Automated Program messages are managed through either the program editor or through your outbound triggered messages. Review the following best practices guidelines to ensure consistent metrics and reporting while editing your program messages.

Instructions:

Add a Message to Your Program

1. Go to Automation > Automated Programs & either create a new or edit an existing program.
2. In your Automated Program Dashboard, in the Build tab, click Program messages.
3. Click + Add Message 
4. Choose the type of message you will be adding to your program: Blank, Template, Previously Sent, Scheduled, Draft, or a Program message:

5. Blank messages automatically open the Email Composer
6. For all other message types, select the checkbox next to the message you are adding, then click Submit:

Edit your Program Message Using Best Practices

1. After adding your Program Message, hover over the message and click Edit to open the Act-On Email Composer. For additional information on editing emails, see Email Branding and Overview.

2. When finished making changes, click Save.

Any messages associated with your Automated Program are independent versions of the draft or template used to create it. Editing the original draft or template will not change a message that is attached to a program.

Exercise caution when deleting a message from your program, as you will not be able to recover any edits or metrics attached to the deleted message. You may download an HTML and text copy of your email message for editing purposes; however, doing so will not preserve existing message reports.

We recommend editing messages without deleting them as best practice.

Download an HTML Version of Your Email

In the new Email Composer:

1. In your Automated Program Dashboard, in the Build tab, click Program messages.
2. In Program Messages hover over the message you want to download & click  Edit (see picture above).
3. At the top right click Preview.
4. In Preview mode, at the top right click  download > Download HTML.
5. An HTML file downloads in your browser.
6. You may now delete this message from your program.

For emails created in the legacy email composer:

1. In your Automated Program Dashboard, in the Build tab, click Program messages.
2. In Program Messages hover over the message you want to download & click  Edit (see picture above).
3. In the Design tab, on the right, click Download Creatives.
4. Click Yes to download a zip file containing the HTML and text versions of your email.
5. You may now delete this message from your program.

Track Edits to Program Steps

When a particular message is used multiple times in your program, you may notice that only one report is generated to represent the many instances where that message appears.

You have the option to track each instance of the message in your program separately from the others.

1. In your Automated Program Dashboard, in the Build tab, click Program messages.
2. Click + Add Message, then Program Message.
3. Select program messages to create and add new copies from the originals.
4. Click Submit.

If the message was created directly in the program:

1. Open the email message either in your Automated Program Dashboard, or go to Outbound > Other Message > Triggered Messages> Programs*.
2. Select New Message to create a copy in Drafts or Templates.
3. Add additional messages using the newly created copy.

* Here is the complete list of messages for your Automated Programs:

Add a Send Email Step to the Program Flow 

Automated Journey Builder:

1. In your Automated Program Dashboard, in the Build tab, click Program flow.
2. Click Add new step where you want the send email step to be in the program.
3. In the Add New Step dialog, select Send Email: 

4. Name your new step.
5. From the Select Message dropdown menu:
   • either select the email you want
   • or if the email isn't available, select Click to Add New Message To The Program, add it & then select it.
6. Click Submit to save the step.

Classic Editor:

1. Drag the Send Email block into the appropriate positions throughout your program steps
2. Select Edit to choose a message to apply to the step

Note: If your program's next step is a conditional branch and dependent on audience engagement, give additional time to respond by adding a Wait step after a Send Email step.

Optional Steps:

• Conditional Messages
  Sends an alternate message based on the contact's engagement history or list membership.
• A/B Test Messages
  Tests variations on a message until a winning message is selected based on your audience's clickthrough engagement.
  When in an Automated Program, all the contacts go through the A/B Test step. Contacts are not split by sample size, as is the case with A/B Email testing outside of an Automated Program. The A/B Test step distributes the emails evenly to all the contacts. Once a winning email is identified, future contacts going through that step are sent the winning email.

View your Message Results

In your Automated Program Dashboard > Report tab > Email performance, you will find up-to-date performance metrics for the emails in your program.

At the top right, you can Download a full Message Report (& Recipient Report) as a CSV file.

In the Individual Emails area, click an email in the list to drill down into individual Sent Message reports. Learn more about the information in your message reports.

Next Steps

Ensure the best results by Testing Your Automated Program.