Smart Content allows your email templates to be automatically changed based on customer attributes, the current date or time, or the types of products used in your campaigns. Smart Content can save you time when building your templates, as you can use the same template, but swap different elements depending on the situation.
Considerations
Birthday messages
With Smart Content, add a “Happy birthday!” photo on the month of a customer’s birthday, relying on customer data to pull the information. For those who don’t have a birthday in that month, they could just see either no photo, or a generic one.
Loyalty points
With Smart Content, you could show different images or text in a template depending on the number of loyalty points a customer has, or if they’re not involved in a loyalty program.
Upcoming sales
With date-specific content, you can push toward upcoming sales, then hide the sale element when the date has passed.
You can set start and end dates and times, using the timezone the creator of the element is currently at.
Low stock products
If the main product block in a template is shoes, you can make the hero image of the template a photo of shoes to match using product-specific Smart Content. You can also add urgency when driving to low stock products.
ℹ️ Product Attributes will use information from only the top product block of the template at the time the Smart Content was last saved. If you build your product blocks and save your Smart Content, then rearrange your product blocks, be sure to save your Smart Content again so that it refers to the block that is now at the top of the template.
You can always view the raw HTML of the template in the preview to confirm which product block the Smart Content is using.
How to build Smart Content
Each option in a piece of Smart Content needs to be built as its own Global Widget. If you’re using Smart Content for a loyalty program - with one visual for customers in the loyalty program and one visual for customers who aren’t - that is two Global Widgets that need to be created within Bluecore.
Once you’re ready to add Smart Content, use the following steps to build a Smart Content element in your template.
When building your template, drag a Smart Content element into your email.
In the element’s settings, name the piece of Smart Content something specific, which makes it easier for keeping track of analytics.
Under “OPTIONS,” click edit to begin setting a rule for the Smart Content. The Edit Smart Content Option menu appears.
Type a name for this rule, which makes it easier for keeping track of the set rules and when viewing analytics.
In the dropdown for Show Option When, create the rule for the piece of content, either Customer Attribute, Product Attribute, or Date.
ℹ️ Product Attributes will use information from only the top product block of the template at the time the Smart Content was last saved. If you build your product blocks and save your Smart Content, then rearrange your product blocks, be sure to save your Smart Content again so that it refers to the block that is now at the top of the template.
You can always view the raw HTML of the template in the preview to confirm which product block the Smart Content is using.
Click Global Widgets to add a Global Widget to the element. This is the content that will show for eligible recipients.
ℹ️ Only Global Widgets can be added to Smart Content elements, even if that widget is just one image.
Click Save to return to the Smart Content Settings page.
Add another option to set a new rule for the Smart Content. You can also reorder the options to change the priority.
⚠️ Bluecore recommends a maximum of 10 options per Smart Content element.
Select a fallback option. This is what will show for recipients who do not meet the qualifications set in the options menus. If you set a fallback option, you’ll be prompted to add a widget that would show instead of any other option.
Previewing Smart Content
When you preview your template, you can alternate which Smart Content version you want to see in the dropdown menu.
You can only see the date content across any date range in the VTE preview. If you're proofing or previewing on the campaign level, you'll only be able to see date-oriented content if you're currently in that time frame that the content is set to.
For example, if you have a piece of Smart Content for Nov. 13-16, you can see what that would look like in the VTE preview no matter what date it currently is. But you could only see it in the campaign preview in the Summary tab during those dates.
After a Smart Content campaign has been sent, you can view analytics specific to Smart Content.
For more information on Smart Content, check out Bluecore’s L&Tea Time course.