Transactional API email and SMS/MMS campaigns are automated, personalized campaigns that usually follow customer interaction with your company or website.

Transactional campaigns can include:

To learn how to create an email campaign, see Creating a transactional API email campaign.

To learn how to create an SMS/MMS campaign, see Creating a transactional API SMS/MMS campaign.

The Transactional API allows you to send transactional attributes directly from anywhere you store customer or product data, from your customer relationship management (CRM), order management system, or anywhere else that can communicate via API.

These systems can then send Bluecore order numbers, tracking numbers, product and customer information, and other data that you want to include in the campaign. This ensures that your transactional campaigns have the most up-to-date customer data.

See how to add transactional attributes for both email and SMS/MMS campaigns.

All transactional emails support adding product block rule types.

There are two ways to add product blocks to your emails:

If you have questions about adding marketing or promotional material to transactional emails, review the CAN-SPAM Act and contact your Customer Success Manager.

If you use product blocks, the only fallback option available is Do Not Show Product Block. This ensures that transactional emails are sent when product blocks can’t be displayed.

To learn more about different kinds of product blocks and how to add them to a campaign, see How to use campaign builder.

If product blocks are added to transactional campaigns, only customers who are opted in to receive marketing messages will see the product recommendations.

Because product blocks are a form of marketing, customers who are unsubscribed or known will still receive the transactional email, but without the product blocks.

For more information on which eligibility statuses can receive transactional emails or product blocks, see Transactional classification.

Email proofs will show product blocks for opted-in customers and no product blocks for unsubscribed customers.

Basic VTE components can provide context to product blocks. If you add a basic component to describe a product block, such as a text header, customers who do not qualify for the product block will still see the basic component.

For example, the campaign with product blocks could look something like the below image, with products under the Explore our best selling collection text box.

A customer who is not opted-in would receive that campaign with the Explore our best selling collection header, but without the product blocks.

If you want to use a product block in emails about an order, like order confirmation or shipping notifications, Bluecore recommends adding a co-recommendations product block.

Co-recommendations uses product-to-product logic: it takes in Product IDs and determines additional recommended products.

To use co-recommendations, the transactional API call must be configured to send a Product ID, and Bluecore recommends sending one of the Product IDs from the customer’s order.

The Product ID that is sent via API will be used as the input product to generate recommendations.

For example, if a customer purchased a pair of socks, the Product ID for the socks is sent via API. Bluecore’s recommendation model then finds products based on the socks. When the customer receives the order confirmation email, the email contains product recommendations based on the socks.

To learn more about how the input product is used to generate recommendations, see the Co-recommendations technical overview.