Step 4: Schedule the campaign - Amazon Pinpoint
Scheduling an email, SMS, voice message, push, or custom campaignScheduling an in-app campaign

Step 4: Schedule the campaign

After you write your message, you can specify when the campaign should be sent. You can choose to send the campaign immediately, at a scheduled date and time, on a recurring basis, or when certain events occur.

Tip

If a campaign is running, it will complete and then pause. Pause only pauses or skips the next run for a recurring future scheduled campaign. A campaign scheduled to be sent immediately can't be paused.

When you create a campaign, you choose a segment to send that campaign to. A segment is a group of your customers that share certain attributes. For example, a segment might contain all of your customers who use version 2.0 of your app on an Android device, or all customers who live in the city of Los Angeles.

Prerequisite

Before you begin, complete Step 3: Configure the message.

Scheduling an email, SMS, voice message, push, or custom campaign

If you want to send the campaign as soon as you finish creating it, you can choose to send the campaign immediately.

Sending the campaign immediately

If you want to send the campaign as soon as you finish creating it, you can choose to send the campaign immediately. You can't pause a campaign that's set to run immediately.

To send the campaign immediately

  1. Under When should the campaign be sent, choose At a specific time.

  2. Under How often should the campaign be sent, choose Immediately.

  3. Choose Next to continue to the final step.

Sending the campaign at a specific date and time

If you want to send a campaign only once, you can schedule it to be sent at a specific date and time.

To send the campaign at a specific date and time

  1. Under When should the campaign be sent, choose At a specific time.

  2. Under How often should the campaign be sent, choose Once.

  3. For Start date and time, choose the date and time when Amazon Pinpoint should send the message.

  4. Under Time zone, choose the time zone that you want to use to schedule the campaign. Optionally, choose Use recipient's local time to base the delivery time on each recipient's local time zone.

  5. Choose Next to continue to the final step.

Sending the campaign on a recurring basis

You can also schedule the campaign to be sent on a recurring basis. You can specify the frequency and the start and end dates for the campaign.

To send the campaign on a recurring basis

  1. Under When should the campaign be sent, choose At a specific time.

  2. Under How often should the campaign be sent, choose how often Amazon Pinpoint should send the recurring campaign. For example, to send the campaign once per week, choose Weekly.

  3. For Start date and time, choose the date and time when Amazon Pinpoint should send the first message in the recurring series.

  4. For End date and time, choose the date and time when Amazon Pinpoint should stop sending recurring messages.

  5. Under Time zone, choose a time zone to base the start and end times on. Optionally, choose Use recipient's local time to base the delivery time on each recipient's local time zone.

  6. Choose Next to continue to the final step.

Sending the campaign when events occur

If you want to send the campaign when customers take certain actions, you can configure the campaign to be sent when a specific event occurs. For example, campaigns can be sent when a customer registers a new account, or when a customer adds an item to their shopping cart but doesn't purchase it. To learn more about sending events from your apps to Amazon Pinpoint, see Reporting events in your application in the Amazon Pinpoint Developer Guide.

Note

You can send event-based messages only if your campaign uses dynamic segments (as opposed to imported segments). In addition, if you integrate your app with Amazon Pinpoint by using an AWS Mobile SDK, messages from event-based campaigns are sent only to customers whose apps are running AWS Mobile SDK for Android version 2.7.2 or later, or AWS Mobile SDK for iOS version 2.6.30 or later.

To configure a campaign to be sent when an event occurs

  1. Under When should the campaign be sent, choose When an event occurs.

  2. For Events, choose the name of the event that initiates the campaign.

  3. (Optional) For Attributes and Metrics, choose the specific characteristics that initiate the campaign.

    Tip

    The more event data that you capture from your users, the more options you have when you set up event triggers. Event attributes and metrics are available only if you've provided those values to Amazon Pinpoint. To learn more about capturing event data, see Reporting events in your application in the Amazon Pinpoint Developer Guide.

  4. Under Campaign Dates, for Start date and time, choose a start date. Amazon Pinpoint sends the campaign only if the event that you specified earlier occurs after the start date.

    Note

    The Start date and time that you choose must be at least 15 minutes in the future.

  5. For End date and time, choose an end date. Amazon Pinpoint sends the campaign only if the event that you specified earlier occurs before the end date.

  6. Under Time zone, choose a time zone to base the start and end dates on.

  7. Choose Next to continue to the final step.

Best practices for using event-based campaigns

There are a few restrictions and best practices that you should consider when you create event-based campaigns:

  • You can create an event-based campaign only if you chose a dynamic segment (as opposed to an imported segment) in Step 2.

