This document describes in detail the preparation and creation of an email campaign with follow-up actions and the execution of all these actions.
It explains
- the email personalization with usage of different sources for personalization values
- the start, pause and stop of a campaign and when follow-up triggers and actions will no longer be processed
- how interactions for start triggers and follow-up triggers are collected and when follow-up actions are scheduled for execution, depending on advanced and delayed scheduling options
Trigger based campaigns have no target group assigned. Similar to a periodic target group based campaign, they are executed for a longer period which is defined by campaign’s start and end date.
You can use live target groups as filters, details are described in
“Application Help: Business Features -> Campaigns -> Managing Campaigns -> Filtering”. Hence they are not documented again in this document.
Trigger based campaigns react on newly created interactions only. Interactions are a must for trigger based campaigns. Because the campaign shall send emails to a recipient the interaction must have a valid interaction contact which has an email address.
The information in this document is based on release 1805 but most described features are available since 1709.
The document consists of 3 chapters:
- Email content and usage of personalization attributes
- Campaign definition
- Campaign execution
1. Email content and usage of personalization attributes
In the email editor you can use personalization attributes of different sources. In this document we will cover only 2 of them:
- Personalization attributes of interaction contact
- Personalization attributes of a segmentation object
You can either use attributes of only one source or of both. The usage of the personalization attributes influences the performance of the campaign execution.
Personalization attributes of interaction contact
These personalization attributes are always available in the email editor. The editor offers all attributes of the interaction contact root table.
Note:
Email content using only personalization attributes of interaction contact can be used in all campaigns.
Impact on performance of campaign execution:
If you use only these personalization attributes the campaign execution can do a fast retrieve of the values from one database table.
Personalization attributes of a particular segmentation object
These personalization attributes can be made available by assignment of a segmentation profile in the field “Personalization” in the settings tab in the email editor. In the segmentation configuration you must define for every attribute of the segmentation object if it is offered in the email editor or in segmentation model or in both.
Note:
Email content which uses at least one personalization attribute of a segmentation object can be used only in such trigger based campaigns where the campaign has the same segmentation object.
The segmentation object of the trigger based campaign is set by the first email content which gets assigned.
Dependencies on keys and business objects of the assigned segmentation object
- Segmentation object has only interaction contacts as business object and key:
Depending on the attributes of the segmentation object the personalized email can show personalization values of interaction contact plus other related data.
If the email shall show personalization values coming from the triggering interaction this business object and key definition will not work because of the different keys.
- Segmentation object has interactions as business object and key:
If the email shall show personalization values coming from the triggering interaction (e.g. type of interaction and its creation date) you must use a segmentation object where the Interaction is used as key. If the segmentation object provides also attributes of the interaction contact the personalized email can show also values of the contact.
Impact on performance of campaign execution:
If you use personalization attributes of a segmentation object the campaign execution must retrieve the values of these attributes by usage of the segmentation engine. The segmentation engine generates a select statement.
In the opposite to the retrieval of personalization values for campaigns having a target group assigned (read the blog
https://blogs.sap.com/2018/03/28/sap-hybris-marketing-target-group-based-email-campaigns-chapter-2), the retrieval for trigger based campaigns does not apply any filters of a segmentation model (because there is no target group and no segmentation model in place). The used select statement is much simple (has no complex where condition) and its execution takes less time compared to statements where the filter of the segmentation model are applied.
In addition there is no need to influence the retrieval of the personalization attributes. The BAdI and Target Group Configuration (read the blog
SAP Hybris Marketing - Target group based email campaigns - chapter 2 are not used for trigger based campaign.
Multi language email content
The email editor allows for one email content the definition of different subject lines and contents for different languages.
The campaign execution must determine for every recipient of the email the language in order to build the personalized email in the right language. For this the campaign execution reads the language of every contact from the root table of the interaction contact.
If the contact has not maintained a language in the root table it will receive the email in the default language defined for the used email content.
If the contact has maintained a language in the root table which is NOT defined as supported language for the used email content it will receive the email in the default language defined for the used email content.
Conditions in email content
Email content with conditions needs more processing time for the creation of the personalized email than email content without conditions.
Next chapter
Campaign definition