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Michelle_Tang3
Michelle_Tang3
Level 3
December 4, 2019
Question

Question on Using Custom Activities

  • December 4, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 3945 views

Hi Marketo Community! Just had a couple questions about using custom activities. We created these new custom activities:

  • Can you trigger off of these in smart campaign?
  • Can you use the as tokens to populate in the email?
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1 reply

M
Mark_Price
Level 6
December 4, 2019

Hi Michelle! Glad to see you on community

Yes to triggering and constraints .. 

No to populating tokens in an email (this would be a use case for a custom object + Velocity) 


Also worth mentioning is the strategy of storing JSON data in a text area and then using Velocity to parse / prettify it on send:
https://blog.teknkl.com/marketo-json-fields-in-velocity/ 

^ my current instance has 15-20 campaigns that work this way, it's pretty sweet.

    Michelle_Tang3
    Michelle_Tang3Author
    Level 3
    December 4, 2019

    LOL Hi Mark! This is Michelle. Back from the Marvel days  So you cannot use custom activities as tokens in emails right? Strictly to use in smart campaigns than or to push data into the system. Just want to know the different between using custom activities versus using custom object.

    M
    Mark_Price
    Level 6
    December 4, 2019

    Thought so, that's part of the reason I replied.  To help an old pal with a complicated problem    

     

    Here are some quick thoughts: 

    Custom Activities are good to log an event and associated attributes where you do not need to reference those attributes in an email. Generally these are to log events where the data doesn't change. You can expect custom activity data to work similar to something like an email click or webpage visit activity. You can trigger off of it, go to the activity log and see the attributes, use them in a smart list, read them using the activity/bulk APIs but cannot pull them into an email natively.

    The custom object you can trigger off of, use in a smartlist, see in the activity log, read using the API, as well as merge into emails.   

    The JSON field approach is great if you just need a bunch of variables to reference on email send and aren't so concerned with using the data to drive reports, smart lists or triggers.  This simplifies what would be many lead fields or a custom object into just 1 field.  If you go this route I can give you details on howI do the triggers. 

    Are you leveraging the custom activity data outside of the system presently?  Trying to figure out what the dependancies are before providing a suggestion. 

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