggered entrance.

   In case there is more than one event you want to use as entrance criteria for your program, add them using an OR operator:

   Has clicked a link in email A

   OR

   Has clicked a link in email B

   Your contact needs to meet only one of these to enter the program.

4. Hover over Add behavior and choose the event behavior you want to use for the program entry:
   • Database behavior: a contact opts in to the contact source associated with the program, they are added to the program.

     Note: The database behavior “Opted in” is limited to optin’s via web form, add contact button (in the UI) and add contact API “created_from =2".

   • Email behavior: brand new contacts enter the program when a user clicks a link in an email.
     1. Click Choose to open the Select a link in email box.
     2. Expand emails to see links.
     3. Select the links that you want to add to the program and click Done.
   • Web form behavior: Brand new contacts enter the program when a web form is submitted. The contact source master list must contain web forms.
     1. Click Choose and select the web forms that you want to add to the program.
     2. Click Done.
   • Website behavior: Brand new contacts enter a program when they download a file or trigger custom web tracking events. To use this type of behavior in a program, your Org admin must enable web tracking and custom events (optional), set up a Friendly name for the download action (optional), and your website must include a tracking code.
     1. Select a contact downloads a file or a contact triggers a web tracking custom event.
     2. If you selected "a contact downloads a file", click Add file and enter the file URL. The file must be linked from a tracked web site and the link must contain special code with the Friendly Name. Click OK.
     3. If you selected "a contact triggers a web tracking custom event", to detect a web tracking custom event has occurred, a tracked web site must contain special code that triggers the Event Type and Friendly Name specified below. enter the custom event type and a Friendly name. Click Apply.
   • Universal behavior: Event-triggered programs incorporating SMS, mobile app messages, geofence or beacon activity require using a Universal Behavior (UB). You can use universal behaviors to add contacts to a program or as event criteria based on a specified action and rule. If you plan to use universal behaviors in your program, configure them first: retrieve the app key from your mobile app developer and specify an app within the app group for UB attributes.
     1. Select one of the many available actions in the drop down menu, grouped by: location, mobile app, and SMS events.
     2. Click Configure.
     3. Fill in the values for selected attributes relevant to your program. The set of attributes will vary depending on the action you chose in the universal behavior.
     4. Click Apply.
5. (Optional) If you want to narrow down the entry criteria further, tick the Limit to contacts that match rule: checkbox and click Setup rule.
   • AND operator will not work with multiple events.
   • The action 'any' refers to an event that occurs at any time after the program starts.
6. Set a repeat option if desired, send window times, and the program's start and end dates.
7. Click Save and edit flow after the entrance option is configured.
   • If you use an autoresponder template, your step and wait settings are already placed for you. Just configure the step to add your content.
   • Event-triggered program entry does not honor send window settings on the first step.

Note: The program will not capture all events that occur while it is deactivated. To avoid losing such contacts, create a query with web form submission as the criteria and set the program to Add all contacts from the contact source: Continuously while the program is active.

Example

You have an upcoming webinar for a certain group of customers, which include contacts in your database. The participants of the webinar sign up through a web form. Your program will send a message to every signed up participant (autoresponder) and remind them of the upcoming event (email sent on fixed time).

1. In a query, create a query of contacts that meet your criteria. For example, perhaps demographically have they, or have they not been in another program related to this event, engaged with you recently, or opted into the database?
2. Calculate the query to see if it’s the number you’d expect, if applicable.
3. Go to programs and select that query as your contact source.
4. Select Add contacts when the following events occur.
5. Add the When a contact submits a web form behavior. (The web form must be associated to the database contact source.)
6. Set your programs start and end dates. You may need to set the Last contact added on date so contacts don’t enter too late, like the day of or before the webinar, especially if you plan to send a reminder message to registrants.