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Always-on Campaigns
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Always-on Campaigns in Engage Studio

Always-on Campaigns enable you to run continuous marketing campaigns that remain active until you explicitly stop them. Unlike traditional campaigns that execute once and automatically finish, Always-on Campaigns stay open to receive multiple activations triggered from Customer Journey Orchestration or Batch Activation, making them ideal for ongoing customer engagement scenarios.

Overview

Engage Studio supports two types of campaigns:

  • Batch (one-off) campaigns: Schedule-based campaigns that execute once and automatically transition from Active to Finished after delivery.
  • Always-on Campaigns: Continuous campaigns triggered by Customer Journey Orchestration or Batch Activation that remain Live until manually stopped.

Always-on Campaigns are designed for marketing scenarios where you need to send messages repeatedly to customers as they enter specific journey stages or meet activation criteria, without creating a new campaign for each execution.

When to use Always-on Campaigns

Consider using Always-on Campaigns for:

  • Welcome journeys: Send onboarding emails or push notifications as new customers sign up
  • Cart abandonment: Trigger reminders when customers leave items in their cart
  • Behavioral triggers: Respond to specific customer actions or events
  • Milestone celebrations: Send birthday greetings, anniversary messages, or achievement notifications
  • Re-engagement campaigns: Reach out to inactive customers when they return to your platform

Use batch campaigns when you need to:

  • Send one-time promotional messages to a specific audience
  • Execute scheduled campaigns on specific dates
  • Run campaigns that don't require continuous activation

Key concepts and terminology

Campaign types

Engage Studio provides two campaign types, each designed for different use cases:

  • Batch (one-off) campaigns: Execute on a schedule and automatically finish after delivery. Best for one-time promotional campaigns or scheduled announcements.
  • Always-on Campaigns: Remain Live indefinitely and accept multiple activations from journeys or batch activations. Best for recurring and scenario-based campaigns.

You select the campaign type when creating a new campaign. Once created, the campaign type cannot be changed.

Campaign statuses

Always-on Campaigns progress through the following statuses:

  • Draft: Initial state when you create a campaign. You can edit all campaign settings and configuration. The campaign does not accept activations.
  • Live: Campaign is active and accepting activations from Customer Journey Orchestration or Batch Activation. The campaign continues processing activations until you pause or finish it.
  • Paused: Campaign is temporarily stopped. You can edit campaign content and UTM tracking while paused, but the campaign rejects activations. Resume the campaign to start accepting activations again.
  • Finished: Campaign has ended. The campaign no longer accepts activations and cannot be edited, paused, or resumed. Finished campaigns remain visible for historical reference.

Parent segment

Always-on Campaigns reference a parent segment to define their target audience. Unlike batch campaigns that directly select a specific segment within Engage Studio, Always-on Campaigns use parent segments to enable activation from multiple journeys or batch activations within the same parent segment.

When you configure an Always-on Campaign:

  • Select the parent segment that defines your target audience
  • The campaign can be activated from any journey or batch activation associated with that parent segment
  • You cannot change the parent segment after launching the campaign

If a journey or activation attempts to use an Always-on Campaign with a different parent segment, the system rejects the activation and returns an error.

Supported channels

Always-on Campaigns currently support:

  • Email: Send email messages with customizable templates and sender profiles
  • Push: Deliver push notifications to mobile devices

The campaign framework is designed to support additional channels in future releases, such as SMS, LINE, and WhatsApp.

Prerequisites and permissions

To work with Always-on Campaigns, you need:

  • Access to Engage Studio in your Treasure Data workspace
  • Appropriate campaign permissions

Permissions for Always-on Campaigns follow the same model as batch campaigns. Contact your workspace administrator if you need additional permissions.

How Always-on Campaigns work with Journeys and Activations

Always-on Campaigns integrate with Customer Journey Orchestration and Batch Activation to enable continuous, triggered messaging:

  1. You create and launch an Always-on Campaign in Engage Studio, setting its status to Live
  2. You prepare an Authentication using the Treasure Engage V1 Connector in advance
  3. When configuring a journey step or batch activation, you select the Live Always-on Campaign as the delivery target
  4. As customers progress through the journey or meet activation criteria, the system sends activations to the Always-on Campaign
  5. The campaign processes each activation and delivers messages according to the configured content and settings
  6. The campaign remains Live and continues accepting activations until you pause or finish it

Journey activation configuration showing Always-on Campaign selection

Important: Journeys and batch activations can only select Always-on Campaigns that are:

  • In Live status
  • Associated with the same parent segment as the journey or activation
  • Configured for the appropriate channel (email or push)

If an activation attempts to use a campaign that is not Live (for example, Paused or Finished), the system rejects the activation and does not send messages.

