Frequency capping

Frequency capping in Ometria means setting a limit on the number of communications a contact receives per day and per week.

Generally, it’s uncommon to send ‘too many emails’, especially when using automation campaigns, but can sometimes happen if you are running a lot of campaigns at the same time.

How it works

When a campaign is about to start sending, Ometria automatically checks the total number of communications a contact has received within the specified time period.

Frequency capping allows you to set a limit on this number.

The frequency cap is checked at the point of send for each contact. If a contact reaches their frequency limit for the day/week, they will drop out of the campaign and will not receive the communication.

How do I use it?

Go to Account > Settings and select the Frequency Capping tab:

You don’t have to fill in all of the fields; you can choose to only activate frequency capping for a daily or weekly limit, or you can just apply frequency capping to one type of campaign, e.g. push notifications.

How is frequency calculated?

The frequency cap is checked at the point of send for each contact, within the context of your account’s timezone, if set. If you have not set a timezone for your account, the default is London UK.

In Ometria, a day is from 00:00 to 11:59, so the Per day frequency cap resets at midnight for all users.

A week is from 00:00 Monday to 11:59 Sunday, so the Per week frequency cap resets at midnight on Sunday.

Conflicting numbers

If you set a cap for All channels and then set conflicting caps for individual channels, then the lowest number will take priority.

E.g. if you set:

• All channels = 4 per day
• Email = 2 per day
• Push = 1 per day

Then the All channels cap will be disregarded, and once the caps for Email and Push have been reached there will be no further communications to that contact.

Use cases

Setting a different frequency cap per channel

If you set the following caps per day for each channel:

Your contacts will be able to receive a maximum of four messages per day - one email, two push notifications and one SMS.

Setting the same frequency cap for all channels

If you set a frequency cap of 10 per week for All channels:

Your contacts will receive the first 10 messages sent through any channel (email, SMS, push) that week.

This could mean any combination of campaigns, e.g. 10 push notifications only, and no emails or SMS, or four push notifications, five emails and one SMS, depending on your campaign strategy.

Setting a frequency cap for All channels and individual channels

If you set a cap of three messages per day for each channel and a cap of five messages for All channels:

Your contacts will receive the first five messages sent through any of the channels, and a maximum of three messages through each individual channel per day.

For example, they might get three emails and two SMS messages, or two emails, one push notification and two SMS messages, depending on your campaign strategy.

Exclude automation campaigns

You can exclude individual automation campaigns from your frequency caps - e.g. so that no matter what, contacts always receive your welcome campaigns, birthday emails etc.

Click the drop-down and select the campaigns you want to exclude:

These campaigns won’t be affected by your frequency caps, and communications received by contacts in these campaign won't count towards their frequency cap.

Ignore frequency capping for broadcast

To exclude a specific broadcast campaign from your frequency caps go directly to the broadcast builder and check the Ignore frequency capping box:

Once checked, any communications received by contacts in this campaign will not count towards the frequency cap.