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Making changes to campaigns and broadcasts

Each campaign and broadcast type in Customer.io behaves a little bit differently, so changes can have different effects on the messages they contain. What kind of change you make is also significant—whether it’s a trigger, filter, delay action, or message. We’ll describe all of those in detail below, for each campaign type as appropriate.

Changing triggers and/or filters in…

Event-triggered campaigns

If you change which event is used as the trigger:

• People already moving through the campaign’s workflow based on the original event will continue their journey.
• Future events will trigger the campaign based on the campaign’s new trigger event.

If you change the trigger’s event data filter(s):

• People already moving through the campaign’s workflow based on the original event data filter will continue their journey.
• Future events will trigger the campaign based on the trigger’s new event data filter.

If you change which segments are used as filter(s):

• People that are waiting in a delay or time window will be re-evaluated once they reach the next message to be sent in the workflow. Anyone who doesn’t match the campaign’s new filter conditions will exit the campaign, while people who do match the campaign’s new filter conditions simply continue the campaign.
• Future event performers will be filtered based on the campaign’s new filter conditions.

If you change the underlying configuration of the campaign’s filter segment(s):

• When you update the underlying configuration of a segment that is used as a filter on active triggered campaign(s), we do not currently notify your campaign(s) of these changes. This means that no one will be re-evaluated to see if they should join or exit the campaign based solely on the updated segment conditions. If you need people who match your new conditions to enter the campaign, please reach out to support with a link to the campaign so that we can force those people to enter your campaign.

Segment-triggered campaigns

If you change which conditions are used as trigger(s):

• People that are waiting in a delay or time window will be re-evaluated before moving to the next action, delay, or time window. For example, if people are waiting in a delay when you’re changing the campaign’s trigger conditions and the delay is followed by a time window, people are re-evaluated when they enter the time window. At this point, anyone who doesn’t match the campaign’s new trigger conditions will exit the campaign (unless overridden by the campaign’s Exit Conditions). People who still match the campaign’s new trigger conditions will simply continue the campaign.
• People who already meet your new trigger conditions will NOT enter the campaign automatically. This is because we do not backfill people into a campaign based on trigger changes. Once active, campaigns are forward-looking. This means your changes will only affect people who match the new conditions AFTER the changes are saved. If you need people who already match your new conditions to enter the campaign, please reach out to support with a link to the campaign so that we can force those people to enter your campaign.
• Future matches will trigger the campaign based on the campaign’s new trigger conditions.

If you change which segments are used as filter(s):

• People that are waiting in a delay or time window will be re-evaluated once they reach the next message to be sent in the workflow. Anyone who doesn’t match the campaign’s new filter conditions will exit the campaign (unless overridden by the campaign’s Exit Conditions), while people who do match the campaign’s new filter conditions simply continue the campaign.
• Future segment matches will be filtered based on the campaign’s new filter conditions.

If you change the underlying configuration of the campaign’s trigger or filter segment(s):

• When you update the underlying configuration of a segment that is used as a trigger or filter on active triggered campaign(s), we do not currently notify your campaign(s) of these changes. This means that no one will be re-evaluated to see if they should join or exit the campaign based solely on the updated segment conditions. If you need people who match your new conditions to enter the campaign, please reach out to support with a link to the campaign so that we can force those people to enter your campaign.

If you change the frequency:

You can change the frequency with which people re-enter a campaign while a campaign is live.

• Every re-match to One time: After the change, people will only enter the campaign once. Anyone who might have re-entered in the future will no longer do so.

• Every re-match to At fixed intervals: Only new people who match your settings will restart. This does not apply to people who have already been through the campaign.

• At fixed intervals to One time: Any people who are scheduled to re-enter this campaign will not do so, but those who are already in the campaign will continue their journey.

• At fixed intervals to Every re-match: People who are scheduled to re-start your campaign will not do so. They will need to stop matching the trigger conditions and re-match them to enter again. Those who are already in the campaign will continue their journey.

• Changing a fixed interval: This immediately changes the time when people can start their next journeys. For example, if you change the interval from 7 to 9 days, people will re-enter the campaign 9 days after their initial entry. After day 9, the person will re-enter the campaign if they finished their previous journey and match the trigger/filter conditions. Otherwise, we will recheck their eligibility to re-enter the campaign after another 9 days, and so forth.

• Changing the minumum wait for Every re-match: This immediately changes the time when people can start their next journeys. For example, if you change the minimum wait from 7 to 9 days, a person can re-enter after 9 days have passed since the last time they entered the campaign. If a person re-matches while in an active journey, they will not immediately start a new journey after exiting the campaign. Rather, the person must exit the campaign and pass the minimum wait time then re-match the conditions to re-enter the campaign.

