Campaign Status – A/B Campaign Builder

The Status of a Campaign tells you what's happening with it at this particular moment in time. SiteSpect automatically places Campaigns in Review mode upon creation. During Review, a member of your team can QA the Campaign before making it live. Once QAed, a team member can set it to run by changing its Status to Active or let it begin running according to the date specified in the Begins field.

In some work flows, the Campaign Administrator is responsible for setting a Campaign to Ready, which queues it up to go live later. From this point on, all users with non-administrator privilege levels, including Campaign Builders no longer have privileges to edit the Campaign.

You may want to edit the Status of a Campaign if:

• You need to pause a Campaign to update its components, for example to edit Triggers to change the pages they match on or to further QA your Campaign. In this case, change its Status to Active - Paused.
• You want the Campaign to continue running with all its assigned visitors, but you do not want any more visitors assigned to it. In this case, change its Status to Active - No New Assignments.
• You want to end a Campaign prematurely. Change its Status to Ended.
• You want to archive a Campaign. Change its Status to Archived.

To change the Status of an existing Campaign in the A/B Campaign Builder:

1. Select Campaigns then select the Status of the Campaign you want to view.
2. Open the Campaign you want to edit.
3. Select a Status from the Status drop-down list.
4. Click Save.

The following are the possible Statuses:

• Review – The Campaign has been created, but it has not been turned on. This is essentially a QA state. You may want to use this Status if you are still fine-tuning the Campaign or if you are waiting for approval to run it.
• Ready – The Campaign has been created, but it has not been turned on. You may want to use this Status if you are still fine-tuning the Campaign or if you are waiting for approval to run it. This Status is available at any permission level except Campaign Builder.
• Active - Scheduled – The Campaign has been turned on, but its start date is some point in the future. Once that date arrives, SiteSpect automatically turns on the Campaign and changes its Status to Active - Running. When you select Active - Scheduled from the Status drop-down, Begins and Ends fields are displayed under Would you like to specify a date range. To unschedule the Campaign, select a different Status.
• Active - Running – The Campaign is running.
  • Note: The only difference between Active - Scheduled and Active - Running is that with Scheduled Campaigns, the date specified in the Begins field has not yet arrived. With Running Campaigns, the Begins date has arrived.
• Active - No New Assignments – The Campaign is running but it is not accepting new assignments. Visitors already assigned to the Campaign continue to see it, but no new visitors are assigned.
• Disabled – The Campaign was set to Active - Running, but SiteSpect disabled it and changed its Status to Disabled because there was an issue with it. Visitors who are assigned to the Campaign do not see any Variations until the Campaign Status is changed to Active - Running (for new and old visitors) or Active - No New Assignments (for previously assigned visitors). To learn more about Disabled Campaigns, see Understanding Disablements.
  • Note: This Status does not appear on the Status drop-down because it is controlled solely by SiteSpect.
• Active - Paused – The Campaign was set to Active - Running, but was manually disabled. Visitors do not see changes to the site until the Campaign Status is changed to Active - Running (for new and old visitors) or Active - No New Assignments (for previously assigned visitors).
• Ended – The Campaign has stopped running. The results of the Campaign are final. When a Campaign ends, its visitors are no longer assigned to the Campaign and are available for assignment to another Campaign.
  • Note: If you mistakenly switch a campaign to Ended, you can turn it back to Active - Running. Any existing users who visit while the campaign is in Ended status will be removed from the campaign, but users who did not visit during the time that the campaign was in Ended status will remain in the campaign on their next visit, once the campaign is set back to Active - Running.
• Archived – The Campaign is not running. Once you change the Status of a Campaign to Archived, you cannot change it back. In addition, SiteSpect automatically changes the Status of your Campaigns to Archived when they have been in an Ended state for a period of six months. SiteSpect allows you to run reports on Archived Campaigns, but doesn't allow you to change their Status.

Changing Campaign Status

At some point, you may want to change the Status of a Campaign: to pause it for QA after a site release, or to end it after it has finished. When you change a Campaign’s Status, keep in mind the following considerations.

Changing the Status of a Campaign from any Active Status to a Non-Active Status releases visitors from the Campaign. For example, switching a Campaign from Active – Running to Active – Paused does not release visitors from the Campaign. If you were to then switch that same Campaign back to Active – Running, all visitors continue to see the experience they were previously assigned to.

However, if you switch the Status of a Campaign from Active – Running to Ended, SiteSpect releases visitors from the Campaign on their next page view, when they then may be assigned to a different, competing, Campaign.

You cannot change the Status of a Campaign from any Active Status to Review or Ready. You can change the Status only to:

• Another Active Status
• Ended
• Archived

If you need to stop showing a particular experience now but may want to make it live again in the future, we recommend switching it to Active – Paused.

Disabled Campaigns

SiteSpect disables Campaigns for a variety of reasons. When this happens, you'll see the word Disabled in the Status drop-down in red letters. See Understanding Disablements for more information.