When adding messages to a drip campaign, you can use filtering criteria to target a specific audience. Each message in a drip campaign has its own recipient list and this level of flexibility lets you implement a communications strategy tailored for key audience segments. This article covers the filtering options available for campaign messages.

Subscriber Responses

Using subscriber responses filtering criteria is a valuable way to target specific segments of your subscribers, helping you retrieve unique information and communicate with distinct groups of subscribers. These filtering criteria allow you to segment your recipient list based on how the subscriber answered certain questions during the sign-up process. For example, if you ask subscribers for their ZIP Code during the subscription process, you could send a bulletin targeted to subscribers within a specific ZIP Code.

Requirements

In order for questions filtering criteria to be available when sending a bulletin, the following requirements must be met:

  • You must have questions created for your account. This must be done by an Account Administrator. For more information, see Questions Overview.
  • The question(s) must be assigned to your bulletin topic (this is done from within the settings for that particular topic).
  • The question itself must be either the Select One or Select One or More category. Free Response questions can not be used to filter recipients due to the wide variety of possible answers.

Using Subscriber Responses Filtering Criteria

Once you select the question that meets your needs for a particular email, you can choose which recipients you would like to send your email to based on their responses.

  1. Select the question as your filtering criteria


     
  2. Restrict your recipients to subscribers with a particular answer

Tip: To select multiple responses, use the following keyboard commands:

  • For Windows: Ctrl + click
  • For Mac: Command + click

If you choose multiple responses, these will be connected with OR logic. This means that any subscriber who selected one of the responses you chose will be returned by the filter. 

Subscriber Details

Subscriber Added or Updated

You can include subscribers in your recipient list based on when their accounts were added to your account or updated. Subscribers are "added" when they sign up for their first topic under your account or when an administrator for your account uploads or manually adds them. Subscribers are "updated” if their records are changed in any way, for example, if a response to a question is modified or if a topic subscription is added.

Filtering Relative to a Time Frame

To include recipients whose accounts were created or updated before, after, or on a specific date:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria drop-down and select Added or Updated under Subscriber Details.
  2. Decide if you want to filter based on a specific date or a range of dates.
    • To filter relative to a specific date, select before, on, or after. In the second field, select a given date.
    • To filter to a range of dates, select between or not between.
    • To filter for a range of time after a certain date, select in last days and then enter the number of days.
    • To filter for a range of time before a certain date, select # of days ago and then enter the number of days. 
  3. Enter your time frame in any date fields that appear by either typing the date or selecting the date using the calendar icon.

    Subscriber_added_a_given_date_range.png

Filtering Relative to a Bulletin

To include subscribers whose accounts were created or updated before or after a specific bulletin was sent:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria drop-down and select Added or Updated under Subscriber Details. 
  2. In the first field, select before or after.

    Subscriber_added_after_sent_bulletin.png
  3. In the second field, select a sent bulletin.
  4. From the third field, select a bulletin or select Search All Bulletins to find one.

    Subscriber_added_bulletin.png
 

Subscription Added

The Subscription Added filtering criteria lets you target new subscriptions in a topic or group of topics. To include recipients who added subscriptions to the selected topic(s) before, after, or on a specific date:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria drop-down and select Subscription Added under Subscriber Details.
  2. Decide if you want to filter based on a specific date or a range of dates.
    • To filter relative to a specific date, select before, on, or after. In the second field, select a given date.
    • To filter to a range of dates, select between or not between.
    • To filter for a range of time, select in last days and then enter the number of days.
    • To filter for a specific day relative to when a message is sent, select # of days ago and then enter the number of days. 
  3. Enter your time frame in any date fields that appear by either typing the date or selecting the date using the calendar icon.

    Subscriber_added_a_given_date_range.png
 

Subscriber Destination

The Subscriber Destination filtering criteria allows you to filter subscribers based on subscription type – email or wireless (SMS) – or a character string. You can search for strings that begin, end, are contained within, or are not contained within an email address or SMS subscription. For example:

  •     select email only to include only email subscribers.
  •     select wireless only to include only SMS subscribers.
  •     select all contacts to further refine your selection with a character string.
  •     select ends with gmail​.com to include all subscribers whose email addresses end in “gmail​.com”.

Note: You can use the Subscriber Destination criteria more than once for filtering. For more information about using multiple filtering criteria, see Using Filtering Criteria.

