SAP Marketing Cloud: Exclude contacts flagged for merge in segmentation

[former_member558862]

We have a campaign setup running for contacts that have submitted a specific form (and other criteria).It is no trigger-based campaigns but just 4 campaigns each running every hour so that the campaign logic is executed each 15 minutes. Each campaign creates a lead in C4C.

Currently, we assume that the campaign is also executed for contacts that have still a merge flag. Is it right that contacts with a merge flag are not excluded in segmentation?

The problem is that a contact was maybe already created as a lead in C4C so we do not want to send it again. However, dependent on the input it may be that a contact is flagged for merge so the actual merge does not happen directly but just when the merge report is running again (each 15 minutes).

Example of a contact that already exists in the system:

• Form submitted again at 12:05 (flagged for merge)
• Campaign executed at 12:15 (contact included because no C4C ID or interaction)
• Merge report executed at 12:17

Our segmentation would exclude contacts with a lead interaction or C4C BP ID but since an already existing contact was not directly merged, it maybe is not excluded with the next campaign execution.

So if the segmentation does not exclude contacts mapped for merge, I would see few options to handle the problem:

1. Exclude contacts with merge flag in segmentation - does anyone know if there is some standard field or if we can make one avaialble with a custom view? Which table?
2. We could exclude contacts in segmentation that got created in the last 20 minutes. When they are included in the segmentation, the merge report should have been definitely executed.
3. We could try to align campaign execution with the time of the scheduling of the merge report, however, I guess there would always be a small "time gap".

I would prefer option 1 or 2. What do you think?

Best
Christian

[KunalBansal · Accepted solution]

Hello chackbusch,

Long time, hope all well at your side 🙂

I understand your usecase and below are my comments based on my experience -

1. This is not possible as you can't segment based on Merge flag.
2. This is the best approach to exclude contacts created in last 20 mins.
3. Aligning the execution time may work now, but not a future proof solution.

Hope this was helpful. Thank you.

Kunal Bansal

SAP CX Solution Architect

[former_member558862 · Accepted solution]

Hi kunal_bansal

hope you are good! Thanks for your point of view - I also guess this is the way to go. It was implemented with the filter for the creation date and so far testing looks good.

Best
Christian