Delayed Actions

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This article will define what a delayed action is, inform you of some prerequisites of delayed actions, what are the rules that surround delayed actions, and give some examples of delayed actions, for lack of a better word, in action.

In this article:

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Requirements

• You must be utilizing a Connector in AudienceStream and configure the Actions > WHEN condition for the Connector to In Audience at the end of visit, as shown in the following example:
  

  

  To learn more about Connectors and the WHEN action, see About Connectors. 

Only vistor-level attributes can be sent in a delayed action. Visit-level attributes are out of scope by the time the connector action fires.

What is a Delayed Action?

A delayed action is literally that... an action that is delayed based on a set of conditions and/or time criteria. Delayed actions come in two general types:

• Scheduled - Scheduled Delayed Actions trigger at a later date if a scheduled condition is met.
• Triggered - Triggered Delayed Actions trigger based on conditions met at a later time.

• A delayed action is scheduled only if the visitor is in the audience at the end of current visit.
• Also the delayed action is triggered only if the visitor is still in the audience at the scheduled time.

Order of Operations for Delayed Actions

DELAY Action for X Hours/Days

When selecting "DELAY Action for 1 Days", if a visitor is in the audience when the visit ends, a delayed action is scheduled for 1 day later.

The results of selecting "DELAY Action for 1 Days" in the action report dashboard are:

• After 1 day, if the visitor is still in the audience, the action will be triggered. This will show up as a "Successfully triggered" count in the action report dashboard.
• If after 1 day, the visitor is no longer in the audience, the action will not be triggered. This will show up as a "Visitor not in audience" count in the action report.
• If the delayed action is a frequency capped action, cooldown and priority will also determine if the action gets scheduled/triggered or not. If delayed action cannot be scheduled due to priority, this will show up as "Suppressed by other action" count in the action report. If the delayed action cannot be triggered due to cooldown, this will show up as a "Cooldown" count in the action report.

In the action report example above, for the hourly window of 3 PM to 4 PM, 26 scheduled delayed actions were triggered successfully. 3 scheduled delayed actions were not triggered because visitors were no longer in the audience. 24 scheduled delayed actions were not triggered because visitors were in a cooldown period.

AND was not a member of this Audience at start of visit

More often than not, we find the condition "In Audience at the end of visit" is too easily met. Thus, we added a new option to the "In Audience at the end of visit" condition called "AND was not a member of this Audience at start of visit".

The results of selecting "AND was not a member of this Audience at start of visit" are:

• If a visitor was not in the audience at the start of the current visit AND is in the audience when the visit ends, a delayed action is scheduled for 1 day later.
• After 1 day, if the visitor is still in the audience, the delayed action will be triggered.
• With this new option, along with cooldown, you have better control when delayed actions get scheduled and triggered.

FAQ

What happens when a visitor returns before the delayed action has triggered?

In the "DELAY Action for 1 Days" example above, a delayed action is scheduled 1 day (24 hours) later at the end of the visitor's first visit. If the visitor returns for a second visit 12 hours after the first visit ended AND the visitor meets the condition "In Audience at end of visit" when the second visit ends, then the original delayed action will be rescheduled to 1 day (24 hours) after the second visit ends. In other words, the delayed action is now scheduled to 36 hours after the first visit ends.

What happens when a visitor returns after the delayed action has already been triggered?

In this case, the visitor returns for a second visit after the original delayed action has been triggered. If the visitor meets the condition "In Audience at the end of visit" when the second visit ends, then a new delayed action will be scheduled.

Can I use decimals in the "DELAY Action for Hours/Days" text field?

No. The value is stored as an integer. So you can only use whole numbers like 1, 2, 3, etc. Number values like 0.25, 0.75, 1.5 are not allowed. The lowest value you can use is 1. 

What is the longest time period that a delay action will work?

365 days or 8760 hours