Why making a new version of DCA? Main Feedback from V1:
Given the feedback received with the first version of Dynamic Content for SFMC we’ve decided to create a new version that can solve all core problems that the original version had.
The main UX/UI issues that were reported in the old version are:
Autosave: Now dynamic content elements are saved automatically, users don’t need to manually click save in any icon or button. Segments content is saved with the same save of the email.
Element level dynamic content: You do not need to make the entire module dynamic if users only need one dynamic element. Now users can make specific elements dynamic, only a text a button or an image.
Reuse Segments: There was a beta version of reusing segments but it was confusing users did not understand that they were able to reuse and they end up creating the same segments over and over again. This new version makes reusing segments easier.
Simplify Dynamic Content Options: The process of previewing the dynamic content was too complex and users thought it didn’t work as expected. Customers stopped using it and gravitated towards reviewing outside of Stensul. The new version does not require the user to save dynamic content options to preview. Preview works by turning on/off the segments.
How to enable the new version:
Changes in Feature Flags:
Now there is only one feature flag for all DCA features (
dynamicContent.AUTHORING).Enabling that feature flags ensures access to all DCA features via integrations and scripted.
Permissions:
Permissions are the same created for DCA V1, check DCA: Scripted Dynamic Content Authoring | Permissions Required
Enable the beta:
We recommend testing the beta in a separated library to ensure it matches your needs, to do that you can duplicate your library.
Then in the newly duplicated library (you can rename it as TEST or something similar to identify it) go to the Dynamic Content section:
To enable the beta version you need to toggle on the Enable Beta option.
After the beta version is enabled any new email created with dynamic content will use the new version.
Every old email created will keep using the existing version, there is no way at the moment to automatically migrate an email from the old to the new version of DCA.
Creating from a template will respect the same version of DCA that the template had so creating a new template is necessary to enable the new version of DCA on all those new emails.
How to create and reuse segments
Let’s start with what is a segment, a segment is a piece of your audience that is filtered by a specific logic. The segmentation allows you to set what will be the logic that will differentiate the users that will get one or the other content.
To add a segment to an element:
Click on any element in the canvas and toggle on “Enable Dynamic Content” setting.
Once enabled users will see a button to Add new segments to the element it is possible to select multiple already created segments and apply them all at once or create a new segment.
Creating a new segment
First select the data extension from the list on top, this Data Extension only is necessary to filter the variables that will be displayed in the conditional logic below.
Once the data extension is selected choose a variable an operator and a value:
e.g. City Equals Barcelona
You can add multiple lines with more conditional logic, if you need to add more complex logic you can nest multiple conditionals (AND - OR) statements, this allows you to build more complex dynamic content elements in the new version.
How to make an element dynamic
When the element has a segment assigned the element is already dynamic, now is necessary to add the content that will be changing per audience.
To change that simply go the dropdown that lists the segments in the element and change to the segment you want to personalize.
Once the segment is selected any change you apply to the module will impact only that specific audience.
All changes are saved live due to autosave or manual save of the email.
It is not required (nor possible) to push the dynamic element to SFMC as a content block. More in the section: Output.
How to preview a dynamic content element
Just clicking in the preview button will open the preview for the user, the preview includes all the segments that were added to one or multiple elements.
The segments in the preview are grouped by segment so users can quickly see how their email will look like for each subscriber.
To go back to the default version users need to click “Clear All” on the Segments selector.
It is intended that only one segment at the time can be toggled on for each element since the logic should prevent elements from showing multiple times for the same subscriber.
Output, how does the dynamic content work in Salesforce?
Since now all dynamic content elements and modules are not pushed to SFMC once the email is completed the user just need to download the HTML or upload it to Salesforce.
When reviewing the exported HTML the users will notice the logic is all added to the same HTML email. This is to improve simplicity on Dynamic Content in general and ensures all the content is present on the email and reduces the errors when trying to import external content blocks and also looking for variables in the data extension, since all the data is available at the time of send in the sendable data extension.
All the variables that were set to the segments in dynamic content no matter what data extension was selected when they were created will point out to the sendable data extension at the strict moment of send. This has several advantages like:
Ensuring the email is always referencing the most updated data in the data extension the email is being sent to.
Reduce errors because of SFMC not finding the declared data extension in the Content Block.
Save time by allowing users to create one segment and reuse it instead of being forced to edit segments for every email.
Caveats and incompatibilities
Deleting segments
It is not possible for now to delete existing segments since that would impact past emails. While we resolve that UX issue in the best way we suggest you re-naming to reuse segments already created.
Since this is a beta the feature is yet not compatible with Module Update Notifications, Variations, Presets and Duplicate emails.
For the time being the behavior is the following:
Module Update Notifications
Workaround: Manually re-apply all the segments and copy/paste all the content from the old module to the new one before deleting it.
Notification is received and the module is updated but the segments are not brought to the new module.
The new module added below will bring the content of the selected segments in the selected elements the other segments need to be manually copied and added again.
Variations
Workaround: All errors on variations can be prevented if the users select the variation before making any element dynamic
Applying variation to all modules in the email
When applying a variations to a segment the segment saves the variation styles (colors and everything that gets applied to the segment) but that is not updated in the variations selector when switching the segment.
Example:
Creating an email in a library with variations:
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Add 3 segments to an element:
Segment 1
Segment 2
Segment 3
Select Segment 1
The element shows the styles of the Main variation (selected)
Select Variation 2
The element shows Variations 2 styles
The Segments shows Segment 1
Select Segment 2
The styles of Segment 2 are Main variation
All elements in the email should have the Variation 2 since that is the variation selected.
The dropdown of variations was never updated still shows Variation 2
Changing segments didn’t apply the variation to the dropdown, only to the styles.
With this functionality users can select one variation that should apply to the entire email, save it to a segment then switch the variation and start mixing the variations even when the variation configuration is at email level (all elements in the email should have the same variation)
Applying variation to individual modules in the email
Applying a variation to a dynamic element does not persist.
If the users changes the variation after making an element dynamic the element will preserve the default styles it had when it was not dynamic or any other style set in the builder (not with variations).
Duplicating emails
No workaround available at the moment
When duplicating emails with Dynamic Content V2 the segments in the dynamic content elements will be lost. All dynamic elements become regular static elements.
This means users need to re-add the segments and the content to the emails every time they create a new one, not being able to start from a draft, finished or template that already includes dynamic content.