After you first set up your database it does not contain any email addresses. Transact adds the addresses after an email is sent. This database must be set up in Acoustic Campaign and created in a shared folder, the folder that allows others in your organization access to the database. If you decide to create your database in a private folder first, you can move the database to the shared folder before you attach it to an email template.

This new database is not a permanent collection of contact data. The database updates with information such as contact email addresses, opt-in dates, and other system-generated fields. The XML file that is sent to Campaign updates the contact information columns in the XML Submit document that is marked as SAVE COLUMN. Contact detail remains for 60 days but is available in aggregate reports beyond that time frame. You can save data to the database and not use it in the template. Alternatively, the fields must exist in the database but not the template.

Database fields in Transact

Database fields store valuable information about your contacts, such as customer email address, postal code, or account number. They can also store data (not used in the message) submitted in the XML Submit document. Campaign uses two types of database fields: system-generated and custom.

System-generated database fields

When you create a shared database in Campaign, your database already contains system-generated field types. They appear first in the database in the List fields table. Campaign requires that you enter system field types.

Note: You cannot change the system field types after you save the database.

Required fields

The SPOP field is the primary key (unique identifier) for a transaction email. The other system fields are not required in the XML Submit document, but are needed by Campaign.

Custom database fields

You create custom database fields based on your organization's needs, such as First_Name, Last_Name, LAST_PURCHASE_DATE, or CUSTOMER_ID. You can create up to 400 fields by using any combination of field types. However, you must add the SPOP field to your database for Transact to work properly. You do not need to add data to this field. Campaign uses the SPOP field to identify the database as a restricted Transact database.

After you add the SPOP field, you can add custom fields for personalization in your emails and fields for information that you want to store in your database.

You must identify SPOP as the unique identifier when you are setting up your database. Don't identify the email field as the UID. You can add fields to a database associated with an automated message at any time. But you must add the new fields before you submit XML with tags for that field.

SPOP appears with a key beside it in the list of fields. The key indicates that this is a restricted database. A restricted database is recommended. A default value is not necessary for this field, or any other field in this database.

Seed lists

You can attach a seed list to your database so you are able to send a copy of all of the emails to members in your seed list. You can enable the seed list from the Settings button on the database summary page. 

What happens to seed list bounces in Transact

Seed list recipients that bounce during a Transact send are immediately marked as undeliverable.

The recipient will cycle through the Bounce Retry procedure and may be copied to the master suppression list if it's set to accept undeliverables.

This change was created in response to demands on the deliverability records for Transact, which causes overuse of database resources. The benefit is it reduces blacklisting risk and performance issues associated with Transact sends using seed lists.

Tip: Set up a mailbox that only collects copies of your transactional emails. If you send to one or more individual mailboxes, they may become overloaded, rendering it ineffective. You can also rotate to a new group mailbox once a month to expedite the search for detailed information.

MyCopy

You can't use a conventional organizational level seed list with Transact emails. However, you can use the MyCopy feature to receive copies of the Transact messages that you send.

MyCopy for Transact XML and Transact SMTP allows one or more individuals (or an assigned mailbox) to receive a single copy of all emails that are sent from Transact. This functionality is similar to Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) that is used in email applications.

In traditional email marketing, you use seed lists to receive sample emails to ensure that the formatting is correct and that the messages send at the specified time. You can use seed lists to set up MyCopy for Transact.

Note: This seed list will receive a single copy of all emails that are sent from Transact. Seed lists set up and configured for traditional emails will continue to work as intended.

After you set up your seed list, you can add contacts or mailbox addresses. Then you're ready to associate the seed list to your Transact database.

How MyCopy works

When you use this feature, each address on the seed list records a send for each individual Transact message sent. For example, if your MyCopy seed list contains two contacts, and on a given day you send six messages for a particular transactional message group, Transact reporting shows that there were actually 18 sends. This behavior is normal and applies to any email in which a seed list is applied.

Suppression lists

Transact XML supports FCC, domain, prefix, and global- level suppression. You’ll find the FCC, Domain, and prefixes that are not allowed for your particular organization within the Email Blocking section. Go To Settings > Org Admin > Email Blocking.

Transact XML does not support organization level suppression

Transact XML only supports global suppression as the design of Transact is to send an email based on some sort of recipient action.

It is up to you to handle your opt outs and undeliverables by exporting these metrics from your reports or you can export the master suppression list manually or by using the Export List API.

Note: The Suppression list is built based on opt-outs and undeliverables. If a contact’s email address is undeliverable (or if they mark your email as abuse via their email service provider), Transact adds their email address to a dedicated list of undeliverable and suppressed email addresses (also referred to as an organization master suppression list).

Duplicate contacts within a Transact list

Trying to prevent duplicate contacts is somewhat counterproductive to the purpose of a Transact database. Transact is not intended to be used for non-transactional based communication. As such, each entry in your database is a receipt of that particular transaction not a contact. If a contact makes multiple transactions, you'll want the records for each instance saved within your Transact database.

Send Transact messages from one or more domains

Transact supports multiple custom domains within the same Transact organization. If you support multiple brands and domains, you can manage and send all of your Transact messages from one Transact organization, regardless of the number of custom domains.

Provision the custom domains in Organization settings > Domain settings.

To send Transact messages from multiple custom domains in the same organization, you must assign the correct custom domain to the appropriate Transact database. You can set this value in Database settings.

Transact sends the message from the custom domain specified in the database assigned to the transactional automated message group (also called Transact campaign). If a custom domain is not specified in the database, then Transact sends the message from the organization default domain, specified in Domain settings.

Personalization

You can add Personalization tags from the fields that are created in your database. However, you can also personalize your email template without having those fields in your database, by adding Personalization tags to the body of an email template. They correspond to Personalization tags defined in the database fields in Campaign or in the Transact XML Submit document.

Personalization in the XML Submit Document

You can also pass the content for Personalization tags in the XML Submit document. However, you must include the content as fields in the template if you use them to substitute values from XML tags. In addition, if you want to save the values for these fields, you must also include them in the database fields.

In the example below, the user defined the personalization tag %%WORLDAIR_CONFIRMATION_BODY%%

The personalization tag is the only content in this email template. The content for the tag is passed in the XML Submit document in the TAG_NAME / VALUE element as HTML in a CDATA section. The HTML can include the entire email body. Information in the submitted XML document must correspond to the template field (personalization) tags, which are shown in the following XML Submit document example:

<XTMAILING>
<RECIPIENT>
 <EMAIL>somebody@anotherdomain.com</EMAIL>
 <BODY_TYPE>HTML</BODY_TYPE>
 <PERSONALIZATION>
 <TAG_NAME>World_Air_Confirmation_Body</TAG_NAME>
 <VALUE><![CDATA[This is the <b>body</b> of the email.]]></VALUE>
 </PERSONALIZATION>
 </RECIPIENT>
 </XTMAILING>