Campaign Configuration: Email (EDP)

Cheetah Digital provides a fully-featured platform for managing your email message content, creating Campaigns with sophisticated audience selection tools and personalization options, and scheduling and deploying your Campaigns according to your marketing strategy.

The platform supports two different data sources for building Email Campaigns -- the Cheetah Digital database, and the Engagement Data Platform (EDP). This topic describes Campaigns build off the EDP; for more details on Campaigns built off the Cheetah Digital database, please see Configure an Email Campaign.

The Engagement Data Platform is the data layer that powers and unifies Zetas Cheetah Digital, Loyalty, Experience, and Personalization applications. The EDP empowers marketers to load and transform data from any source, at high volumes, and then to leverage that data to create lasting customer relationships. When creating an EDP-driven Campaign, the platform offers two options for the source of the Campaign recipients:

  • The EDP Database (typically referred to as the "Member Record")

  • A Campaign-ready File

This topic describes all of the various configuration options available for EDP-driven Email Campaigns. This topic assumes that you have already created or uploaded the Campaign.

The Campaign screen for EDP-driven Campaigns is organized into five main sections available by clicking the appropriate tab at the top of the screen.  

Select an item above for more details on that section.

Setup

Content

Review

Status

Analytics

Campaign Settings

The Tool Bar at the top of the Campaign screen provides access to the following features.

Configure Campaign Metadata

 

To assign Metadata values to a Campaign from within the Campaign screen:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Set Metadata. The Metadata pop-up window is displayed, listing every Metadata field defined for this account.  A red asterisk is displayed next to the fields that are required for Campaign launch.

  2. Enter or select the desired Metadata values.

  3. Click Ok.

For more information on setting up Metadata fields, see Metadata Settings.

Assign Campaign Tags

Optionally, you can assign one or more Tags to your Campaign. These Tags serve as an organization tool that allow you to group together items for reports and Filters.

Note: If your Campaign contains Cells & Splits, the Tag can be added only at the top-level Campaign, and not to an individual cell.

To assign a Tag to the Campaign:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Set Tags. The Mailing Tag pop-up window is displayed.  

  2. In the Add Tag field, begin typing the Tag value. The system displays a pop-up menu of all the existing tags. You can select one of these tags, or type in a new one and press Enter.

  3. Optionally, repeat steps 2 and 3 to add more tags. To remove a tag, click the X next to the tag label.

  4. Click Ok.

Set Time Zone

The first time you log into Cheetah Digital, the platform prompts you to set your time zone. Once the time zone is set, all system dates and times will display according to that time zone (this setting can later be modified through the Update Profile screen). However, when scheduling a Campaign, you can manually overwrite the user profile setting, and establish a different time zone to be used for just this Campaign.

To establish the time zone used for all scheduling activities related to this Campaign:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Set Time Zone. The Set Time Zone dialog box is displayed.

  2. From the Time Zone drop-down menu, select the desired time zone.

  3. Click Ok.

Configure Report Settings

Cheetah Digital tracks and reports various system events, such as user clicks, opens, delivery, and more. The platform allows you to configure various report options at a Campaign level.

To set the Campaign's report options:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Report Settings. The Report Settings pop-up window is displayed.

  2. The Delivery Audit section is an optional feature that must be enabled in your account. This option is available only for Regular One-Off Campaigns in the email Channel. The platform maintains a special list of email addresses across all different domains. This list functions much like a Seed List, in that your Campaign will send copies of the message to these addresses. This feature validates the entire mailing process by checking your sending infrastructure, message content, and sending reputation. The feature indicates whether your message landed in the consumer's inbox or spam folder, or if it was blocked. To utilize this feature for this Campaign, place a check mark in this check box.

    Note: Please speak with your Customer Service Representative for more information on enabling the Delivery Audit feature.

  3. To use consistent users for seeding across all Campaigns, select the check box next to the option Inbox Monitor. This also excludes user's personal details from email headers, helps to achieve uniformity in subject lines and content, enhances data security, provides reliable reporting and also safeguards sensitive information, leading to a smoother and more compliant campaign experience.

  1. Tracking information is constantly gathered by the platform. However, the reports are updated only when manually executed, or on the schedule set for Automatic Updates on the Update Options screen. Optionally, you can define an automated update schedule that applies only to this Campaign. To define an automated Campaign-specific update schedule:

    • Place check marks next to the days of week on which you want the automated update schedule to run.

    • From the Every X Hours drop-down menu, select the automated update frequency. The possible frequency ranges from every hour to every twelve hours.

    • From the First X Days drop-down menu, indicate for how long this automated schedule should run after the Campaign is initially launched. The possible values are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 days.

  1. Click Ok.

Configure PURL Options

A Personalized URL (or "PURL") is a website address that contains one or more personalized elements, such as the consumer's first name and last name, for example.

