Dynamic content is a personalization solution that displays email content based on customer information stored in your database. By adding a dynamic content area to different elements of an email, each customer can get a message that optimally matches their data. You can insert dynamic content into subject line, from address, reply to address, and email body.

Dynamic content uses specific rules, grouped in rule sets, for each dynamic portion of an email. Every rule refers to a specific field value in your database, for example:

• Customer information that is collected in your database
• Membership in a contact list
• Membership in a query
• Behaviors
• Relational table information
• Salesforce.com opportunity status

You can add up to 400 dynamic fields (including basic personalization and dynamic content) per email.

Note: Dynamic content doesn't support universal behaviors.

Rule sets, rules, and default rules explained

A rule set is a named group of rules that is used to define the content you display in content blocks. The rule set must have at least one rule, in addition to the default rule. For example, you might have the following rules that make a rule set for the header:

• Default rule: Show the All flowers image.
• Rule 1: If favorite flower display is 'potted', show the wild orchid potted plant image.
• Rule 2: If favorite flower display is 'bouquet', show the lily bouquet image.

Your database can have as many rule sets as you want, but each rule set must have a unique name. Rule sets can contain:

• Criteria for selection or comparison of contact information
• Content to display if rules are met
• Default content to display if rules are not met
• Personalization to display in the content area

A rule is a subset of a rule set. Individual, conditional IF...THEN = CONTENT statements determine which content is dynamically placed in the message. For example, a rule might be:

IF state = NY, THEN show New York content.

The default rule defines the content that will be used if the criteria in none of the other rules are met.

Add dynamic content to the email body

1. When creating an email in the composer's HTML editor, click the Dynamic rules dropdown in the Details tab.
2. Choose the rule set option you'll use for your email.
   1. If you want to use a previously created rule set, click the Select rule set button to open the selection modal. Click the rule set on the list and confirm by clicking the Select button.
   2. [If you want to create a new ruleset, click Create rule set ?]
3. After selecting a rule set, you'll notice a new tab in the composer: Dynamic content. Switch to this tab and click the Add content area button to add space for dynamic content in your email.
4. Once you add a content area, click the Select rule set button and choose a rule set just like in step two. You will assign this rule set for the particular dynamic content area.
5. Every dynamic content area has an assigned tag, which will be used in the HTML editor. You can edit each rule in the rule set by clicking its name. To add content that the user will see if they fulfil the rule criteria, enter the HTML cod in the Code field. Confirm the edits by clicking Save. Note: The Active rule toggle is switched on by default for every rule.
6. Go back to the HTML editor tab. To add the content area to your email, place the cursor in the Code field and paste the content area tag created in step 5.
7. To preview how an email will look with each rule applied to the dynamic content area, click the lightning icon. You will see a dropdown menu with rule sets and rules. Select the checkbox for each rule to display the preview.

Limitations of dynamic content

Although there is no limit to the number of rule sets that you can add to an email, there is a limit of 1000 rules for each rule set. System performance might begin to deteriorate before this limit is reached. The more complex a rule or ruleset is, the more resources it requires. There are several factors that contribute to system performance:

• How many browser windows/tabs do you have open?
• How complex are your dynamic content rule sets?
• Do you use rule sets that contain "is in query"?

The maximum number of criteria for each rule is 100.

The following characters are allowed for content area and rule set names:

• Spaces
• Single quotation marks
• A-Z and a-z
• 0-9
• Hyphen (-)
• Underscore (_)
• Open and close parentheses
• Period (.)

In determining what content block to display, the system looks dynamically at the contacts who meets the "is in query" criteria at send time. You can include dynamic content in a locked email. However, you can't edit the dynamic content, you also can't include dynamic content in the subject line. 

Device recognition in dynamic content

Although you can identify a device (such as a mobile phone or tablet) in the database by using responsive media queries, we recommend that you do not code to the specific device. The device that is recorded in the database is not guaranteed to be the same device all of the time. Instead, code for the size of the device so you can customize the content for each device type. 

Dynamic content is generated for each contact at send time. It can't be changed dynamically if the email is opened on a different device than what is specified in the database field that is used to create the ruleset.

Reply handling

Reply handling does not work with dynamic content for address settings. The reply-to domain in the received email shows the domains that were set up using dynamic content rules. However, when a contact replies to the email, the system's reply handler notes the original from and reply-to domain in the email template. The system ignores the information in the enable personalization and dynamic content functionality for from name, from address, and reply to address fields.

Reusing dynamic content in email subject line

You can reuse dynamic content within an email body but not in the subject line. If you are using dynamic content within an autoresponder, write the rule by using the dynamic content rule builder instead of using a query. You can't automate an opt-in email that contains dynamic content that uses "is in query". The dynamic content rule builder allows you to build specific rules. Dynamic content must not reference an existing query.

Troubleshooting

Dynamic content icon is disabled

If you have dynamic content in your email and the Dynamic content icon in the HTML body is grayed out, go to source view and remove this code. The dynamic content areas should function properly again.

<div contenteditable="false" style="position: absolute; top: 2px; left: 6px; display:
block;" id="%%DC::Salutation2::Salutation2%%_marker_control" class="spButtonWrapper"><input
type="IMAGE" contenteditable="false" style="border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.6;"
src="/images/fckIcon_dc_16.gif" /></div>

Unable to send a test email with dynamic content

This issue is usually caused by discrepancies between two databases: the one attached to the email and the one used to create the dynamic content rules.

The back-end processes use column numbers to determine your database field. When you reuse a dynamic content ruleset with a different database, make sure that the new database includes the same field names and syntax as the other database.