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I usually work Automation Studio and SQL Activities to build my recipients. But I have been tasked to learn how to build simple segments using Data Filters and Measures. And now I am already confused as the numbers that end up in my Groups do not make sense to me.

Using Data Filters and Measures that end up in a Group, I would like to get subscribers who opened in a specific send (say JobID=123). But the numbers don't match when I check with Tracking results.

So here is what I do:

I create a measure for count of unique opens in this job. enter image description here

Next, I created a Data Filter using this measure and set the value "greater that zero". enter image description here

In the above picture, count_open_vinterlinjerna is the name of the measure I created.

Last step, I create a group to populate with this Filter. I choose the All Subscribers as the Data Source of this group.

I get some 16 contacts that end up in this group. But in reality, people who have opened in this job are over 4000. What am I doing wrong?

(I honestly don't understand the concept of Data Filter when we e.g. say the count of unique open for this job "is greater than zero". How can )

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    Measures are a disaster! I've been told recently by the support that it will be deprecated in the next release after I had a lot of nonsense results using them.
    – Rachid Mamai
    Sep 18, 2019 at 13:48
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    @RachidMamai Our customer is not that techy. They would like to have a simple way to segment their recipients based on their behavior and send emails to them e.g. "Send this email to those who opened mail with job number X". They will be very disappointed if I tell them that they have to learn SQL and Automation Studio for such straightforward tasks. Does the Marketing Cloud have an alternative in place?
    – Disasterkid
    Sep 18, 2019 at 13:52
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    That is exactly the case for my client, they were very upset knowing that they have to use SQL to get this data. I think one alternative would be an automation that queries the _Open data view and store it in a Data Extension that can be used by Data Filter. Another way is to develop query template with only the JobId and the destination Data Extension to be changed by your client.. Hope that helps
    – Rachid Mamai
    Sep 18, 2019 at 14:15
  • @RachidMamai That sounds like a good alternative with the current situation. So, what I am going to is create several data extensions for _Open, _Click, _Sent. _Unsubsbsribe, _Bounce and a few more. And these will be source of my Data Filters instead of what we have on measures. If the answer is "yes", will these Filtered Data Extensions be updated automatically when their sources are updated or do I need other automations for that?
    – Disasterkid
    Sep 18, 2019 at 14:25
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    @RachidMamai OK, apparently I should refresh the resulting filtered DEs before re-using according to this page. help.salesforce.com/… But thank you so much for the guidance. You can post your suggestion as answer as there is no better alternative at place.
    – Disasterkid
    Sep 18, 2019 at 14:41

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As I said in the comment, Measures are a disaster! I've been told recently by the support that it will be deprecated in the next release after I had a lot of nonsense results using them.

I think one alternative would be an automation that queries the _Open data view and store it in a Data Extension that can be used by Data Filter. But be careful about data size as this can get out of hand if you are doing massive sending. Set data retention on your Data Extensions.

Another way is to develop query templates with only the JobId and the destination Data Extension to be changed by your client..

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  • One last question: should I populate my DE intended for _Open using "overwrite" or "add only"? If I choose add only how does SF know what is a new row. I don't see any unique identifier for each Open record in the Data View. help.salesforce.com/…
    – Disasterkid
    Sep 18, 2019 at 18:55
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    Using "add only" should be ok. Every time a contact opens an email, this action will be added to the _Open data view and can be catched by your query.. There isn't a unique identifier for each open..
    – Rachid Mamai
    Sep 19, 2019 at 13:02

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