Dynamic content takes personalization to a higher level. You can use dynamic content to create email that are targeted to each customer by creating an area in your email that displays content based on customer information that is stored in your database. You can use dynamic content in the subject line, from address, reply to address, and in the email body.
Dynamic content uses rulesets for each dynamic portion of an email. Specific rules within the ruleset provide the content for specific field values. Any database field can be used in the evaluations of these rules. There is a maximum of 400 dynamic fields (including basic personalization and dynamic content) per email.
Combining the concepts of queries, personalized text, and dynamic content gives the user the most flexibility in ensuring that the right recipient always gets the right message.
Using dynamic content
Create emails and landing pages that are tailored to each contact based on:
- 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
Important terms
| Term | Definition |
| Content blocks | The areas in a email that is populated with dynamic content. |
| Content | Content is the text, image, or other HTML output shown to the contact within a content block. You can replace the text, images, or HTML with whatever suits your needs. |
| Ruleset | A ruleset is a named group of rules that is used to define the content you display in content blocks. The ruleset must have at least one rule, in addition to the default rule. For example, you might have the following rules that make a ruleset for the header:
|
| Rule | A rule is a subset of a ruleset. 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. |
| Default rule | The default rule defines that content that will be used if the criteria in none of the other rules are met. |
Add dynamic content to the email body
You can add dynamic content to your email in in the subject line, from address, reply to address, and in the email body.
- Create or open an email.
- In Email settings, make sure you have a contact source selected.
- In the content builder, click Dynamic content options
- You can choose one of four options, Create new ruleset, Reuse ruleset, Load ruleset from Library and Import XML ruleset. If you have existing rulesets for this email you can reuse them. If you don't, you'll need to create, load or import rulesets.
- If you choose to Create a new ruleset, you'll need to Name your content area. Provide a name that describes what the content shows, such as SubjectLine and name your ruleset.
- Name the ruleset and make sure to select Rulebuilder (instead of Classic rulebuilder).
- Click Next.
- The first rule is the default rule. You must always have a default rule.
- To add more rules select Add rule.
- Name your rule, and select the criteria to identify the contacts you want to target. Then, in the Then show text field, provide the dynamic content you want to display to this audience.
- Select Done when you are finished with a rule.
- Click Add rule to repeat this step for each of your rules.
- Click Save & close.
Add dynamic content to the subject line
To add dynamic content to the subject follow these steps:
- Go to Email settings
- Select Subject line and in the box beside the subject line, select Add dynamic content.
- Follow steps 4-12 above to create and save your rulesets.
Note: In the rule builder, you won't have the option to Build content for a subject line, but you can add personalization to your subject line by selecting Personalization and choosing a field from your database.
Limitations of dynamic content
Although there is no limit to the number of rulesets that you can add to an email, there is a limit of 1000 rules for each ruleset. 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 rulesets?
- Do you use rulesets that contain "Is in query"?
The maximum number of criteria for each rule is 100.
The following characters are allowed for content area and ruleset 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 cannot edit the dynamic content, you also can't include dynamic content in the subject line.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dynamic content does not support universal behaviors.
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>
Old images are shown in dynamic content
You have an email that uses dynamic content that you uploaded from your hard drive (it is not stored in the asset library). You replaced one of the images (also from your hard drive), but you still see an old image when you copy the email.
- Open the email.
- Edit the content in the Dynamic Content area.
- In the ruleset, click the name of the content next to the content area.
- Delete the image and click Apply Changes.
- Go to Content > Asset Library.
- Click Import and click Image. Upload the new image.
- In the email, edit the content.
- Click the image button.
- Select Upload Image and click Locate.
- Click Select file from Asset Library and click Locate.
- Click the image and click Insert.
- Click OK twice.
- Click Apply Changes.
Create a copy of your email again. Your new image should now display properly when the dynamic content criteria is met.
Unable to send a quick test of an email with dynamic content
This issue is usually caused when the database that is attached to the email is not identical to the database that is used to create the dynamic content rules.
The back-end processes use column numbers to determine your database field. When you re-use 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.
Alternatively, contact support to find out which field relates to the column number.