Schedule and automate an audience
Turn a saved audience into a controlled automation
From an audience canvas, its results, or its row action on the audience home page, select Schedule to run the audience once in the future or repeatedly. Once a schedule exists, the action reads Manage Schedule. The Campaign Suite uses the entry label Schedule Audience.
You can save a schedule without any actions (no campaign add, data extension add or final action). In that case CAB refreshes the audience on schedule without sending its members anywhere.
Choose when the audience runs
Section titled “Choose when the audience runs”Open Configure Schedule, then choose the Type:
- Recurring: select one or more Scheduled Day(s) and a Frequency. The menu includes every 60 minutes and every 6, 12, or 24 hours; 15- and 30-minute choices appear when the organization scheduler’s cadence supports them. When shown, Starting At sets the first time of day. Under Schedule Timeframe, set the required Start Date and optional End Date.
- One-Time: set the future Execution Time.
The schedule window shows times, such as Starting At and the next run, in the time zone set in your Salesforce user settings. A schedule set to Every 24 Hours runs at the same time of day before and after the clocks change for daylight saving time. That time of day and the scheduled days follow the time zone of the person who created the schedule: if someone in another time zone created it, you see its times converted to yours, and it runs on the creator’s clock. Schedules that run more often keep a fixed number of hours between runs, so after the clocks change they run an hour earlier or later.
Configure destination actions
Section titled “Configure destination actions”Open Configure Actions. The tabs shown depend on the CAB edition, configured integrations, result object, and permissions.
Salesforce Campaigns
Section titled “Salesforce Campaigns”Select Add Campaign, then configure the Campaign, Member Status, and Update existing campaign members? behavior. A schedule can target multiple Campaigns. When automatic schedule removal is configured for inactive or past campaigns, a warning banner appears in the scheduler as soon as a targeted campaign is inactive or has an end date in the past, so the schedule is not removed without notice.
Campaign actions can also include:
- Set Campaign Member Field mappings and fixed values;
- Show Advanced → Cleansing Settings;
- Processing scope: Full audience or Changes only;
- Measure results: the Outcomes to measure and a Control group (%).
With a control group, each run keeps a random share of the people it would add out of the campaign, so you can see how many extra conversions the campaign brings. Its share locks once people are drawn; Release control group in the campaign’s menu ends it. A control group needs its scheduled campaign add to be the only scheduled campaign add on that campaign.
The campaign’s details show one Measurement line: links to its outcomes, then its share, such as 10% control group.
To send each new member to exactly one of several Campaigns, select Add Split. See Split a schedule’s new members between campaigns.
For a schedule to add an Account audience to a Campaign, Salesforce’s Accounts As Campaign Members feature or Person Accounts must be enabled. See Build and activate Account audiences.
See Add audience results to a Campaign for mappings and cleansing, Process only what changed for delta semantics, and Measure extra conversions with a control group for control groups.
Marketing Cloud Data Extensions
Section titled “Marketing Cloud Data Extensions”When Marketing Cloud is enabled, open Data Extensions and select Add to Data Extension. Choose the target and map its columns from record fields, fixed values, or an Audience Data Graph value.
Under Processing scope, select Changes only when the destination should receive only new members between full refreshes. Delta runs between full refreshes then appears; use it to schedule periodic full additions. Members who left are removed during those full refreshes only when Clear data extension before addition is enabled; otherwise they remain in the Data Extension. Under Advanced Settings, Outcomes to measure picks the outcomes the Data Extension action measures.
Flow and Apex Final Actions
Section titled “Flow and Apex Final Actions”When Final Actions are enabled, open Flow & Apex and select Add Action. Choose the configured action and review its Input Values. Outcomes to measure picks the outcomes the Final Action measures.
Under Processing scope, keep Full audience to hand the action every current member on each run, or select Changes only to hand it just the members that joined since its last successful activation. See Process only what changed.
To change a saved Final Action, select Edit Action on it. Its input values and processing scope are both editable; the action itself is fixed, so use Remove Action and Add Action to point the schedule at a different one.
Measure outcomes
Section titled “Measure outcomes”Pick outcomes on a campaign add, data extension add or final action to see what people do after the action adds them, such as giving within 30 days. Measuring starts with the action’s next run and counts the people each run newly added. It does not change who the action processes. An action can measure up to 8 outcomes. See Set up an outcome.
Require review when membership changes sharply
Section titled “Require review when membership changes sharply”Open Change approval and turn on Enable change approval. Choose whether CAB should only send an alert or pause the schedule until someone approves, set the percentage threshold, the member-count threshold or both (if you set both, the change must reach both), and select who gets the alert (Who gets alerted) or who approves (Who approves). An optional time limit rejects a run nobody decides on.
When approval is required, the run’s actions are skipped and later runs of the audience wait. Approve & resume schedule accepts the change as the new normal — the next scheduled run sends the current members (a one-time schedule gets a new run). Reject & block schedule, or a run nobody decides on in time, blocks the schedule until someone resumes it.
A blocked audience shows a warning instead of its normal schedule icon in the Status column of the audience list and on the canvas and results action bars. The assigned approver or a CAB administrator can select Resume scheduled audience from that warning, or open Manage Schedule and select the same action in the blocked-schedule warning. Both routes ask for confirmation with Resume scheduled audience?. Other users see the blocked state but cannot resume the schedule. After resuming, the next scheduled run uses fresh data; resuming does not approve the rejected change, so if the audience still differs as much from its last approved members, that run asks for approval again. See Review large membership changes before actions run.
Save, update, or remove the schedule
Section titled “Save, update, or remove the schedule”- For a new schedule, select Schedule.
- Open Manage Schedule to review the current configuration; select Save after changes.
- Select Unschedule to remove the schedule and all of its scheduled actions. This does not delete the audience or destination records created by earlier runs. Outcome results measured on its actions, including a control-group comparison, stay on the outcome’s page. The same goes for a campaign add you remove from the schedule; adding that campaign again later starts a new campaign add. See When a schedule ends or you remove a campaign add.
Combination and waterfall sequences use the same timing and action model, but actions receive the sequence’s combined or adjusted step result. See Schedule combination and waterfall sequences.