š” Important Note: This guide only applies to flow campaigns that use Extole's upgraded Flow Builder. Check for the flow icon next to your campaign name.
Overview
Program rules define the conditions under which a business event qualifies, triggers, or is considered high quality. These rules help ensure that only the right eventsāthose that meet your campaign criteriaāare used to issue rewards, send emails, or otherwise advance a participantās journey.
In this guide, you'll learn how to configure existing rules and add new rules to business events in your campaigns using the Flow Builder.
Why Add Business Event Rules?
Rules allow you to control how events are handled in a campaign. Specifically, they help you:
Filter out unqualified events that should not participate in your program
Determine whether an event qualifies for a specific program
Evaluate the quality of events to prevent fraud or low-value conversions
Each rule checks incoming event data, person profile attributes, or user journey behavior to make a decision.
Rule Types
Each rule you add must be assigned to one of the following categories, depending on what you want the rule to accomplish:
Quality Rules
These evaluate whether an event is high or low quality.
High-quality events trigger the business event and may lead to rewards or emails.
Low-quality events do not trigger the business event.
Common use cases:
Ensuring valid email addresses
Checking for suspicious IP addresses
Preventing self-referrals
Default Business Event Quality Rules
All flow campaigns come with default quality rules set up according to our best practices. For example, a standard referral campaign includes the following rules:
Rule | Business Events | Description |
Share Email Limit | Shared | Limit the number of share emails a person can receive in a specified time. |
Mass Share Limit | Shared | Limit the number of times a person can share across all programs within a specified time. |
Valid Email Filter | Shared, Share Clicked, Referral Signed Up, Converted | Block events associated with invalid emails. |
Bot Click Prevention | Share Clicked, Referral Signed Up | Prevent bot-driven behavior by limiting the number and speed of clicks from a single user within a specified time. |
Is New Customer | Share Clicked, Referral Signed Up | Check that the person has not performed an action that makes them a customer in the last 180 days. |
Self Referral Prevention | Share, Share Clicked, Referral Signed Up, Converted | Prevent self-referral by email address, browser ID, and/or IP address. Within this rule, these specific requests can be toggled on or off. |
Trigger Rules (advanced)
These determine whether the input event from your system should fire the business event within Extole.
If the input event passes these rules, the business event will be triggered.
If not, the business event will be skipped for this event.
Common use cases:
Order value above a specific threshold
Specific SKUs in a purchase
A particular event parameter is present
Qualification Rules (advanced)
These determine whether the event qualifies for your program at all.
Qualified events may continue through the flow.
Unqualified events may still participate in other programs.
Common use cases:
Country restrictions
Membership in a specific audience
Presence of required data (e.g., order ID or customer segment)
How to Add Rules in Flow Builder
Step 1: Navigate to the Reward in Flow Builder
Go to the Programs page.
Locate the campaign you want to edit.
Click the Manage Flow icon for that campaign.
Step 2: Select the Business Event
In the Flow Builder, find the Business Event you'd like to update
Scroll to the Rules section you'd like to configure.
Step 3: Choose Your Rule Type
Scroll to the section for the type of rule you want to apply:
Quality Rules
Trigger Rules
Qualification Rules
Click + New Rule under the desired section.
Step 4: Add and Configure the Rule
Find a rule that fits your use case.
Select the rule, then click Add.
Give the rule a clear, descriptive name based on how it works.
Adjust the parameters as needed to fit your criteria.
Click Apply to save your rule.
ā ļø Important: Rules do not take effect until you publish your campaign.
Step 5: Publish Your Campaign
Once you've finished adding and editing your rules, click Publish in the Flow Builder to apply your changes.
Example Use Case
Letās say you only want to trigger a reward when a purchase or conversion is greater than $100.
You would:
Add a Trigger Rule to your Converted business event
Choose Event Value Greater Than
Set the value to 100
Apply and publish the campaign
Now, only purchases above $100 will trigger the reward.
Can't Find the Rule You Need?
If you're unable to find a rule that matches your business requirements, reach out to your Implementation Team or Customer Success Manager. Custom rules can be created or added to your account as needed.