Personalizing your newsletter in the drag-and-drop editor
The drag-and-drop editor in the Copernica Marketing Suite allows you to easily create newsletters. Just like newsletters created in the HTML-editor, newsletters created in the new editor can then be personalized by using Smarty-code. However, there is a small difference between the Smarty-code in the drag-and-drop editor and the HTML editor.
The Copernica Marketing suite is a new interface in our software. The first version of our interface has been released recently. Even though the interface is still under development, it is already possible to create fully responsive newsletters in the drag-and-drop editor. The drag-and-drop editor is fully functional and can be used to easily create fully responsive emails.
There are many ways to personalize email messages: a personalized greeting with first and last name, show or hide content based on interests or previously purchased products, etcetera. In the Copernica software personalization works with Smarty-code. Using Smarty-code you can add any data from any database or collection field to your emails. The Smarty code in the email will be replaced with the data in the specified field of the users profile.
The changes in personalizing
Personalizing email messages was already possible in the Copernica HTML-editor. If you wanted to, for example, add the first name of the recipient to an email, all you had to do was add {$First_name} to the email message (If the field in which you stored a first name is 'First_name'):
Dear {$Firstname}This way the data in the field 'First_name' will replace the {$Firstname} Smarty code. The recipient of the email will then see the frist name he or she gave you when then signed up for your newsletter.
In the drag-and-drop editor this has changed slightly: you always have to specify if the field you refer to in the Smarty code comes from a profile or a subprofile. By using {$profile.Firstname} instead of {$Firstname} it is possible to retrieve data from a recipients profile as well as their subprofile. To retrieve the first name of a recipient in the drag-and-drop editor all you have to do is add 'profile' to the Smarty-code:
Dear {$profile.Firstname}It's only a small difference compared to the HTML-editor. However, it is very important to specify whether you retrieve data from a profile or a subprofile in the drag-and-drop editor. If you do not specify if the data you want to retrieve comes from a profile or a subprofile, the personalization will not be added to the email.
Other personalization options
There are many other ways to personalize your email messages and you can add more advanced Smarty-code to your newsletters. All personalization functions of the HTML-editor are possible in the drag-and-drop editor. You can, for example, show content based on a certain 'lead-score' or a recently purchased product. Remember that you also have to specifiy if you are retrieving data from a profile or a subprofile if/when you are using more advanced personalization
This way only people that have not purchased the smartphone will get to see the deal (with the code: {if $subprofile.order != "smartphone x"} ). Recipients that have bought the smartphone at your shop will receive the alternative deal for accessories (with the code: {else if $subprofile.order = "smartphone x" } ).
Where can I use personalization in the drag-and-drop editor?
Besides the text-fields in the Copernica drag-and-drop editor, there are many other areas which allow personalization. These fields can be recognized by the Dollar $ icon in their input fields. A few examples are the 'from name', the subject, but also the from address can be personalized using Smarty-code.
Further developments
Currently it is not yet possible to show or hide complete content-blocks (such as text blocks and image blocks) in the drag-and-drop editor. However, this is something we are working on and this way of pesonalization will be available in the near future.
