Playbook campaigns
Overview
A playbook automates messages and actions for your customers throughout their journey. Each audience represents an important stage in this journey, and playbooks should match these audiences to reach specific goals.
EX: Use a welcoming playbook for your Subscribers audience to greet new subscribers effectively.
Accessing playbooks
Navigate to Marketing > Campaigns > New Campaign > Playbook.
Key points
Creating a Playbook
Learn more about creating a playbook.
Playbooks help automate various tasks, including:
- Welcoming new subscribers.
- Converting subscribers into customers.
- Onboarding new customers.
- Recovering abandoned carts.
- Expanding relationships with existing customers.
- Encouraging reviews from VIP customers to boost awareness.
Playbooks work best when paired with Audiences, which represent key stages in the customer lifecycle, such as:
- Subscribers.
- Customers.
- Abandoned carts.
- VIP customers.
- Slipping customers.
- Repeat customers.
When a playbook is paired with an audience, it can either expand (e.g., for the Customer audience) or contract (e.g., for Abandoned carts) that audience. Aim to pair at least one playbook with every audience for optimal results.
How do playbooks work?
Playbooks help you send messages to your audiences on a regular schedule to achieve specific goals. They include:
- Entry Filter: Controls when someone enters the Playbook.
- Exit Filter: Controls when someone exits the Playbook.
- Email Messages: The content you send.
- Actions: Tasks like updating a field or adding a new lead.
- Message Cadence: The timing for sending messages.
- Attribution Goal: The objective you want to achieve.
People enter a Playbook when they meet the entry criteria and are not already part of it.
How playbook messages are sent
Messages in playbooks are organized by priority—higher messages have higher priority. You can easily adjust their order by dragging and dropping them.
When someone enters a playbook, messages are sent based on this priority, as long as they are subscribed and meet the message filter criteria.
By default, messages are scheduled to send at least 3 days apart. The first message goes out immediately upon entry, with subsequent messages sent every 3 days based on priority and eligibility.
This setup allows you to focus on creating great content for your audiences consistently.
You can adjust the message cadence under Send messages in the playbook.
How to send messages at specific times e.g. day 1, day 3, day 5
Messages in playbooks are typically sent at regular intervals to keep your audience engaged. However, you can also schedule messages for specific days. Here’s an example for a 14-day trial:
- Day 1: Welcome – Introduce them to the trial.
- Day 3: Tips to Get Started – Encourage them to become active.
- Day 7: Halfway Progress – Summarize their activity so far.
- Day 10: 4 Days Left – Remind them their trial will end soon.
- Day 13: Last Day of Trial – Notify them that the trial ends tomorrow.
- Day 14: Trial Expired – Inform them their trial has ended.
- Day 16: Feedback – Request feedback if they didn’t subscribe.
This approach helps ensure timely communication throughout the trial period.
Learn more about how to create a 14 day trial sequence.
Playbook actions
Actions in Ortto playbooks enable you to update data in your customer data platform (CDP) and within specific data sources or external applications that support webhooks.
To add an action:
- Go to the Actions tab.
- Click New Action.
- On the New playbook action page, select from system or data source actions under the relevant tab.
Select the desired action and complete the setup. Some actions offer the option to send a test to ensure your configuration is correct.
Learn more about working with actions and how to update contact data from a webhook.
When to use a journey instead of a playbook
While playbooks are excellent for automating messages, a journey may be a better fit for your needs in certain situations.
Consider using a journey when:
- The number of contacts waiting in your playbook multiplied by the number of messages exceeds 1,000,000.
If your playbook surpasses this threshold, we recommend switching to a journey campaign.
Benefits of using a journey:
- SMS and Push notifications: Send messages via multiple channels.
- Variable delays: Customize the timing between messages.
- Conditional logic: Control the flow based on recipient actions.
- Scalability: Handle larger volumes of contacts and messages without delays or missed communications.