Overview
How often a dealership's customer receives an email is based on the shopper's intent: If and how they engage with emails, their activity on the dealership website, their interaction with ads, and of course their status in the dealership's CRM all contribute to the calculations which determine which campaigns they should be eligible to receive and how often they may receive them. There's no one day when everyone gets an email as the System Campaigns are not designed as a blast program; Audience Activation system emails are dynamic and intent-based.
Important to note: We send emails daily Monday - Friday. We don't system email or SMS on Saturdays and Sundays or national Holidays- do not expect engagement over the weekend. Do not expect to see email engagement first thing on Monday if you launched on a Friday.
Two Specific Scenarios to Understand
After Purchasing a Vehicle:
1. If marked as Vehicle sold in CRM (keeping in mind, may not be DMS sold), customers will enter the imminent sale category and not get Sales emails within 12 months from this time. This includes:
- a. Acquisition
- b. Finance
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c. Cash
Note: we will mark a group shopper as not in market for marketing campaigns for 12 months across the group.
2. Exceptions to the above 12 month rule include:
- those who lease a vehicle for LESS THAN 2 YEARS - these customers may receive a lease renewal email within 12 months.
- if a Dealership adjusts the "engagement since last sale" default setting to less than 12 months. Read more about this setting here.
3. A shopper may be eligible for service related emails within 12 months of purchase
4. All subsequent email interaction based on intent (how did they purchase the vehicle, what VDP did they visit in the meantime, did they open email, click email)
5. By default, we will not engage within 14 days of the "last contacted" date listed in the CRM. This is to let the BDC or Sales team begin their reach-out and engagement without inundating customers with too many communications. This configuration may be changed in 'Email Frequency' setting in Audience Activation Dashboard.
After Becoming an Opportunity in the CRM:
Sales related engagements:
c. Finance (if vehicle purchase details available inside CRM, could be eligible for cold campaigns based on last payment)
3. The content and frequency of all subsequent email interaction based on intent (what VDP did they visit in the meantime, did they open an email, click email, see an ad, click on an ad)
When a customer is marked as imminent sale category - they do not receive sales emails for 12 months
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- If customer lead status is like ‘delivered’, ‘on order’, ‘pending finance’, or ‘sold’ then the customer should enter the ‘imminent sale’ category.
- If customer lead status is like ‘active’ AND the lead sub status is like ‘sold’ then the custom should enter the ‘imminent sale’ category.
Sunset Policy
In order to protect both customer and dealer from unwanted emails and to maintain a healthy email reputation we are implementing a sunset policy:
How it works
- When we send the first email in an engagement series to a shopper, a 12-month Sunset window begins.
- We will keep sending emails (up to 5 messages) while monitoring opens.
- If the shopper opens any email, visits the website, or converts (form fill), the Sunset window is stopped/reset and normal email engagement continues.
- If the shopper receives all five emails without opening any, we suspend further email sends for the remainder of that 12-month window (counted from the date the first email was sent).
- After the 12 months elapse, the shopper is removed from Sunset and we attempt re‑engagement.
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Sunset applies only to email. Shoppers in Sunset may still receive SMS.
SUNSET ONLY APPLIES TO EMAIL AND NOT SMS. SHOPPERS IN SUNSET MAY STILL RECEIVE SMS MESSAGES.