How to set up a drip schedule and expiration date for content in the Members Area?

Setting up a drip schedule to release your content can be a strong marketing strategy for your product. Keeping students engaged is essential, and an effective way to do this is by scheduling the release and expiration date of your content.

With the Members Area drip schedule, you can:

• Schedule release dates: Choose a specific date for your content to become available to buyers. This lets you plan your content rollout in advance. These settings can be applied to selected content, lessons, quizzes or to all of them.
• Release based on purchase date: Set a delay after purchase. For example, you could release a new module 3 days after a member buys your product. This creates a steady stream of fresh content for them.
• Release based on quiz results: Use quiz results as a condition to unlock content. 
• Set expiration dates (optional): Want to limit access to certain content? The Members Area lets you set an expiration date, making it unavailable after a specific period.

These settings can be applied to specific content, all groups, or a specific group.
 

❯ To set up your drip schedule or expiration date, follow the steps below:

1. Log in to Hotmart via https://app.hotmart.com/ 
2. In the left-hand menu, click on Members area.
3. Select the members area and the product you want to set up.
4. Next, go to the left-hand menu, click Products and select the product you want.
5. In the Content tab, select the content you want to schedule and click Schedule.
6. Select the option New drip schedule and choose from the following options:
   • Drip days after purchase: The content will be released after a set number of days that you define, starting from the purchase date of each student.
   • Drip on a specific date: The content will be released on a fixed date for all students, regardless of when they made the purchase.
   • Drip by quiz result: The content will be released based on the results of existing quizzes in the product, as long as the content is published and accessible to students:
     • If the quiz has a minimum passing score, this information will be displayed in the list, and the content will only be released when the student achieves the required score.
     • If the quiz doesn’t have a minimum score, the student will gain access to the content immediately after completing the quiz.
   • Expiration after release: The content will expire after a set number of days that you define after its release.
7. Define if the setting will apply to all groups or a specific group. If you choose a specific group, select it from the list of existing groups.
8. Click Review drip schedule. Review the details and click Schedule.

Important Information

• Expiration time is always set in days. If no release date is set, the expiration will start counting from the purchase date.
• The expiration and content release settings follow the 00:00 GMT -3 time zone to determine when content is released or expires, based on the number of days configured.
• Content expiration based on quiz results starts from the purchase date, so it can’t be tied to quiz completion.
• After the content expiration date, the student remains with an Active status in the members area but can no longer view the expired content.
• Content drip based on quiz results can only be applied to content pages, quizzes, and ads. This can be done for one page or in bulk, however bulk settings will override previous ones.
• If a quiz that unlocks content is unpublished, the content will become available to all students.
• Quiz-based release scheduling depends on group access. If a group can’t access the quiz but it’s linked to content drip, they will still access the content even if they can’t access the quiz.
   

Frequently Asked Questions

❯ If I set an expiration date for my content, will all students who have purchased before I do this lose access to the content? 

The expiration date considers the release date of the content. Once you configure it, it applies to all students in the selected group. If you schedule the content drip to a specific date, the expiration date will take the release date into account, always following 00:00 GMT -3 on the chosen date.

For example: Release date on June 20 and an expiration period of 30 days.

• Student purchased the product on June 6: They will have to wait until the June 20 to access the content and will have access for 30 days.
• Student bought the product on July 15: The content is already available and they will have access until July 20, which is 30 days after June 20.
• The student purchased the product on July 21: The content has already been release and expired and is no longer available to the student.

❯ The content has expired, but I want to make it available for more days for my buyers. How do I do that?

Create a new group and include the students for whom you want to provide additional days of access to the content. Specify a longer time period, taking into account the additional time you want to keep the content available and the students' release/purchase date. Here’s an example:

• Release/purchase date: 180 days ago
• Additional availability period: 90 days
• New expiration date: 180 + 90 = 270 days from the release date.

❯ Can I create a drip schedule for a single student?

Yes, it is possible. To do this, you need to create a specific group and add this student to it.

❯ Can I set a content drip and expiration date for an ebook? 

No, it’s not possible. These settings are only available for pages and modules (groups and quizzes) in online courses hosted in the Members Area.

❯ Does the drip schedule and expiration date affect course certification?

Yes. The certificate is issued when all lessons have been completed. In this case, if any content has not been released and/or has expired without the student completing it, the certificate will not be available. You can check if a student still has lessons to complete by accessing the Users tab and filtering by the student's name. Open their profile to verify the history of completed or pending content.

❯ I’m the product creator in ‘Student’ view and there is no content available in the modules where I defined an expiration date. Why is that?

The release and expiration dates are based on the purchase date/date the student was imported. For you, the product creator, the system considers the date the product was created. This means that if you have defined an expiration date, it will consider the product creation date as the content release date. The content may not appear because the period will have expired in relation to that date.

❯ Why does my student still have an Active status after the expiration period?

Content expiration and access blocking are separate mechanisms. When you set a content expiration period, it only defines content visibility, not access to the members area.

This means the student remains with an Active status in the members area but can no longer view content that has already expired.

To learn more about a student’s Blocked status, check out this article.
 

❯ What happens if I unpublish a quiz that unlocks content?

If you unpublish the quiz, the content linked to it will automatically become available to all students.

❯ Why can’t I delete a quiz?

If a quiz is set to unlock content, deleting it without disabling that setting may make the content inaccessible. To avoid this, first remove the content drip rule or simply unpublish the quiz.

❯ I set up the content drip, but my students can’t access it through the app. Why could this happen? 

If this happens, it may mean that your students are using an outdated version of the Hotmart App. We recommend advising them to always update the app to avoid issues.