To use the Subscriber Destination filtering criteria:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria drop-down and select Subscriber Destination under Subscriber details.
Selecting 'Subscriber Destination' from the filtering criteria drop-down menu
  1. Select from the options: all contacts, email only, or wireless only in the next field.

    Selecting from the drop-down menu options 'all contacts', 'email only', or 'wireless only' for the subscriber destination filter
  2. If you selected all contacts, you can further refine by selecting begins with, contains, does not contain, or ends with in the next field. Then, enter the character string you'd like to use as your filtering criteria.
Selecting 'does not contain' from the criteria drop-down menu

Bulletin Activity

If you are building criteria around click activity, you can use engagement for a particular link as the basis for your criteria. This requires the use of link tracking parameters. For more information about this option, see Segmenting Subscribers Based on an Individual Link.

Tip: Keep in mind that any criteria you set on the same segment or bulletin is combined with AND logic. For more information, see Using Filtering Criteria.

Filtering Relative to a Bulletin

To target subscribers for your recipient list based on their interaction with a specific bulletin:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria field and under Bulletin activity, select one of the following actions:
    • Clicked - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not click a link embedded in a bulletin.
    • Opened - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not open a bulletin.
    • Sent - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber was or was not sent a bulletin.
  2. In the first field that appears for your criteria, select whether the action did or did not happen for your targeted subscribers.
  3. Leave the second field to the bulletin:.
  4. In the third field, choose your bulletin of interest or click Search Bulletins to find one.


    If you search for a bulletin, remember you can change the time frame for your search in the fields above the bulletins list.

Filtering Relative to a Time Frame 

Note: This option is only available if your organization has the Advanced Package for govDelivery.

If your account is using segments—part of the Advanced Package for govDelivery, you can filter subscribers based on interaction with any bulletin in a given time frame. This lets you easily identify actively engaged subscribers. Segment users can also use this advanced criteria as a filter in bulletins.

To target subscribers based on bulletin criteria relative to a time frame:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria field and under Bulletin activity, select one of the following actions:
    • Clicked - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not click a link in a bulletin.
    • Opened - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not open a bulletin.
    • Sent - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber was or was not sent a bulletin.
  2. In the first field that appears for your criteria, select whether the action did or did not happen for your targeted subscribers.
  3. In the next field, select any bulletin for the selected topics, in the last. 
  4. In the next field, enter your desired time frame.

    FilteringActivitybydate.jpg 

Transactional Message Activity

  • Transactional Messages - Messages that are automatically sent by the system when specific events occur. For the purposes of segmenting subscribers, these messages include:
     
    MessageDescription
    Password ResetWhen a user forgets their password or wants to change it, they will receive this message, containing a link that allows them to reset their password.
    Preferences Change ConfirmationWhen a subscriber makes changes to their account, such as changing the frequency of their bulletins, or setting, removing, or changing a password, this message confirms that the subscriber has updated his or her account.
    Subscriber DeletedThis message is sent when the subscriber has chosen to delete their profile. The message confirms that their email address has been deleted.
    Subscription AcknowledgmentWhen a subscriber originally signs up for subscriptions, adds new ones, or removes subscriptions, this message is sent to them to acknowledge and confirm the change.
    Welcome New SubscriberThis email is sent when a new subscriber submits their information on the Confirm Login page. It notifies the subscriber that their account has been created.

    You can read more about govDelivery's transactional messages in the Transaction Message Templates article.

  • Targeted Messages - Messages sent by your organization using our Targeted Messaging Service.

To target subscribers based on their interaction with an individual transactional message:

  1. Click the Apply Criteria field and under Transactional Message Activity, select one of the following actions:
    • Clicked - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not click a link embedded in a transactional message.
    • Opened - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber did or did not open a transactional message.
    • Sent - Create your criteria around whether the subscriber was or was not sent a transactional message.
  2. In the first field that appears for your criteria, select whether the action did or did not happen for your targeted subscribers.
  3. Click Select Message and choose the transactional message of interest.
  4. In the next field, choose either in the last (filters for a range of days) or # of days ago (filters from a specific day) from the dropdown list, and then enter the desired timeframe.
    Note: If filtering for an event that Did not happen, you can only filter for a range of days using the in the last dropdown option.
  5. Click Select a duration and choose your desired time frame, up to a year.
Note: Filtering by transactional messages is only available for messages sent via email, not SMS. Selecting a transactional message filter will exclude wireless subscribers from the final list the recipients.
 
