Transactional emails are emails that facilitate an already agreed-upon transaction or update a customer about an ongoing transaction or relationship. Transactional email use cases are: order confirmation, password reset, shipping confirmation, welcome emails, and back in stock or coming soon.
Before getting started, understand which Bluecore transactional offering that’s being created:
API-Driven Transactional (Custom API, Welcome, Order Notification): The below is a high-level overview of Bluecore’s transactional or real-time welcome email campaigns setup process, outlining the necessary steps by both Bluecore and the user to complete the transactional email workflow. Please click through the linked subsequent articles for a more detailed explanation of the respective steps.
After you’ve determined a campaign type, follow the below steps to select the campaign type.
Navigate to flag icon on the left-hand side of the navigation bar.
Go to Communicate.
Determine if this is an Automated or One-Time Campaign.
For the Automated campaign workflow:
Select the Email channel.
Select the Transactional campaign type.
Then, select a API or Bluecore Audience campaign.
Specify a transaction based on if it’s an API or Bluecore Audience campaign.
API (Preferred method for real-time transactional emails)
Welcome: Use our Transactional API to deliver a welcome email to new subscribers.
Order Notification: Use our Transactional API to deliver an email regarding an order, like order or shipping confirmation.
Custom: Use our Transactional API to deliver a custom transactional campaign.
Bluecore Audience
Custom: Set up an automated account or order status campaign using a Bluecore audience.
Notify Me: Coming Soon: Send an email to customers who explicitly signed up on the site to be notified when a product is coming soon is now available.
Notify Me: Back in Stock: Send an email to customers explicitly who signed up on the site to be notified when a product is back in stock.
For the One-Time campaign workflow:
Select the Email channel.
Select the Transactional campaign type.
Then, select Custom API or Custom Audience.
API: Set up a one-time campaign using our Transactional API.
Custom: Set up a one-time campaign using a Bluecore audience.
If you’re not using the Transactional API to send real-time transactional or welcome emails, please use the articles linked above for additional use cases.
1. GETTING STARTED
In this section, learn more about the technical process to setting up Bluecore’s transactional messages or real-time welcome. Before getting started, please review the below tasks at a high-level, as they are explained in further detail in the respective sections. The following tasks must be completed in chronological order.
API Setup: Bluecore provides you with an API Key to enable API sends. This step must be completed by a member of your team.
DNS Setup: Bluecore provides you with the DNS documentation to create a separate transactional domain. This step must be completed by a member of your team.
Welcome Campaign Pre-Work: Provide Bluecore with a list of historical opt-in email addresses that will be suppressed from the welcome email campaign. This step is only necessary if you are sending a real-time welcome campaign with Bluecore.
Setup Campaigns and Content: Configure campaign settings, setup the message, and add applicable dynamic parameters and code snippets to the transactional message. If you’re using Bluecore’s production services to set up your transactional or real-time welcome campaigns and templates, please provide us with the applicable content explained below.
Quality Assurance (QA) Check on Content: Complete a quality assurance check on the email campaign. If you’re using Bluecore’s production services to set up your transactional or real-time welcome campaigns and templates, please work with Bluecore to complete the QA step.
Go Live!
1 A. BLUECORE PROVIDES
Before you begin the transactional integration setup, Bluecore will provide the following two resources:
1. API Key: This is your unique API key provided by Bluecore to setup the transactional API calls. Please provide this API Key to the IT team. This API key will need to be configured in the next section by your IT team.
NOTE: Bluecore provides the API key, you must set up the API calls.
2. DNS Documentation: Creating a specific domain dedicated to transactional or real-time welcome campaigns. Click here to learn more about configuring DNS settings. This step is not required if you’re only setting up a real-time welcome campaign.
NOTE: Bluecore provides the documentation, you must set up the DNS settings.
1 B. CUSTOMER TO-DO
Once you have received an API key and and the DNS documentation from Bluecore, the next few steps must be completed by your team.
