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Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino

Create Blocks for Interaction: a use case for triggered-based Campaigns

Introduction

SAP Marketing Cloud has delivered some neat features within 2102 release. One that has really caught up my attention (and I am sure it will catch yours, too!) is the new content block interaction types in emails.

This can lead up marketers to a whole other level of flexibility when thinking of and creating new trigger-based marketing campaigns! 😀

You may find this and other enhancements here.

Feature overview

As of now we are able to use the brand new block for interaction in email templates to be utilized in trigger-based campaigns.  This means that any interaction type in your system may be used for personalization in the content studio. The email may containt both header and item level information from the interaction.

What’s really neat about this is that product fields such as ‘item amount’ and ‘item quantity’ have been enabled for usage. Also, other custom fields you might have under Product interaction business context may be used as well. This is also true for Shopping Cart Abandoned interaction block which didn’t use to have item amount or item quantity fields available until now.

Example

Let’s suppose your customer has just placed an order. SAP Marketing Cloud will send an automatic “thank you for your purchase” e-mail to the customer containing relevant information about the purchased product.

In content studio (email) you may now find the new ‘Interaction’ block available. The procedure is the same as for abandoned shopping cart. Drag-and-drop the block to start building the email content.

Interaction%20block%20in%20content%20studio

Interaction block in content studio

 

Click ‘Interactions’ to view the area where you will select the interaction type and the layout. The Interaction Type matchcode will show all interaction types configured in your system (standard and custom).

For the purpose of this example, interation type Sales Order (SALES_ORDER) has been selected.

Create%20the%20block%20-%20select%20interaction%20type%20and%20layout

Create the block – select interaction type and layout

All of the features available for a text block are also available for this block type. Under personalization you will notice Interaction header fields as well as Interaction Item fields. In the screenshot below you can see the field ‘amount per item’ which corresponds to the actual product price from the interaction (InteractionProductAmount field).

Personalization%20attributes

Personalization attributes

 

The design of the email is not the purpose of this blog but you may work on all features available. A template from SAP was used and adapted for this example. In the screenshot below you can see some of the attributes that were used. Product name and Product ID have been available for a long time. The new ones are:

  • Quantity: standard field, InteractionProductQuantity
  • Amount per item: standard field, InteractionProductAmount
  • Item Status (description): custom field which indicates a specific status for the product

PS: any custom field created under ‘Marketing: Interaction Product Business Context’ would work here as long as it is populated in your integration scenarios within that specific interaction type.

Building%20your%20email

Building your email

 

Last but not least, a trigger-based Campaign needs to be set up using interaction type Sales Order as a trigger. Once a specific sales order hits SAP Marketing Cloud the email is triggered and sent to the recipient.

Personalized%20Email%20sent%20to%20the%20recipient

Personalized Email sent to the recipient

 

Conclusion

 

As of release 2102, SAP has delivered more flexibility when it comes to the design of emails using both standard and custom interaction types. Also, more relevant fields for the ‘interaction product’ have become available such as Item Quantity, Item Amount and custom fields at interaction item level.

What triggers and interaction types would you use for this scenario? I can think of plenty of ideas! 😀

 

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      14 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Diamila Rosa de la Teja
      Diamila Rosa de la Teja

      Hi Luis Guilherme Paulino

      Excellent insight about the new release 2102.

      Thank you for sharing!

      DRT

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for sharing it on your Linkedin, Diamila 🙂

      Author's profile photo Joyca Vervinckt
      Joyca Vervinckt

      Hi Luis Guilherme Paulino

      Thank you for sharing this!

      I am wondering, what happens when a customer buys 2 (or more) products in the same sales order interaction? Because that was always the problem in the past, you could already use the "all interactions" personalization profile in the settings to be able to personalize in a trigger-based campaign based on interaction data, but 1-to-many values then always got concatenated... does this new interaction block solve that?

       

      Thanks,

      Joyca

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Joyca Vervinckt

      This feature works just like the Abandoned Shopping Cart block in content studio. Except it's even better because you get to choose whiever interaction type you want to take into consideration.

      So yes, it works in a multiple-product scenario. You can choose the 'maximum number of items' to be displayed in your e-mail (1, 2, 3...or all of them).

      I have tested with more than 1 product in my system and it worked! 🙂

      Also what I love about this is the possibility to have item-related fields in the email content. Not just master-data related, but actual interaction product related data (e.g.: quantity and price).

      When you try this new feature let me know!

      Best Regards,

      Guilherme.

      Author's profile photo Ralf Freyler
      Ralf Freyler

      Hi Joyca,

      The new interaction block is capable to show interaction products which are related to the sales order interaction - this will be managed within the "Items" section.

      This block is not related to the personalization profile.

      Best Regards

      Ralf

       

      Author's profile photo Tobias Schneider
      Tobias Schneider

      Hi Luis,

      nice blog, thanks for sharing! 🙂

      Kind Regards

      Tobias

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Tobias Schneider !

      Thank you for taking your time and reading it 🙂

      I was so anxious about this feature. Many of my clients have this exact need so I am very glad SAP has delivered it as per standard.

      Kind regards,

      Guilherme.

      Author's profile photo Anuja Shukla
      Anuja Shukla

      Hi Luis Guilherme Paulino ,

      Good Blog!

      Will this also work for custom interactions created in the system, and if yes how trigger-based campaign will work with custom interactions?

       

      Thanks!

       

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Anuja Shukla ,

      Yes! This also works for custom interactions. If you go to content studio, drag and drop the new interactions block, you will be able to find and select your custom interactions.

      It works just the same as a standard interaction. You will be able to add product-related fields and create your content accordingly.

      BR,

      Guilherme.

      Author's profile photo Christian Langmann
      Christian Langmann

      Thank you for sharing Luis!

      Would be great to have this feature also available for the E-Mail Lite editor in content studio.
      SAP announced some days ago, that the E-Mail Lite editor will be scoped for new delevopments.

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Glad you enjoyed it, Christian Langmann

      Email Lite editor is being improved by SAP at each new release. As of now it is still not possible to use certain functions such as products, recommendations, offers and so on.

      According to Marketing cloud roadmap additional blocks and features will be included in Q2 2021. Looking forwart to it!

      BR,

      Guilherme.

      Author's profile photo Silvia Backes
      Silvia Backes

      Please find it in our Q3 delivery.

      Author's profile photo Enrique Florian Gaviria
      Enrique Florian Gaviria

      Nice block Luis Guilherme Paulino

      In some situations we have interactions that not have a related product, in such cases we set off the position section on the interaction block. then we run the campaign that send the email message, nonetheless in this specific scenario we recived  the mail  with the header section of the interation block in blank. there are any way avoid this behavior?

      Author's profile photo Guilherme Paulino
      Guilherme Paulino
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Enrique Florian Gaviria,

      Thanks for your comment.

      I am not 100% I understood your question but this is what I think: if you have a scenario in which you may or may not have products involved within the same interaction type, then you need to use the "no email if no items found" flag available in the email lite configuration:

      No%20products%20-%20Email%20Lite

      No products - Email Lite

       

      This flag is also available in the classic email editor:

      No%20product%20-%20Classic%20email%20editor

      No product - Classic email editor

       

      If you use this configuration, the system will check whether the interaction has any items. If it does, then the email will be triggered. If not, the email will not be triggered at all.

      But if you want the emails to be sent you should disregard this flag.

      Please feel free to add some screen shots so I can take a better look at your issue.

      BR,

      Guilherme