Once your campaign is live, Content Decisioning runs without intervention. This article covers how optimization behaves across campaign types, how to read your results, and how Content Decisioning interacts with Send Time Optimization.
Optimization by Campaign Type
| Campaign Type | How optimization behaves | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring | Compounds per send — each send's data improves the next | Strongest long-term lift |
| Scheduled (one-time) | Equal split only, no reweighting | Variant-level reporting to inform future campaigns |
| Intraday (send window) | Batches at 15-minute intervals; weights update between batches | Same-day optimization within a single send |
| Triggered | Uses current weights at trigger time; data accumulates across fires | High-frequency flows (post-registration, deposit confirmation) |
How Weights Shift
In production, a campaign's weight distribution can look like this:
| Variant | Weight |
|---|---|
| C | 0.62 |
| B | 0.19 |
| D | 0.15 |
| A | 0.04 |
Variant A still receives 4% of traffic as an exploration slice, but the system concentrates the majority on the top performer. For recurring campaigns, yesterday's final weights initialize today's distribution.
Reading Your Results in Mission Control
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Open your campaign in Mission Control.
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Select Channel Metrics.
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Click Template & Content Variations Breakdown.
The breakdown table shows:
- Send Distribution — sends of each variant over the selected date range.
- Opens and Clicks per variant (total, not unique).
- Optimization Benefit — measured actual improvement from simulated campaign results.
The leading variant will have the highest send distribution and shifts automatically as the campaign continues.
Total vs. Unique Metrics
Content Decisioning reports total opens and clicks. This can appear higher than unique metrics in other reporting tools.
Operational Tips
- Align your reporting date range to when Content Decisioning was enabled on the template. Including dates before activation causes a mismatch between campaign-level and variant-level metrics.
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Don't remove
vary()tags from a live template — the underlying data is retained, but variant-level results become hidden from the breakdown view. Export or record your results before removing content variations from an active template. - For one-time scheduled campaigns, you still get full variant reporting even though there's no reweighting. Use the results to pick winners for future campaigns.
Previous: Launch your campaign — see Sending a Campaign with Content Variations.
Troubleshooting: See the Content Decisioning FAQ.