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Jamie_Barclay
Level 5
June 20, 2017
Question

Dynamic content

  • June 20, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3502 views

So my stakeholders want to use dynamic content (i.e, based on savings and hospital options available to them).   I'm wondering what is needed in terms of snippets, etc.)  I'm concerned as there are a significant number of people. 

It seems to me would would need to have the "Lead" fields set up (not currently in Marketo)

  • Savings $
  • Hospital option

Then the static list would reflect those Marketo fields and and the email file would {{  }} need to reflect the field so that when the list is uploaded into the program the email would deploy with the dynamic content.

Can you confirm this approach is right or if not please adjust.  Also do you see any other pre-work necessary in order to achieve this?

My understanding is that snippets and tokens would not be the solution but I may be wrong. 

The other thing I picked up on in achieving this is via velocity scripting - which seems very complex.

Thank you

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2 replies

Joey_Forcelli1
Joey_Forcelli1
Level 4
June 20, 2017

If you go the snippet route you will need to setup new segmentations for each of your criteria.  This article in the product docs will get you on the right path.  Once you have your segments created, you can create the snippets that will use the different segments.

Velocity scripting is nice for basic if/or scenarios but the more complicated the logic the more complicated the scripting obviously.  there are a couple good posts as to how to use basic velocity scripting.  I have included 2 articles below.

Basic Email Scripting Examples for Marketers

Velocity script tokens as an alternative for dynamic content

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
June 20, 2017

More thorough articles @ blog.teknkl.com/tag/velocity (note some of the examples in the above links are wrong).

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
June 20, 2017

Then the static list would reflect those Marketo fields

Don't know what static list you're referring to, but when you use Dynamic Content™ this is associated with segments, which are derived from Smart Lists.

My understanding is that snippets and tokens would not be the solution but I may be wrong.

(Dynamic) snippets and (Velocity) tokens are two ways of doing this, so I would say they are both possible solutions, not neither!

It's helpful to distinguish Dynamic Content™ from lower-case "dynamic content."

The former is a sort of "first-class" term in Marketo that refers to segmented content blocks and/or snippets.

The latter would include all of the former plus alternative approaches such as Velocity. Velo is, as Joseph notes, considerably more technical but can do things you can't do any other way, like intersecting segments (if person is in Segments A and C but not Segment B...).

J
Jamie_BarclayAuthor
Level 5
June 21, 2017

This is all extremely helpful.  However from what I'm gathering the "segment" needs to be set up in our Database and all of the identified people would need their record to include the segment field - right?  We would have to have the Marketo person in our database's record updated to populate for the segment field.

We may be pulling lists outside of Marketo to identify the members that will be part of the campaign (there are multiple versions of the email). It seems like perhaps a better route may be to set up "{{lead.Custom 1d:default=Rate}} and {{lead.Custom 1e:default=facility}}. So in addition to the email address, the CSV file may include the two dynamic fields tied to that member.

Also if we set up a segment called "facility", there could be a significant number of hospitals within that segment.

I'm just trying to determine the best approach to take on this issue that would allow the email we are sending to dynamically populate with the targeted member's unique information for the two fields.

Hopefully this makes sense. I appreciate your insight and knowledge.

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
June 21, 2017
This is all extremely helpful. However from what I'm gathering the "segment" needs to be set up in our Database and all of the identified people would need their record to include the segment field - right? We would have to have the Marketo person in our database's record updated to populate for the segment field.

Well, yes and no. Segments are based on Smart List criteria. The Smart List could itself be based, in whole or in part, on membership in a Static List(s) or Program(s). It doesn't need to be based on lead-level fields.

I would venture unscientifically that segments usually take lead fields into account, but that still might be only 51% of the time.

We may be pulling lists outside of Marketo to identify the members that will be part of the campaign (there are multiple versions of the email). It seems like perhaps a better route may be to set up "{{lead.Custom 1d:default=Rate}} and {{lead.Custom 1e:default=facility}}. So in addition to the email address, the CSV file may include the two dynamic fields tied to that member.

This "Custom 1d" and "Custom 1e" generic naming doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

If you create a numeric field "Rate," you can then create a Segmentation called (for example) "Rate Class" whose Segments represent your database divided according to Rate.  Each Segment can include one or more rates, for example Rate [between] 1 and 10, Rate [between] 11 and 20, etc. You can have up to 100 different Rate Classes in this model.

Similarly if you create a text field "Facility," you can use a Segmentation called "Facility Group" to sort your db by facility (or by group of facilities). Every lead is in one (and only one) Segment within the Segmentation.

With these Segmentations, you'd be able to use Dynamic Content™ based on which Rate Class someone is in, or based on which Facility Group they're in.

If you want to create dynamic content (lower-case) that displays only if someone is in Rate Class "IV" and Facility Group "Northern Pediatric Hospitals" then you would be better served using Velocity.  Segmentations are not the place to precompute tens of possible combinations of different fields, because you either can't fit (mathematically) all the combos into 100 segments, or you'll go crazy trying to build your Smart Lists.

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