  • If you integrate your app with Amazon Pinpoint by using an AWS Mobile SDK, your app should use the following versions of the SDK in order to work properly with event-based campaigns:

    • AWS Mobile SDK for Android version 2.7.2 or later

    • AWS Mobile SDK for iOS version 2.6.30 or later

    Because of this restriction, we recommend that you set up your segments to include only customers who use a version of your app that runs a compatible version of the SDK.

  • Choose your events carefully. For example, if you send an event-based campaign every time a session.start event occurs, you might quickly overwhelm your users with messages. You can limit the number of messages that Amazon Pinpoint sends to a single endpoint in a 24-hour period. For more information, see Editing a project's default settings.

Scheduling an in-app campaign

This section contains information about setting up the parameters of your in-app message using the Amazon Pinpoint console. These parameters include setting up the following:

  • Trigger event – A trigger event is an action that a customer performs that makes your in-app message display. Trigger events might include opening an app, making a purchase, or opening a menu. With trigger events, you can see what users are doing within apps, and use that information to improve the apps.

  • Conversion event – Conversion events help you get your website visitors to become customers, and can help you keep current customers. Use conversion events alone, or use them with trigger events. After you add conversion events, you can view their performance on the campaign analytics page of the Amazon Pinpoint console. A conversion is recorded for analytics when a user views your in-app message and performs the action set by the conversion event.

Define triggers and set campaign start and end dates

To set a trigger event

  1. Add the Trigger event that initiates the campaign. You can manually enter a trigger event name, or choose an existing trigger from the dropdown list. For example, to show a message to a user who purchases something from your online store, enter Purchase.

    At this point, you don't need to enter any additional information, such as attributes or conversions. The Purchase trigger event displays your in-app campaign message to anyone who makes an online purchase.

  2. (Optional) Add event attributes. An event attribute is used to refine a trigger. It consists of an attribute name and a value. For example, to narrow down the Purchase trigger event, you can add an attribute that displays the in-app message to customers who purchase a specific item. Imagine that the item is a pair of gardening gloves that cost $10 USD or more. For Attribute, choose item, and then for Value, choose gardening gloves. (You set the event Metric for the cost in Step 3.)

    To further narrow down who gets your in-app message, choose Add new attribute and add additional attributes and values. If an attribute has multiple possible values, you must add each attribute and value pair separately.

    When you use the same attribute multiple times with different values, Amazon Pinpoint processes the campaign attributes using "or" between the values.

  3. (Optional) Choose an event Metric. This event typically uses a range of numbers, such as a duration or a cost. After entering the event, choose one of the following Operator options:

    • is equal to

    • is greater than

    • is less than

    • is greater than or equal to

    • is less than or equal to

    Enter the Value for the operator. Only numeric values are supported. For example, enter the following values for the Purchase trigger. For Metric, choose Price, and for the Operator, choose is greater than or equal to. For the value, choose 10. The in-app message now displays to any user that purchases gardening gloves at $10 USD or more.

    Note

    You can use only a single metric in an in-app message.

  4. Under Campaign Dates, for Start date and time, choose a start date. Amazon Pinpoint sends the campaign only if the event that you previously specified occurs after the start date.

    Note

    The Start date and time that you choose must be set 15 minutes or more in the future.

  5. For End date and time, choose an end date. Amazon Pinpoint sends the campaign only if the event that you previously specified occurs before the end date.

  6. Under Time zone, choose a time zone to base the start and end dates on.

(Optional) Change campaign global settings

Campaign global settings determine how often a message is displayed to a user. Customers might not want to see the same in-app message every time they initiate a trigger event. Alternatively, you might want to set the number of times that a customer sees your in-app message.

To change global settings for the campaign

  1. For Maximum number of session messages viewed per endpoint, specify the number of times a customer should see your in-app message during a session. A session is defined as the period of time when a customer interacts with your application. Set a level from 0 to 10, with 0 displaying the message during an unlimited number of sessions. For example, if you enter a value of 2, then your customer sees your in-app message during two separate sessions only. If your customer interacts with your app for a third session, the in-app message is not displayed.

  2. For Maximum number of daily messages viewed per endpoint, choose Override default setting. Then, set the number of times during a day that a customer sees your message. Set a level from 0 to 10, with 0 displaying the message an unlimited number of times during the day. For example, if you enter a value of 2, then your customer sees your in-app message only twice during a 24-hour period.

  3. For Maximum number of session messages viewed per endpoint, choose Override default setting. Then, set the number of in-app messages a customer can see. If you send out multiple in-app messages, you might want to restrict the number of messages that an endpoint displays. Set a level from 0 to 10, with 0 displaying an unlimited number of messages. For example, if you enter a value of 2, then your customers only see two in-app messages, regardless of how many you send out.

Next

Step 5: Review and launch the campaign