Date-triggered campaigns

If you change which conditions are used as trigger(s):

• People that are waiting in a delay or time window will be re-evaluated before moving to the next action, delay, or time window. For example, if people are waiting in a delay when you’re changing the campaign’s trigger conditions and the delay is followed by a time window, people are re-evaluated when they enter the time window. At this point, anyone who doesn’t match the campaign’s new trigger conditions will exit the campaign. People who still match the campaign’s new trigger conditions will simply continue the campaign.
• All current People will be evaluated once the changes are saved. People will enter the campaign as soon as they match the date conditions.
• Future matches will trigger the campaign based on the campaign’s new trigger conditions.

If a person’s value for the trigger date is changed:

• When frequency is Once: changing the value of the date attribute will NOT cause a person to re-enter the campaign.
• When frequency is Monthly: if a person triggered the campaign (i.e. Oct 5th), then their trigger date value is updated to a date in the future in the same month (i.e. Oct 10th), the person WILL re-enter the campaign. They will re-enter after they finish their current journey, even though it’s the same month.
• When frequency is Yearly: if a person triggered the campaign, then their trigger date value is updated to a later date in the same year, the person WILL re-enter the campaign. They will re-enter after they finish their current journey, even though it’s the same year.

If you change which segments are used as filter(s):

• People that are waiting in a delay or time window will be re-evaluated once they reach the next message to be sent in the workflow. Anyone who doesn’t match the campaign’s new filter conditions will exit the campaign, while people who do match the campaign’s new filter conditions simply continue the campaign.
• Future segment matches will be filtered based on the campaign’s new filter conditions.

If you change the underlying configuration of the campaign’s filter segment(s):

• When you update the underlying configuration of a segment that is used as a filter on active triggered campaign(s), we do not currently notify your campaign(s) of these changes. This means that no one will be re-evaluated to see if they should join or exit the campaign based solely on the updated segment conditions. If you need people who match your new conditions to enter the campaign, please reach out to support with a link to the campaign so that we can force those people to enter your campaign.

API-triggered Broadcasts

API Triggered Broadcasts work a little bit differently in that your recipients don’t have to be defined at the outset. When you trigger your broadcast via the API, you can specify recipients in that call. That API call will override anything you’ve set in the ‘Recipients’ section.

Also, API Triggered Broadcasts send messages multiple times, similar to event triggered campaigns. This is true even if a customer enters and leaves your recipient segment(s). You have more fine-grained control here when it comes to overriding recipients.

If you change the recipient segment(s) in the UI:

If you change these in the Recipients tab of your campaign overview, that change will go into effect the next time you trigger the broadcast.

If you use a different recipient segment(s) in your API call:

If you trigger the send via API and specify your recipient segment(s) there, whatever segment ID you use in that API call will take precedence; it doesn’t matter what you’ve set in the Recipients tab in the app. So if, in the app, your broadcast is set to send to people in Segment A, but your API call specifies Segment B, then the broadcast will be sent to Segment B, not both!

If you make changes while a broadcast is in the sending queue:

An API triggered broadcast is “in the sending queue” if you’ve triggered it to send, either manually or via the API, and we’re generating deliveries for it— essentially, the broadcast is in the process of being sent to all of its recipients. Any changes you make to messages during that time will take effect immediately! We recommend that you don’t do this, because it might mean that you send different messages to different people.

You can tell whether or not a send is in progress by checking out your Task History in the top navigation bar:

Changing the frequency setting

From “Every re-match” to…

• Changing from “Every re-match” to “At fixed intervals” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to NOT re-enter automatically unless they somehow unmatch and rematch the trigger on their own. If you need existing matches to start re-entering, contact support to have people force-matched to use the new frequency.
• Changing from “Every re-match” to “At fixed intervals” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to re-enter the campaign according to the settings after the current journey finishes.
• Changing from “Every re-match” to “No (re-entry)” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to not be able to re-enter even after dropping out and entering the segment.
• Changing from “Every re-match” to “No (re-entry)” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to flow through the campaign as normal once.

From “At fixed intervals” to…

• Changing from “At fixed intervals” to “Every re-match” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to be able to re-enter after dropping out and entering the segment and respecting the interval.
• Changing from “At fixed intervals” to “Every re-match” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to be able to re-enter after dropping out and entering the segment and respecting the interval.
• Changing from “At fixed intervals” to “No (re-entry)” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to not enter the campaign again.
• Changing from “At fixed intervals” to “No (re-entry)” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to flow through the campaign as normal once.

From “No (re-entry)” to…

• Changing from “No (re-entry)” to “Every re-match” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to be able to re-enter after dropping out and entering the segment and respecting the interval.
• Changing from “No (re-entry)” to “Every re-match” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to finish the journey and to be able to re-enter after dropping out and entering the segment and respecting the interval.
• Changing from “No (re-entry)” to “At fixed intervals” AFTER a person has entered and left. - Expect the person to NOT re-enter automatically unless they somehow unmatch and rematch the trigger on their own. If you need existing matches to start re-entering, contact support to have people force-matched to use the new frequency.
• Changing from “No (re-entry)” to “At fixed intervals” AFTER a person has entered but has not left yet. - Expect the person to re-enter the campaign according to the settings after the current journey finishes.