Tip: Keep in mind that any criteria you set on the same segment or bulletin is combined with AND logic. For more information, see Using Filtering Criteria.

Campaign Message Activity

This filtering criteria is only available when creating a custom Drip Campaign, which is not a standard feature in govDelivery.

To filter for recipients based on whether they were sent, received, or clicked within a campaign message:

  1. Click the drop-down next to Apply Criteria...
  2. Select Campaign Messages under Campaign Message activity.
  3. In the first field, choose the action you want to filter on (were sent, were not sent, clicked, or did not click).
  4.  In the second field, choose the campaign message.
    Note: You can only select messages in the current campaign.
  5. In the third field, choose when the targeted subscribers received, did not receive, clicked, or did not click the campaign message:
    • Select Ever if you're not interested in a specific timeframe during which the subscriber may or may not have received the campaign message.
    • Select At least to target only subscribers based on their engagement with the message before a specific date. Then set the outside limit of that range by selecting a certain number of days ago.
It is important to note that Click activity is not tracked for wireless subscribers. Therefore, selecting Click activity criteria will exclude wireless subscribers from the final list of recipients.

Using Multiple Filtering Criteria

You can use up to five filtering criteria to build your recipient list. There are a few things to be aware of when combining filtering criteria.

  1. Most of the filtering criteria leverage an “AND” condition.
    This means that all of the filtering criteria must be met before a subscriber can be included in your filtered recipient list.

    FilteringMultipleCriteria.jpg

     
  2. Because of this, most filtering criteria can be used only once.
    For example, you can use the Subscriber Added date only once. If you could add a second Subscriber Added date, no subscriber records could match your criteria since subscribers can’t be “added” on two different dates.
  3. You can use more than one Subscriber Response for a question in your filtering criteria.
    When you do so, these options work as an “OR” condition. Filtering will include subscribers who responded with any of the answers you select for a single question.
  4. You can use more than one Subscriber Destination criteria.
    When you do so, these destination criteria are connected with “OR” logic. For example, you could search for subscribers using either Gmail or Yahoo mail.

    Filtering with multiple criteria including subscriber destination
     

Filtering Criteria FAQ

Q: If we have questions enabled, are the question filtering criteria automatically enabled? Or do we need to set up corresponding macros before the question criteria work?

Question criteria are automatically enabled for all accounts that use questions. You do not need to create any macros for the question criteria to work correctly.

Q: For the Subscriber Updated criteria, what determines when the subscriber profile was “updated”?

The subscriber's profile is considered to be “updated” if it was changed in any way. Some examples of change include:

  • The subscriber record was changed.
  • The subscriber’s responses to Questions were modified.

Q: I am trying to use the Subscriber Added criteria to filter my recipient list based on subscribers added after a bulletin sent by one of my colleagues. Why isn't that bulletin displaying in the drop-down list of bulletins?

Only bulletins that you have permission to view will display in your drop-down list of bulletins. It could be that you don’t have permission to view your colleague’s bulletins.

Q: I am trying to use filtering criteria around a specific bulletin. (For example, “Subscribers who opened the bulletin….”) Why isn't the bulletin I’m looking for displaying in the list of bulletins to filter for?

Only bulletins that have completed sending will display in your list of bulletins to filter for. For most bulletins, it should only take a few minutes for them to appear in your list for use with filtering. For larger bulletin sends, it may take a bit longer. If you do not see the bulletin you recently sent, wait a bit and refresh your bulletin list, and you should see it appear shortly.

Q: Does the Open or Click Activity criteria include wireless or digest subscribers?

No. The Subscriber Open or Click activity criteria excludes all digest and wireless subscribers. Selecting Open or Click activity criteria will exclude wireless subscribers from the final list of recipients.

Q: Does the Subscriber Destination filter criteria include digest recipients?

Yes. The Subscriber Destination criteria will filter for email, digest, and wireless recipients.

Q: Does the Random Recipient Selection criteria apply only to email subscribers?

Yes, the Random Recipient Selection criteria applies only to email subscribers. It excludes wireless and digest subscribers.

Q: Can you use advanced filtering for both General Bulletins and Topic Bulletins?

Yes, advanced filtering is available for both General Bulletins and Topic Bulletins.

Q: When you remove a filtering criteria, does the recipient list automatically update?

Yes, when you add or remove a filter, the recipient list will automatically update.