IT SETUP
1. DNS Settings/Sending Domain: As mentioned above, it’s important to create a specific domain dedicated to sending transactional or real-time welcome campaigns. This process is similar to warming-up an IP specific to marketing messages, as a specific domain must now be created for transactional messages. Please follow the instructions outlined here to setup a new domain. After the domain is configured, the from name and email address are used in the next step to set up the integration within Bluecore.
NOTE: This step is not required if you’re only setting up a real-time welcome campaign.
2. API Key: Use the API key to configure transactional or real-time welcome email payloads to send to Bluecore using the API. Read more about Bluecore’s transactional API documentation here. If you’re using Bluecore Site™, the API setup for the welcome email from that source will not be required. Any other welcome email sources will need to be triggered by an API call.
NOTE: This is technical documentation that must be completed by an IT resource. It includes adding the API key, setting up an API verification with Bluecore, and adding the campaign IDs for the relevant transactional messages into the configured API.
MARKETER SETUP
The following bullets can be completed by a member of your email marketing team. Please provide the following information to Bluecore.
Estimated Volume/Day: Similar to an IP warm-up process, the newly configured domain that will be used for sending transactional messages must also be warmed-up if a higher volume is expected to protect the IP reputation. Please provide an estimated volume per day count to Bluecore to determine if a warm-up is necessary.
Historical Opt-in List: If you’re setting up welcome campaigns with the Transactional API, please provide a list of opted-in email addresses to Bluecore that should be excluded from the transactional campaigns. This is used to identify if customers received a welcome campaign prior to sending these emails with Bluecore, so they will not receive the welcome campaign again.
2. INTEGRATING WITH BLUECORE
MARKETER SETUP
After the above steps have been completed, the next step is to set up a transactional integration within Bluecore.
NOTE: This integration must be set up with someone who has Client Admin access within Bluecore.
Follow the steps outlined in this article to set up a transactional integration within Bluecore. You will need your API key (previously provided by Bluecore) to setup this integration.
NOTE: Please note that you must be logged into Bluecore to view this article.
3. SETTING UP THE CAMPAIGN
MARKETER SETUP
After you’ve set up the transactional or real-time welcome email integration, the next step is to build out the actual email campaign that will be sent.
NOTE: Click here to learn more about setting up a welcome campaign with Bluecore Site™.
In this step, you’ll configure the applicable campaign settings, set up the message, add the applicable dynamic parameters and code snippets for the email campaign, and locate the campaign ID that is needed for the API calls.
Follow this article for step-by-step instructions of how to set up a transactional email campaign with the applicable code snippets.
NOTE: Please note that you must be logged into Bluecore to view this article.
BLUECORE PRODUCTION SERVICES
If you’re using Bluecore’s production services to set up your transactional or real-time welcome campaigns and templates, you do not need to complete the step-by-step directions outlined in the article that’s linked above. In order for Bluecore to complete this setup for you, please provide us with the following items.
Complete the template links and rules form: Bluecore will send you a copy of our campaign specification document. Complete this document that explains the objectives of this email campaign, including the applicable photoshop files with layout markings.
Content for the transactional or real-time welcome email: Provide Bluecore with the applicable Photoshop, JSON, and annotated image files that will be used for the transactional email campaign or the Photoshop file for a real-time welcome campaign.
Once Bluecore has received the above files, we will begin the production of the email template and will let you know once it has been completed.
PROOF AND PUBLISH
Run a proof of the content and do a final check of the content, then click Save and Publish to set the transactional campaign live! Publishing the campaign allows the transactional or real-time welcome email to be ready to receive requests via the API.
4. QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA)
MARKETER SETUP
Follow the steps in this article to learn more about how to do a QA check on your transactional or real-time welcome email campaign. It’s recommended that a member of your IT team completes this setup, as it requires a highly technical skillset.
NOTE: Please note that you must be logged into Bluecore to view this article.
5. ANALYTICS
After the transactional or real-time welcome email campaigns have started sending, you can view analytics using Bluecore’s campaign analytics.
6. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Looking for more information on transactional or real-time welcome email campaigns? Check out some of our frequently asked questions.
NOTE: Please note that you must be logged into Bluecore to view this article.