Eloqua wait steps

At first glance, using wait steps in Eloqua couldn’t be simpler – you set them up to make contacts wait before they can move on with their journey. However, it's easy to get confused as to when to set the step to wait for a certain amount of time, and when it should be configured to wait until a particular date and time. This small difference is more crucial than it appears, as you might use either one depending on your goals. Campaigns (or parts of them) with a specific timeframe will require the use of a wait step counting down until a specific date. In short, the difference is.

Wait until specific date and time: contacts will wait until the date and time specified in the settings and will continue their journey as soon as that date and time comes. If the contact reaches the wait step after the specified date, they will progress to the next step immediately. Wait for a defined amount of time (hours/days/weeks/months): The countdown starts as soon as a contact reaches the step, regardless of when the contact enters the campaign.

To put the above into a practical use case, here is a real-life example:

Our client was preparing for a sale and sought to advertise a special deal to their current customers, offering an additional 10% discount from January 2nd to January 16th using a promo code distributed via email. The client requested to start by sending an email to inform about the upcoming sale, and then to follow up with a separate email containing a promo code for use during the sale.

The initial planned setup of the flow in Eloqua was as follows:

We aimed to send out the first email informing about the sale and offer when the contact signed up for our campaign, and the second email, containing the promo code, on2nd January. However, after 2nd Jan, the client noticed that contacts were getting both emails on the same day.

The reason was that the wait step in between the two emails had been set up to wait until a specific date – 2nd Jan. The campaign was still active after this date, so all contacts who joined after 2 January received the first email, and as the date in the wait step had passed, they received email 2 immediately.

We suggested a slightly more complex workflow instead.

The email at the very top is the initial email containing the information about the upcoming offer. Then the date is checked for when a contact enters the next step. The decision step used here was “compare date” and it was set up to evaluate if the date when a contact enters the step is below 2nd Jan (which is the first date of the sale). The step setup is pictured below.

You can find more information on how “compare date” and other decision steps can be used in this Eloqua Help Center article.

Compare date step configuration

Notice how the flow splits in two here.

The first day of the sale is 2nd Jan and the last day is 16th Jan. The path on the right is for people joining before the sale starts, they have to wait until 2 Jan to get the second email containing promotional codes.

The process first checks if someone entered the flow after January 2nd. If they did, it then verifies if the promotion is still ongoing. Those who entered after the2nd but before the 15th of January (the day before the sale ends), they qualify for a promo code. However, to avoid sending duplicate emails, a one-day wait is added before sending the email containing the promo code. On the other hand, if the entry date falls after January 15th, the person is automatically excluded from the promotion.

Setting up the flow in this way helped us to manage the contacts who had joined the campaign before the 2nd of January, as well as those who joined after that date. Another way to make sure that the two emails in your flow are sent on different days would be to use a wait step with the wait defined as a specific number of days, rather than a date. However, if your offer is time-sensitive, you should ensure no one joins the campaign after the end of your offer, minus the number of days set in the wait step. Good practice for promoting time-dependent content also includes setting an end date for the campaign. You should also consider using tools to communicate that your offer has expired, incase your email is opened long after the send date.

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