Users who receive too many promotional messages may develop a negative opinion of your brand and disengage from your content. To prevent this from happening, Iterable provides Frequency Management, which you can use to specify how many email, SMS, and push notifications your users can receive in a given period of time.
NOTE
In addition to frequency capping, Iterable offers Frequency Optimization as part of the Frequency Management suite. This feature uses Iterable AI to maximize engagement by adjusting how many messages each user receives for a selected channel or message type in a given period of time, based on their historical engagement data. For more information about enabling this feature in your project, talk to your Iterable customer success manager.
# In this article
# Getting started
When you set your first frequency cap on a project, take a conservative approach. Start with a high limit such as seven messages per day, and monitor results. Adjust your settings to change message cadence slowly over time. This helps reduce the potential impact of an abrupt drop in messaging volume.
# How it works
Frequency Management allows marketing messages for email, SMS, and push notifications to send until the user reaches their limit for that channel. Until then, messages send chronologically by send time.
You can also set limits for a selected message type (for example, Promotional). Limits set for a specific message type are prioritized over those set for the channel.
When a project has a channel limit and one or more message type limits are set, the message type limits override channel-based settings, and users may receive more or fewer messages of that type than they receive from the channel overall.
For Frequency Management, you can set a frequency cap with daily, weekly, or monthly limits. Alternatively, if Frequency Optimization is enabled in your project, you can specify a range of limits (weekly or monthly) for Iterable to consider when selecting an optimal value for each user that’s based on their historical engagement data.
Regardless of what caps or optimizations are set, you can opt to ignore frequency management settings for a specific campaign or message type.
After a user has received the maximum allowed messages, Iterable skips messages
for that user, in that channel or for that message type, until the period
resets. Iterable records this as a send skip
event with the reason of FrequencyCapping. Alternatively, if Frequency
Optimization is enabled, you might see a reason of FrequencyOptimization.
# Reset period
Frequency caps reset based on the project’s time zone.
- Daily - Every night at 12:00 AM
- Weekly - Every Sunday at 12:00 AM
- Monthly - Every first of the month at 12:00 AM
# How messages count
Messages that count towards frequency cap limits include:
- Sent marketing messages
- Bounced marketing messages
Messages that do not count:
- Transactional messages
- Any message that ignores frequency capping
- Proofs, send skips, and silent pushes
IMPORTANT
Frequency caps apply on each channel (email, SMS, and push notifications) and each message type independently, and don’t combine to an overall limit.
# SMS
For SMS, a campaign with multiple segments is a single message for frequency capping. SMS segments aren't counted separately.
If there is more than one user with the same phoneNumber:
- One user receives a campaign message, and that message counts towards their limit.
- The other user would have a send skip event with
reasonset toDuplicateMarketingMessage. The unsent message doesn't count towards that user's limit.
# Push notifications
For push notifications, the frequency cap applies per device. When a user has multiple devices registered, each device receives messages up to the set limit.
For a daily limit of three push notifications, a user with two devices registered can receive a cumulative total of up to six daily push notifications sent—three to each device.
# UserID-based projects
For userID-based projects, frequency caps apply per userId. Keep this in mind
if your project allows non-unique email addresses and some users share an email.
A certain email address can receive up to the message limit for each user.
# Frequency Management and journeys
Frequency caps don't delay journeys or hold users in send tiles. Users who've received their maximum messages get a send skip event for the journey message and then progress to the next tile based on the journey's conditions.
# Frequency Management and other delivery controls
Frequency Management is an eligibility check just prior to when a message sends.
Iterable applies delivery controls like Send Time Optimization, campaign rate limiting, and Quiet Hours, before considering a frequency cap.
# Example with Quiet Hours
Features such as Quiet Hours can push a message's send time into a new frequency cap period, causing it to send when it otherwise wouldn't have.
Let's say that you send a campaign at 8:00 PM to a user who has received their daily limit of three messages per day.
- When Quiet Hours are off, Iterable send skips the campaign for the user because they've reached their limit for the day.
- When Quiet Hours are on, Iterable holds the campaign based on Quiet Hours rules. When the campaign sends at 9:00 AM the next morning, the user receives the message because the daily frequency cap reset overnight.
# Navigating Frequency Management details
The Frequency Management page displays details to help you understand and navigate frequency settings, including an informational banner, message type filters, and a search function.
If Frequency Optimization is enabled in your project, you'll also see a note on the bottom of the page that reports the number of optimizations currently used in your project so you can gauge how close you are to the 10 optimization max. To view optimization insights, click the insights icon next to any channel or message type.
# Enable Frequency Management for channels
By default, Frequency Management is off. To enable it, you need Manage Settings project permissions.
When enabling Frequency Management, you can specify a frequency for each message channel (email, push, and SMS) with a fixed cap. If Frequency Optimization is enabled in your project, you can also choose to have Iterable select a unique optimized value for each user that’s based on their historical engagement data (see Frequency Optimization).
Go to Settings > Frequency Management.
To specify a frequency value for a message channel, select the appropriate tab, then choose Fixed Cap for the channel setting.
Specify the maximum number of messages for the selected message channel (between 1 and 99) and the period that the frequency cap applies (day, week, or month).
- Click Save Changes.
NOTE
If Frequency Optimization is enabled in your project and you want to set an optimized value instead of a fixed cap, see Frequency Optimization.
# Enable Frequency Management for message types
Message types follow the Frequency Management rule set for the channel, by default. You can override the default setting by choosing No Cap, Fixed Cap, or (if it’s enabled in your project), Optimize.
Messages sent for message types with a setting other than the default do NOT count toward the frequency cap specified for the channel.
For example, if you specify that no more than four emails should be sent per week, but you also specify No Cap for Promotional type messages, your users can receive an unlimited number of Promotional messages, and no more than four other emails from you, depending on other message type settings.
NOTE
Values set for message type override those set for the message channel.
To enable frequency capping for a message type:
Go to Settings > Frequency Management.
Select the tab for the channel (email, push, or SMS) and find the message type to override.
-
Open the drop down menu for the desired message type and select a value:
Select No Cap to ignore all frequency caps for this message type.
Select Fixed Cap to specify a maximum number of messages for this message type (between 1 and 99) and the period that the frequency cap applies (day, week, or month).
In this example, Iterable sends a maximum of three email marketing messages per week for the selected message type to each user.
Click Save Changes.
NOTE
If Frequency Optimization is enabled in your project and you want to set an optimized value instead of a fixed cap, see Frequency Optimization.
# Ignoring frequency caps
You can choose to have a specific campaign ignore frequency caps from the Campaign Setup page or from journey tiles within Studio. In either case, campaigns that ignore frequency caps also ignore limits that you set for channels and message types.
These options only appear when a message is subject to frequency capping. Override controls don't show for transactional messages, because caps don't apply to them.
# Ignore frequency cap for a campaign
To ignore the frequency cap for a specific campaign, turn on Ignore Frequency Cap in the campaign delivery settings.
# Ignore frequency cap in a journey
To ignore the frequency cap for a message in a journey, turn on Ignore Frequency Cap in the message tile settings.
# Want to learn more?
For more information about some of the topics in this article, check out these Iterable Academy courses. Iterable Academy is open to everyone — you don't need to be an Iterable customer!