You can add exit conditions to a program to remove contacts at any step along the way, providing the contact meets the exit rules that have been set up. This is extremely useful in the case of:
Lead nurturing programs - If you have a series of emails to encourage someone to sign up for an event, or to fill in a survey, or to make a purchase, then you can use it to exclude people as soon as they have signed up, submitted the survey or made the purchase.
Re-engagement programs - When sending a series of campaigns to contacts who have not opened in 90 days, for instance, you can then exclude anyone who opens one since the start of the program.
Excluding VIPs - if you want to keep core marketing communications away from your VIP list , you can exclude them from receiving your mainstream programs.
What is an exit condition?
An exit condition is a program-wide exclusion - if the condition is met by a contact enrolled in the program then they are removed from it, ending their participation. For example, when a contact gets to an exit condition and they are held in a delay node, the contact remains in the delay node, but they are removed from the program before moving to another node.
There are two default exit conditions which always apply:
A contact reaching an end node.
A contact unsubscribing from the account.
You can view these by selecting EXIT CONDITIONS positioned just above the program builder canvas.
Add an exit condition
Select Add an exit condition.
You can add up to a maximum of five (on top of the two default ones).The segment builder opens, which lets you construct your rule. In this particular example, let's say you have a re-engagement program and want to exclude contacts once they have clicked a link in an email campaign. You want them to exit the program immediately once they have done this, as you have achieved your goal for this contact.
Drag a Clicks rule into the segment builder, and set the rule to: Email - For any campaign - They have clicked any link.
Select OK.
The exit conditions box updates accordingly.
You need to Save your program to keep the new exit condition.
When activated, your program automatically excludes any contacts upon meeting any of the exit conditions.
Edit or delete an exit condition
Deactivate to add, edit or delete exit conditions
Exit conditions can not be added, edited, or deleted in activated programs. If you want to adjust your exit conditions in any way, you must first deactivate your program. You need to deactivate a program if you want to edit any parts of it, or if you want to delete a program as a whole.
To edit an exit condition:
Select EXIT CONDITIONS to open the exit conditions menu.
Select the rule you want to edit.
The segment builder opens, allowing you to edit the rule.
To delete an exit condition, hover over the rule and select the cross that appears alongside it.
Reporting and statistics
Once your program has been activated, select EXIT CONDITIONS to view statistics on the number of contacts who have exited the program through each condition.
Within the contact activity report, contacts who have exited a program through an exit condition you've created are reported as Exited on exclusion node under the Program outcome column in the Program activity section.