Target Group

What is a Target Group?

A group of audience or targeted customers grouped together with a name for the purpose of sending a campaign is called a Target Group. You can also split a target group into multiple groups.

A Target Group can be created from multiple resources in the Webex Campaign:

Creating from Customer Profile Data
Creating a segment from a Datastore
Create a segment by applying a condition on campaign data
A text file containing a list of customer's profiles and uploaded to Webex Campaign
Upload customer's profile to Webex Campaign from an SFTP Server

What is Dynamic Target Group?

In most cases, a dynamic target group is created as a text file and uploaded to an SFTP site. The path of the target group is configured while creating a Dynamic Target Group in Webex Campaign. When the campaign is activated, the application will prepare the target group from the source configured for the target group. The campaign is then deployed as scheduled.

A Dynamic Target Group is preferred when a deployment has to be executed for up to 2 years in which the targeted customers' profiles are not static.

A Dynamic Target Group can also be created from the following resources other than SFTP:

Creating from Customer Profile Data
Querying from a customer Database
Applying a condition on campaign data
A text file containing a list of customer's profiles and uploaded to Webex Campaign

What is the difference between Static and Dynamic Target Group?

A Static Target Group is the profile information of targeted customers that does not change for a deployment. When a deployment is created, you must select a target group and then add the content, and schedule the deployment. A Static Target Group is preferred for a One-Time deployment as there will not be any change in the targeted customers.

A Dynamic Target Group is the profile information of targeted customers that gets updated at configured intervals in active deployments. The data is pulled from a source like remote SFTP and appended to the existing Target group or a new target group gets created. When a deployment is activated, the application will prepare the target group from the source configured. A Dynamic Target Group is preferred for deployment that is spread over a period of time where the targeted customers are not available at the time of creating the deployment.

What is the maximum number of records that can be processed as part of a single Target Group file?

There is no limit in the Webex Campaign for the number of records in a Target Group file. However, the Target Group file should not exceed more than 500MB in size.
For example, a Target Group file containing 70k records with 44 headers will be around 15MB in size.

How can I remove duplicate mobile numbers or Email IDs from my campaign deployments?

For each Deployment, when one or more Target Group data files are uploaded, then through the Target Group preparation process, duplicate mobile numbers are removed on a per Target Group basis. For example, if 2 data files feeding into the same Deployment Target Group have the same number present, then the duplicates will be removed when the TG is prepared for that Deployment (irrespective of whether the duplicate is found in one or both the files). Duplicates are not removed across multiple Deployments.

For SMS and MMS channels, you can check for duplicates by enabling or disabling the Remove duplicates? option under Advanced options.

For the Email channel, duplicates are always removed by default. There is no option given to the user to enable or disable the remove duplicates option.

Duplicate count can be viewed in the summary screen of the deployment.
Deployment volumes are displayed on the Dashboard screen vs the uploaded ‘Initial Contact Size’ to identify duplicate volumes.

How to configure time zones and deployments if the target group has recipients in different time zones?

It is possible to create a deployment to deliver messages in recipient time zones. This is a tenant-specific feature. It is not available to all clients by default. If you wish to explore this feature, kindly reach out to the support team at [email protected].

What are the considerations for TG Split configuration for One-time and Recurring deployments when the TG file is not available in the SFTP location?

Irrespective of the scheduled type, the application will retry connecting to the SFTP 10 times (this is a configurable parameter). For every retry, an email notification is sent to the user.
After the maximum configured retries are reached:
- One Time: Configuration will be inactivated
- Recurring: The next process time will be calculated and the system will wait for the file. Otherwise, the configuration will be inactivated.
The sleep interval between each iteration of collecting the configuration is 30 seconds.

Can a Target Group header be encrypted or decrypted during the TG creation?

The Target Group headers such as MSISDN, EMAIL, and CUSTOMERID are encrypted by default. If a Target Group header is stored as a decrypted header in Webex Campaign, it will remain decrypted for all future Target Group headers. If you wish to encrypt a specific header, kindly reach out to the support team at [email protected]. Once your request has been processed by the support team, that header will be encrypted for all subsequent Target Group creations. Once a header has been configured for encryption, it will permanently remain encrypted, and this decision cannot be reversed.