The Wait Timer is used in Campaign Automations to tell the automation to wait a specific amount of time before continuing for the individual participant (the Contact in the Campaign Automation). Timers can be added to the canvas individually, or they can be included within Series. To learn more about Series and Timers, read this article.
Goals
- Learn how to add a Wait Timer to a Campaign Automation
- Learn how to set up a Wait Timer's properties
Add the Wait Timer to a Campaign Automation
To add a Wait Timer to a Campaign Automation, click on the Timer icon in the sidebar and drag it onto the Campaign Automation Canvas.
Wait Timer Properties
Once the action has been added to the canvas, click on it and you will see the right panel change to show the properties of this action.
Display Name (required): The display name is entered by default, however you can change the display name of anything you like.
Pause and Wait for (required): Enter the amount of time you want the automation to wait before continuing. Also, you can specify the time period to minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.
NOTE: Campaign Automations are designed to work on the timescales used in real-world marketing campaigns, and you may experience inconsistent behavior when running tests with short negative path timers. Some environments may require additional time to post email events and/or posted forms. We recommend using a minimum wait time of at least 30 minutes for event triggers; 60 minutes if email activity volume within your environment is high.
NOTE: If you edit a Wait Timer in a Live Campaign Automation, any participants who are already in the Wait Timer when you edit it will be unaffected by the change and still wait for the original time specified. Any participants who reach the Wait Timer after you edit it will wait for the newly specified time.
NOTE: Time spent in a Wait Timer while Paused will still count toward the Participant's time waited. In other words, if you have a 4-day Wait Timer with a Participant that has been in it for 2 days, pausing the CA for 2 more days and then resuming will cause the Participant to immediately progress to the next step, because they waited in the timer for a total of 4 days, even though the CA was paused for 2 of those days. Any "Restrict to specific days and/or hours" settings will be ignored in this scenario, and the Participant will proceed to the next step even if the CA is resumed during a restricted day/time.
Restrict for specific days and/or hours: If this box is checked, additional options will display that will allow you to set the wait timer to only allow a participant to progress during certain hours of the day, such as standard business hours, and/or only on certain days.
Note: The note field is an optional field for any details that need to be written about the timer. This wait timer will halt the participant for 2 days, then allow them to continue further in the Campaign Automation
This wait timer will also halt the participant for 2 days, then will allow them to continue through the Campaign Automation if the 2 day wait ends within business hours on Monday through Friday. If the 2 day wait ends outside of these specified times, the participant will continue to wait until the beginning of business hours (set as 9:00 AM Eastern Time in this example) on the next selected day.
| Feature Added: 2023.07 |
| Feature Updated: 2023.07 |
| Click Version Needed: 2023.07 |