When surveying contacts in multiple campaigns at the same time, there's a high risk of over-survey some of them. "Over-surveying" a contact means that they have received more than one survey in a very short time frame, and this will inevitably affect your survey campaign's open and response rates or worse, contacts might leave low ratings.
Retently has a few options to help you avoid over-surveying contacts.
Transactional email and in-app survey campaigns
Transactional campaigns have a built-in "Throttle" feature that you can find in the campaign's "Trigger" section.
The throttle menu has two options:
This campaign (default)
All campaigns
It also allows you to pick a number of days to indicate how long the throttle period should last per contact.
When switched ON, depending on the menu options selected, the following will happen:
This campaign: A contact can receive only one survey in this particular campaign. The throttle feature will automatically dismiss any other triggered surveys for this contact until the throttle time range has passed. Once the throttle period has passed, the contact can receive another survey in this campaign.
All campaigns: A contact can receive only one survey in general. If the contact has already been surveyed in another campaign, then any new surveys triggered in this particular campaign will be dismissed until the throttle period has ended.
When the throttle option is switched OFF, there are no limits to how many surveys a contact can receive in this campaign or how often. In case of the campaign's trigger misconfiguration, this might result in the contact being over-surveyed, which is why we suggest activating the throttle option and adjusting it to fit your needs.
Edge case
If your campaign also has the delay survey option activated along with the throttle, two things will happen:
Before a survey is delayed and added to the Queue page, it will be analyzed by the throttling algorithm. If the survey doesn't fit the throttle schedule, it will be dismissed without being added to the Queue.
If the throttle option is activated in your survey campaign before a queued survey is about to be sent in this campaign, the throttle algorithm will analyze it, and if the survey no longer fits the throttle schedule (e.g., the contact was already surveyed a couple of days ago in this or another campaign), then the queued survey will be dismissed and canceled without being sent out.
Regular email survey campaigns
Regular email campaigns have a throttle in the campaign's Schedule section, called Throttle the survey to avoid over-surveying contacts.
When switched ON, you set two things:
How many days. Under Do not survey contacts that were surveyed in, pick a number between 1 and 365.
Which surveys count. Any campaign counts surveys from all of your campaigns, whichever channel they were sent on. This campaign counts only the surveys this campaign sent.
A contact surveyed inside that window is skipped until the window passes. This is a delay rather than an exclusion: the contact stays in the campaign and becomes eligible again on their own, with nothing to re-import or reset.
The throttle works alongside the campaign's schedule rules rather than replacing them. A contact is surveyed when both agree, meaning the campaign's own schedule says they are due and the throttle window has passed. With a recurring interval of 30 days and a throttle of 90 days on Any campaign, the throttle is the one deciding, and the contact is surveyed at most every 90 days.
Campaigns are created with the throttle switched ON, set to 30 days, counting Any campaign.
Regular in-app survey campaigns
Regular in-app campaigns have the same throttle as regular email campaigns, in the campaign's Schedule section, called Throttle the survey to avoid over-surveying contacts.
When switched ON, you set two things: how many days (from 1 to 365), and which surveys count. Any campaign counts surveys from all of your campaigns, whichever channel they were sent on. This campaign counts only the surveys this campaign showed.
A contact surveyed inside that window is skipped until the window passes, then becomes eligible again on their own. The campaign's first and recurring survey rules count only this campaign's own surveys, so the throttle is how you space surveys out across campaigns. With a recurring interval of 30 days and a throttle of 90 days on Any campaign, the contact is surveyed at most every 90 days.
Campaigns are created with the throttle switched ON, set to 30 days, counting Any campaign.
Link campaigns
Retently doesn't provide any throttling options for link surveys, mainly because we're not handling the delivery of these surveys. Therefore, the person sending the survey link to their audience is responsible for making sure that the survey link is not sent multiple times to the same contact over a short time frame.