Before you can use a PURL in your Campaign, you must complete the following setup steps:

  • Create a PURL Field

  • Bind that PURL Field to a PURL Domain

  • Assign the PURL Domain to a Web Form

After you've completed all those steps, you can bind the Web Form to your Campaign. When you bind the Web Form to the Campaign, the platform will automatically generate the values for the PURL Field.

To bind the Web From to your Campaign:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Set PURL Options. The PURL Options pop-up window is displayed.

  2. The PURL field is used to select the Web Form. Either begin typing in the Web Form name, or click the search button (magnifying glass icon) to search for it.

  3. From the URL Type drop-down menu, select either Prefix or Suffix to control where you want the personalization field(s) inserted into the URL.

  4. Click Ok.  

For more information on setting up Personalized URLs, see the PURL Domains topic.

Enter Email Header Information

To add Email Header fields:

  1. In the Tool Bar, click Settings > Email Headers. The Email Headers pop-up window is displayed.

  2. Optionally, enter one or more Blind Carbon Copy email addresses into the BCC Address field. These email addresses will receive a copy of the Campaign message, but the addresses are not visible to the recipient.

  3. Optionally, enter a Reply-to email address in the Reply-to field. This address instructs the recipient's email client where to send reply messages.

  4. Click Ok.

Campaign Management

The Campaign screen provides the following Campaign management features:

Copy a Campaign

From within the Campaign screen, you can copy an existing Campaign to use as the basis for a new Campaign:

  1. In the More Actions menu, click Copy Campaign. A Copy Campaign dialog box is displayed.

  2. Enter a name for the new Campaign.

  3. By default, the new Campaign will be saved in the same folder location as the base Campaign. Optionally, click the magnifying glass icon to browse to and select a different folder location.

  4. Click Copy Campaign. The system creates a copy of the current Campaign.

Delete a Campaign

When you delete a Campaign, the system moves it from its current folder location into the Recycling Bin, where it can optionally be restored if needed. If the selected Campaign is stored in a folder to which you don't have the proper access privileges, you won't be able to delete that Campaign.

From within the Campaign screen, you can delete a Campaign:

  1. In the More Actions menu, click Delete Campaign. A confirmation dialog box is displayed.

  2. Click Delete. The system moves the Campaign to the Recycling Bin.

Rename a Campaign

To rename a Campaign:

  1. In the Tool Bar, the name of the Campaign is displayed within a text field. Enter the new name within this field.

  2. Click Save.

View Campaign Details

To view detailed information about the Campaign:

  1. Click the icon next to the campaign name.

  2. The Item Details panel is displayed, which provides the following information:

    • Who created the item, and who modified it last.

    • A log of actions taken on the Campaign, including what the action was, when it was taken, and who performed the action.

    • A Related Items section that lists other items in the system that reference or utilize this Campaign.

    • The Campaign's folder location.

Change Campaign Type

From within the Campaign screen, you can switch the Campaign type between a Regular One-off Campaign and either form of triggered Campaign (Date-triggered or Event-triggered).

To change the Campaign type:

  1. In the More Actions menu, click Change Campaign Type. The Set Campaign Type pop-up window is displayed.

  2. Click the radio button for the desired Campaign type. A warning message is displayed within the pop-up window.

  3. Click Ok.   

Cells and Splits

Marketers often need to divide their Campaign Audience into smaller segments, or cells. You might need to do this in order to test the effectiveness of a particular marketing message, or because you need to use a different sending method, or schedule, for the different cells.

Cheetah Digital provides you with the ability to create complex, sophisticated ways of segmenting your Audience. The platform supports two different segmentation methods: A / B Testing and Split Cells.

Split Cells allow you to divide your Campaign Audience into different receiving groups, with or without the use of a "remainder" Audience. With Split Cells, you can create a hierarchy of nested cells, each of which is designated with a unique code that can be used elsewhere in the platform, such as reports, exports, and Filters. You can enter these cells directly into the user interface, or import them from a spreadsheet. This segmentation method can be used for testing purposes, although that's not really its primary intent, as this method won't calculate a "winner" like A / B Testing does.

For more information on configuring Split Cells within your Email Campaign, please see Split Cells.

A / B Testing is intended to be used to compare the effectiveness of a Campaign element in order to determine a "winner." For example, you might want to test how customers respond to a particular subject line or promotional offer. A typical testing approach is to divide your Audience into multiple segments consisting of a small portion of your total Audience. Each of these test segments (called "cells") is sent a Campaign message that varies based on whatever element you're testing. The platform tracks the responses to your different messages, and identifies which message variant was the most successful. You can then submit this winning message variant to the rest of your Campaign Audience (called the "Winner Cell"). This segmentation method is highly configurable, and allows you to define the element you're testing, how many test cells to create, how to calculate the Audience for each cell, and how to determine the "winner."

For more information on configuring an A / B Test within your Email Campaign, please see A / B Test.