In the Manage marketing groups view, you can get an overview of all your draft and active marketing groups.

Priority

As a contact could fit into several marketing groups, Engage uses a priority ranking system to ensure all contacts are assigned to only one marketing group.

If a contact's data can't be used to fit them into the marketing group with priority 1, the system will then check if they can be placed in the group with priority 2, and so on down the list. If a contact can't be placed in any other marketing group, they will end up in the default group. 

Every contact, though, will always belong to only a single marketing group.

It's good practise to set up your priorities with the most well-defined variations first (those including language rules), and then your less-defined marketing groups (ones without a language preference).

Priority is ranked as a list. Meaning, priority 1 is the highest and priority 2 is the second highest.

Example of priority group sorting

When a marketing group is activated or updated, or when a contact is added or updated, all your contacts will be scanned and sorted into the correct group. That happens like this:

1. Each contact is compared to the marketing group with the highest priority group (priority 1). This means comparing the contact's country and language preferences (if used) to the group's specifications. If the contact matches, they will be assigned to this marketing group and matching will cease for them.
2. If a match was not made, the contact will be compared to the marketing group with the second highest priority, again comparing the contact's country and language to those of the group.
3. This process continues through all marketing groups, in order of decreasing priority, until the contact can be placed in a group.
4. If a contact is not sorted into any of your marketing groups, they will be placed in the Default group. This group is automatically given the lowest priority.

You can read more about how Engage chooses priority in this article.

Status

These are the statues that a marketing group can have:

Draft

When you create a new marketing group, its status will be set to "Draft". This status means you can use the marketing group and configure its settings, including creating your draft emails, without it being populated with contacts and acted upon. It is advisable to set a group to "Draft" until you are ready to do your first sendout using the group (that is, you have created your newsletters or other sendouts for this group). 

Active

Once you are ready to activate a marketing group, click on the three dots (...) next to the status and select Set as active. Once your group has the status "Active" it will immediately be available for any new contacts to be matched to. Existing contacts will be redistributed into any newly activated groups once per 24 hours (this is done overnight). 

Once the group is active (and has contacts assigned), it will be used to send out scheduled or automated emails, so ensure you have all scheduled and automated emails ready before you activate the group.

Inactive

If you want to remove an active marketing group, click on the three dots (...) next to the status and select Set as inactive. This will deactivate and remove the marketing group, and all contacts in that group will be redistributed to other marketing groups. Once set to "Inactive", a marketing group will be permanently removed and cannot be reactivated.

Article last reviewed 15 October 2025 13:04