Status flow and lifecycle

Always-on Campaigns follow this lifecycle:

Draft → Live → Paused → Live → Finished
         ↓               ↓
      Finished        Finished

Draft status

What you can do:

  • Edit all campaign settings (name, channel, parent segment, content, UTM tracking)
  • Launch the campaign to transition to Live status
  • Delete the campaign if it's no longer needed

Activation behavior: Campaign does not accept activations from journeys or batch activations.

Live status

What you can do:

  • View campaign details and configuration (read-only)
  • Pause the campaign to make changes
  • Finish the campaign to permanently close it

What you cannot do:

  • Edit campaign settings (you must pause the campaign first)
  • Delete the campaign

Activation behavior: Campaign accepts and processes activations from journeys and batch activations.

Paused status

What you can do:

  • Edit campaign content and UTM tracking
  • Resume the campaign to transition back to Live status
  • Finish the campaign to permanently close it

What you cannot do:

  • Edit campaign name or parent segment (these fields are locked after launch)
  • Delete the campaign

Activation behavior: Campaign rejects activations. If a journey or batch activation attempts to use a Paused campaign, the system returns an error and does not send messages.

Finished status

What you can do:

  • View campaign details for historical reference

What you cannot do:

  • Edit any campaign settings
  • Resume, pause, or launch the campaign
  • Delete the campaign

Activation behavior: Campaign rejects activations. If a journey or batch activation attempts to use a Finished campaign, the system returns an error and does not send messages.

Creating and managing Always-on Campaigns

Accessing Always-on Campaigns

  1. Log in to Treasure Data and navigate to your workspace
  2. In the left sidebar, click Engage Studio
  3. Click Always-On Campaigns to view the campaign list

The campaign list displays:

  • Campaign Name
  • Campaign ID
  • Parent Segment
  • Status (Draft, Live, Paused, or Finished)
  • Last Updated By
  • Updated At

You can filter campaigns by Status to find specific campaigns.

Note: Always-on Campaigns are managed in a dedicated list. They are displayed in a separate view from One-off Campaigns.

Creating a new Always-on Campaign

  1. In Engage Studio, click Always-On Campaigns in the left sidebar
  2. Click Create Campaign
  3. Enter a Campaign Name
  4. Select the Channel: Email or Push
  5. Click Create

The system creates the campaign in Draft status and assigns a unique Campaign ID.

Configuring the target audience

  1. Open your Draft Always-on Campaign
  2. In the Audience section, click Select Parent Segment
  3. Choose the parent segment that defines your target audience
  4. Click Save

Target audience configuration showing parent segment selection

The campaign displays "Always-on" in the Segment field and shows a message: "Select this campaign from your Journey in the target parent segment."

Important: You cannot change the parent segment after launching the campaign. Ensure you select the correct parent segment before transitioning to Live status.

Configuring campaign content

Configure your email or push content based on the selected channel:

For email campaigns:

  1. Open your Draft Always-on Campaign
  2. Navigate to the Campaign Content tab
  3. Select a Sender Profile (email address and name that appear in recipients' inboxes)
  4. Choose an Email Template or create custom content using the email editor
  5. Customize the subject line, preview text, and email body
  6. Click Save

For push campaigns:

  1. Open your Draft Always-on Campaign
  2. Navigate to the Campaign Content tab
  3. Enter the Push Title and Push Message
  4. Optionally configure push notification actions and deep links
  5. Click Save

Campaign content configuration screen

You can send test messages to verify your content before launching the campaign.

Configuring UTM tracking

UTM tracking helps you measure campaign performance in analytics tools:

  1. Open your Draft Always-on Campaign
  2. Navigate to the UTM Tracking tab
  3. Enable UTM tracking
  4. Configure UTM parameters:
    • Medium: Identifies the marketing medium (e.g., "email", "push")
    • Source Platform: treasuredata
    • Source: Identifies where traffic originates ("treasuredata")
    • Campaign: (Optional) Product, slogan, promo code (e.g., spring_sale)
    • Campaign tactic: (Optional) Targeting criteria applied to a campaign (e.g. remarketing, prospecting)
  5. Click Save

UTM tracking configuration

UTM parameters are appended to links in your campaign content, enabling you to track clicks and conversions in your analytics platform.

Launching an Always-on Campaign

When you're ready to start accepting activations:

  1. Open your Draft Always-on Campaign
  2. Review all campaign settings to ensure they're configured correctly
  3. Click Launch Campaign
  4. Confirm the launch action

Live campaign status screen

The campaign transitions from Draft to Live status. You'll see a notification confirming the campaign is now Live and ready to receive activations.

Important: After launching, you cannot edit campaign settings unless you first pause the campaign. Ensure all configuration is correct before launching.

Pausing and resuming an Always-on Campaign

Pause a Live campaign when you need to make changes to content or UTM tracking:

Campaign details screen

To pause a campaign:

  1. Open your Live Always-on Campaign
  2. Click Pause Campaign
  3. Confirm the pause action

The campaign transitions to Paused status and stops accepting activations.