Changing or deleting delays

If you shorten a delay (for example, from 7 days to 5 days):

• All people waiting in that particular delay are re-evaluated. You will see a processing circle while this is happening.
• People who have already waited for more than the new delay (in our case, more than 5 days) will immediately move to the next action.
• Everyone else continues waiting in the delay for the required period.

If you lengthen a delay (for example from 5 days to 7 days):

• People all wait based on the new delay (7 days instead of 5). The only visual feedback is the new delay being saved; there is no re-evaluation done.

If you delete a delay:

• People automatically move to the next action in the workflow.
• If the next item is a delay or a time window, they wait the required number of minutes/hours/days or until the time window is open.
• If the next item is a message or other item (attribute update, webhook) it is triggered immediately.

Changing or deleting time windows

If you limit or extend a time window:

• People adapt to the new time window.
• If the time window wasn’t open before the change, but it is now, everyone previously waiting will move to the next action in the workflow.

As an example, let’s say it is currently Monday at 09:30. There is a time window currently set to allow sending on Tuesday and Thursday from 09:00 to 12:00, and we alter it to allow sending on Monday from 09:00 to 12:00 also. People currently waiting in the delay will immediately proceed to the next action in the workflow. If, instead, we were to alter it to allow sending on Monday from 10:00 to 12:00, all people waiting in the time window would be scheduled to move to the next action in the workflow at 10:00 (i.e. in 30 minutes), instead of waiting until Tuesday at 09:00.

If you delete a time window:

• All the people waiting for the next available slot in the time window will immediately move to the next action in the workflow.

Changing, deleting or re-ordering messages

People continue on a linear journey through the campaign.

If you add a new message or move an existing one to a different position in the workflow:

• It will be received by all the people who didn’t yet reach that particular message (even those who are waiting in a delay or time window right before it).
• If the person already received that particular message because it initially placed earlier in the workflow, they will skip ahead to the next action.

If you delete a message:

• People waiting in any delay/time window before that message will move to the next action following the deleted message (if one exists).

Changing workflow item behavior

“Send Automatically” sends the message or other item as soon as they match the delays/time windows you set.

If you change an item/message to “Don’t Send”:

• People skip it and move to the next action in the workflow, if there is one

If you change an item/message to “Queue Draft”:

• Messages and other workflow items (attribute updates, webhooks) are created under “Drafts.” You’ll have to send them manually by clicking “Send All” or choosing particular ones and pressing the “Send” button next to each of them.
• People move to the next action in the workflow even if the drafts aren’t sent.

Changing sending behavior

If you change email tracking from “Enable Tracking” to “No tracking”:

• Links will no longer be wrapped in tracking links. Opens or clicks will not be recorded for that particular email.

If you change “Don’t send to unsubscribed” to “Send even if unsubscribed”:

By default, we don’t send to unsubscribed users. You can, however, change this behaviour. If you do:

• Unsubscribed people will start receiving your particular email.
• If you have the first email in a campaign set to “Don’t send to unsubscribed”, but the second email has “Send even if unsubscribed”, those who have unsubscribed will skip the first email and receive the second one and any others that are meant for unsubscribed people.

Changing message/action content

• While we autosave changes to a message in a draft campaign, we do NOT autosave changes to a message in a live campaign; you must click Save. After you save a message, we’ll automatically update drafted messages to reflect your changes, but we cannot update messages that have already been sent.
• People who received the message previously won’t receive an updated version, even if it changed position in the workflow.

Changing the Conversion Goal

We do not retroactively count conversions. Conversion metrics only include people who convert after you add or change a conversion goal. They do not include people who previously met your goal criteria. Updating a conversion goal will not update your conversion metrics for messages that were previously marked as converted.

If your campaign’s exit criteria is based on your conversion action, people who already performed your new conversion action will not exit the campaign. They must perform the conversion action—performing an event, entering a segment, or leaving a segment—after you change your conversion goal before they’ll exit your campaign.

If you change the underlying configuration of a campaign’s conversion segment

If your goal is to enter or leave a segment, updating the configuration of that segment doesn’t update active journeys—people currently in the campaign. This means that your goal’s changes won’t take affect for people in the campaign at the time of your change: people who would have matched your new segment conditions aren’t retroactively marked as converted. Also, any messages sent after a person matched the updated segment conditions will not be marked as converted because the person joined the segment before they were delivered those messages.

Moving a message in the Workflow

• People who received the message previously won’t receive it again, even if the content is different now.

Moving a delay in the Workflow

• People who previously received any message following the delay’s new location in the Workflow won’t receive it again, even if the content is different now.