Product Information
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 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 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 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 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 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! 😀
Hi Luis Guilherme Paulino
Excellent insight about the new release 2102.
Thank you for sharing!
DRT
Thanks for sharing it on your Linkedin, Diamila 🙂
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
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.
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
Hi Luis,
nice blog, thanks for sharing! 🙂
Kind Regards
Tobias
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Please find it in our Q3 delivery.
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?
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 products - Email Lite
This flag is also available in the classic email editor:
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