To make changes while paused:

  1. Navigate to the Campaign Content or UTM Tracking tab
  2. Make your changes
  3. Click Save

To resume the campaign:

  1. After saving your changes, click Resume Campaign
  2. Confirm the resume action

Pause and Resume campaign actions

The campaign transitions back to Live status and resumes accepting activations.

Note: While paused, journeys and batch activations cannot use the campaign. Any activation attempts during the pause period will fail. Plan your pause timing carefully to minimize impact on customer communications.

Finishing an Always-on Campaign

When you no longer need a campaign to accept activations, finish it permanently:

  1. Open your Live or Paused Always-on Campaign
  2. Click Finish Campaign
  3. Review the confirmation message: "Are you sure you want to finish this campaign? This action cannot be undone."
  4. Click Confirm

The campaign transitions to Finished status. Finished campaigns:

  • No longer accept activations from journeys or batch activations
  • Cannot be edited, paused, resumed, or relaunched
  • Remain visible in the campaign list for historical reference
  • Cannot be deleted

Important: Finishing a campaign is permanent. If you need to temporarily stop accepting activations, use the Pause function instead.

Duplicating an Always-on Campaign

Create a copy of an existing campaign to reuse configuration:

  1. In the campaign list, locate the campaign you want to duplicate
  2. Click the Actions menu (three dots)
  3. Select Duplicate
  4. The system creates a new campaign with the same configuration

The duplicated campaign:

  • Is created in Draft status
  • Has a new, unique Campaign ID
  • Inherits all settings from the original campaign (content, parent segment, UTM tracking)
  • Can be modified before launching

Deleting an Always-on Campaign

You can only delete campaigns in Draft status:

  1. In the campaign list, locate the Draft campaign you want to delete
  2. Click the Actions menu (three dots)
  3. Select Delete
  4. Confirm the deletion

Campaigns in Live, Paused, or Finished status cannot be deleted. If you need to stop a Live campaign, finish it instead.

Monitoring and troubleshooting

Viewing campaign status and execution history

Monitor your Always-on Campaign performance:

  1. Open your Always-on Campaign
  2. View the current status (Draft, Live, Paused, or Finished) at the top of the page
  3. Review delivery logs for detailed information about each activation

Delivery logs include:

  • Campaign ID
  • Activation timestamp
  • Delivery status (sent, failed, bounced, etc.)
  • Error messages (if applicable)

Understanding activation errors

If a journey or batch activation fails to use your Always-on Campaign, check for these common issues:

Campaign not in Live status:

  • Problem: The journey or activation attempted to use a campaign that is Draft, Paused, or Finished
  • Solution: Ensure the campaign is in Live status before activations attempt to use it. If the campaign is Paused, resume it. If it's Finished, you'll need to create a new campaign or duplicate the existing one

Parent segment mismatch:

  • Problem: The journey or activation is associated with a different parent segment than the campaign
  • Solution: Verify that the campaign's parent segment matches the parent segment used by the journey or activation. You cannot change a campaign's parent segment after launch, so you may need to create a new campaign with the correct parent segment

Permission errors:

  • Problem: The API key or user account triggering the activation lacks permission to use the campaign
  • Solution: Verify that the Master API Key used by the journey or activation has appropriate permissions. Contact your workspace administrator to review and update permissions

Campaign not found:

  • Problem: The journey or activation references a campaign ID that doesn't exist or has been deleted
  • Solution: Update the journey or activation configuration to reference a valid campaign ID

When an activation fails, the system does not send any messages to customers. Review error logs in the journey execution details or batch activation logs to identify the specific error.

Limitations and safeguards

Feature limitations

Always-on Campaigns have the following limitations:

  • No time-based recurring schedules: Always-on Campaigns do not support automatic recurring schedules like "every Monday at 9 AM." They are designed for trigger-based activations from journeys and batch activations. If you need scheduled recurring campaigns, use One-off Campaigns with scheduling instead.

  • Parent segment cannot be changed after launch: Once you launch an Always-on Campaign, you cannot modify its parent segment. Plan your parent segment selection carefully before launching.

  • Limited editing while Live: You cannot edit campaign settings while the campaign is Live. You must pause the campaign first to make changes to content or UTM tracking.

  • Campaign name can be changed while Paused: You can edit content, UTM tracking, and campaign name in Paused campaigns.

Workspace protection

To prevent accidental deletion of active campaigns, Treasure Data implements workspace protection:

  • Workspaces with Live Always-on Campaigns cannot be deleted
  • If you attempt to delete a workspace containing Live campaigns, the system returns an error and does not delete the workspace
  • To delete a workspace with Always-on Campaigns, you must first finish or delete all Live campaigns

This safeguard ensures you don't accidentally delete active campaigns that are being used by journeys or batch activations.

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