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Why is my segment triggered flow not sending emails?

  • 12 October 2021
  • 6 replies
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  1. Set Flow > Email to ‘Live’
  2. Set Flow > Trigger Setup to ‘Birthday Month’ segment
  3. Set demo profile birthdate to ‘10/09/2021’
    1. My demo profile shows in ‘Preview Trigger Setup’ screen.
      It is the only profile with a birthday value
  4. Demo profile shows in Segment screen
  5. Wait 15 minutes (or more)
  6. No recipient activity displayed in Analytics
  7. No emails received.

 

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Best answer by stephen.trumble 13 October 2021, 21:44

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To answer any “Why aren’t you using the Date Property Flow Trigger” replies:

My client wants to send the email on the first day of the profiles’ birthday month and not a set range before/after or on the exact date.

retention
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Hi @Klavinoob - welcome to the community!

Since you’re using a Segment Triggered Flow, a few things to keep in mind.

  • As people enter the Segment, they are going to go through the Flow immediately, so if you had this Flow running, it will still be “continuous” so I’m not sure if that’s what you intended to do based on the goal of sending one email simultaneously for all Birthday Months.
  • Anyone who’s been in the Segment (and hence the Flow), won’t go through the Flow again. 

If you’re not getting an email, check the following:

  • Profile Hasn’t Been In Segment Already: Check to see if you’re using a new profile if you’ve done a test already with an existing profile.  Because you can’t go through a Segment Triggered Flow twice, this may be your reason.
  • Suppressed? Double-Opted In? Make sure the Profile is not suppressed. Do you have double-optin enabled and haven’t yet confirmed email consent?
  • Updated Segment Definition? Newly created or updated/edited Segments sometimes don’t queue the members into the Flow by default (to ensure mistakes in Segment definitions don’t automatically start getting emails).  You can try back-populating the Flow.  
  • Segment/Flow Race Condition? I saw that you set the Flow Live first, then the Segment which is correct.  But, you may want to turn on the Flow and wait a bit just in case.  If you did it in a few seconds, there may have been a race condition between the time your Flow was “Live” and your Segment was matched its first Profile.  I recommend you put a small “Time Delay” in your Flow to buffer this (5-15 minute delay).  
  • Drill Into the Flow Message Details: Look at your Flow Message’s “View Analytics → Recipient Activity → Other” tab to see if any messages were Skipped, Bounced, etc. 
  • Drill into the Profile Details: Or, look at that Profile and click on Messages on the upper-right corner and see if any upcoming emails are Scheduled (or Skipped).  
  • “Patience You Must Have...” - Yoda. I saw that you waited 15 minutes (which is approximately the max amount of time segments can take to process during peak period), but it might take longer?

Finally, if you’re sending an email (or two) once a month on the First of each Month - you might want to consider just Scheduling this as a Campaign to that Segment. Unless your Flow has really sophisticated logic or a sequence of many emails, a Campaign email to that Segment (of Birthday Month) might be easier to do than to setup a new Flow each month.

Let us know if you got it working!

 

Joseph Hsieh // retentioncommerce.com // twitter: @retention
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Hi Joseph,

My goal is trigger an email containing a unique coupon code to any profile entering the segment.

The segment is configured to add any profile when the birthday value enters the current month and remove any profile when the birthday value passes out of the current month. This appears to work with my demo profile as expected, just no emails are triggering.

I configured this on Friday but never received any emails before attempt #2 today.

I set my profile birthday to 09/09/2021 and it was removed from the segment.

I set it back to 10/09/2021 and it returned to the segment, but no emails triggered.

But you’re saying a profile entering the segment can only trigger an email from the flow once? Assuming the same isn’t true for a campaign (based on your comment below).

  • Profile Hasn’t Been In Segment Already: Noted above. Segment has only ever had 1 member, my test profile.
  • Suppressed? Double-Opted In? No suppression configured.
  • Updated Segment Definition? As noted above, this piece actually works as expected. Segment has only ever had 1 member: my test profile.
  • Segment/Flow Race Condition? Still nothing after 5 hours 
  • Drill Into the Flow Message Details: 0 for all
  • Drill into the Profile Details: My test profile is only profile with a birthday value. No birthday emails scheduled or skipped or sent.
  • “Patience You Must Have...” - Yoda. Still nothing after 5 hours

Finally, if you’re sending an email (or two) once a month on the First of each Month
Correct. That is what I’m looking for.

- you might want to consider just Scheduling this as a Campaign to that Segment.

I will check on campaigns. Coworker told me to use a segment, so maybe I got started off on the wrong foot.

Unless your Flow has really sophisticated logic or a sequence of many emails,

Not complex. Two components. Birthday falls within current month. Send email.

a Campaign email to that Segment (of Birthday Month) might be easier to do than to setup a new Flow each month.
Maybe the syntax of a segment is misleading? Is ‘this month’ dynamic or simply the current month when it is configured?

Thanks for the help!

stephen.trumble
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Hey @Klavinoob 

Thank you for coming to the Klaviyo Community to ask for help with setting up your Birthday flow!

@retention gave superior insight into troubleshoot your segment based flow for birthdays. I just wanted to provide some additional information and resources that may be helpful. By using a segment based flow trigger, your contacts will only be able to go through the flow once so you will have to recreate a new flow every year for birthdays. For what you are looking for, this doesn’t seem to be the best fit. You can utilize campaign sends each month to your segment that would allow you to resend but since they are a one time send, you will have to manually update the campaign every month.  However, Klaviyo has a built in Birthday flow that utilizes a date property trigger that can be repeated yearly and automates the process for you. Here is an example of the trigger:

This type of flow will allow you to send your contacts a Birthday email with their unique coupon code on their birthday, making their experience more personalized and automating the process for you. Here are some additional community post that that about date triggered flows, specifically for birthdays. 

Hope this help provide an addition way to accomplish what i think you are trying to accomplish. Thank you so much for collaborating on the Klaviyo Community. It makes us all stronger!

-Stephen
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Hi Stephen,

“By using a segment based flow trigger, your contacts will only be able to go through the flow once so you will have to recreate a new flow every year for birthdays. 

You can utilize campaign sends each month to your segment that would allow you to resend but since they are a one time send, you will have to manually update the campaign every month.“

Ok, flows and campaigns only trigger once per contact ever, so neither can actually achieve what the client has requested, correct?

Thank you.

stephen.trumble
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Hey @Klavinoob 

Slight correction, a one time send for a campaign doesn’t mean that it can’t be resent, just that you have to manually update the campaign if you need to resend it. Flows will only allow an email address to go through once unless it is a date triggered flow in which you can have it repeat yearly, as in the birthday flow mentioned before. As campaigns are not triggered by an action taken by your customer, ie updating their birthday as a profile property, you can use this to schedule the birthday emails to send at the beginning of the month and then go back in monthly to clone and send to your new birthday month. However I truly believe a date triggered flow for a birthday series is the best way to go with this as it remains dynamic and adjusts to your segments without much hands on activity once it is set up. 

-Stephen

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