how to limit my email to limited number of subscribers?

Question

Is there an option to limit email to limited number of subscribers?

I have discount offer which I want to send & limit it to only 100 recipients.

2. If I have more than 100 recipients(150 recipients) in my targeted Data Extensions, how to limit and send it first 100 recipients.

Answer 1

Easiest way would be to use either a SQL Query or Random Data Extension. This way you can set the max records to pull from your DE and you will have a second DE from your original that you can then use as an exclusion DE in any follow up sends.

For SQL:

1. Copy your existing DE and rename to denote purpose
2. Create a Query Activity (see below for sample)
3. Set the target of the Query Activity to your new DE
4. Use the new DE as your sendable audience

SELECT TOP 100 SubscriberKey,
FirstName,
/* rest of your fields */
FROM [yourDE]

You can also use ORDER BY newid() in the SQL if you want to randomize the selection. (ref)

For a Random Data Extension, you can follow the below steps to get a new DE with a random 100 records:

1. Click Create DE in Subscribers
2. Select Random Data Extension
3. Select your DE as the Source
4. Click Add Data Extension
5. Enter a name for the DE
6. Enter 100 in the number of records section (make sure it is not set to percent)
7. Set location of new DE

This will then create a new DE with a random 100 records from your original DE.

Using Scripts to account for this tends to create more risk and more difficulty referencing previous sends for exclusion or suppression. It also requires a much higher level of development experience and effort.

Using Send Throttling is also not a good option as it is not always 100% accurate with the 'limit' set and it tries hourly - plus I am pretty sure that is under the minimum number allowed for Throttling.

Answer 2

In case this is a bulk Sendout, just pre-process your data a bit.

If you have multiple DEs, UNION them first.

Select Subscriberkey from DE1 
UNION
Select Subscriberkey from DE2
UNION
...

This goes into "potentialRecipients".

This now holds all your potential recipients. Via the UI, create a new data extension "yourRandomizedDE" of type "random" with 100 % of the records in "potentialRecipients".

This now holds all your potential recipients in random order.

Then, select TOP 100 records from it:

SELECT TOP 100 Subscriberkey FROM yourRandomizedDE

This will result in a DE, e.g. "recipients".

Send to the "recipients" DE, which will hold the top 100 records from the randomized list.