Dyanmic Content Based on List Membership

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to populate content in an email based on whether or not a lead is in a list. We are running a promotion and want to include content in our nurture emails for those who have not yet purchased yet. We have 2 separate lists to manage our onboarding program - trial users and a list of customers. If a lead is in our onboarding and is not in the customer list, we want the promotional content to populate in the email.

What's the best way to do this?

Thanks for your help.

[Justin_Norris1]

Sam Lee​

You can do this with a Segmentation and dynamic content in the email.

Create Segmentation with two segments- Trial Users (Smart List: Member of List = Trial Users)

- Customers (Smart List: Member of List = Customers)

Now this segmentation becomes available for use in making regions of your email dynamic.

https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Using+Dynamic+Content+in+a+Email

Note, depending on whether you want to do this all the time or it's a one-time thing, it may be a lot of overhead to create a segmentation. It could just be easier to create a second email and add a choice to your "Send Email" flow step based on list membership.

However if you consistently send out a similar email with variations for trials vs. customers, then doing it via dynamic content could be faster and easier. (Even better if you tokenize the whole thing so you don't even open the email editor).

[Phillip_Wild]

Agree with all of the above. I think you only get 20 segmentations total - so it's a one off, just do two emails. Ongoing, build a segmentation.

[Anonymous]

The other option to create dynamic content in emails - apart from segmentation which Justin described - is an email script token. In some cases that's more appropriate depending on your email template design.

1. Create a field in your database like "Customer Status". (or maybe you have a field on your contact records already that does the same)

2. Populate it through a Smart Campaign (might need to be recurrent): If member of list "trialer" change data value in "Customer Status" to "Trialer".

3. Create email script token in your program like this:

#if ("$lead.Customer Status" == "Trialer")

CONTENT #A

#else

CONTENT #B

#end

where CONTENT #A can be a complex HTML entity or just one word.

Note that email script tokens only work on emails whereas the segmentation approach also works on landing pages.

[Anonymous]

I never thought to do that. That's a great idea! Thanks for sharing​

[Anonymous]

Glad you like it.

If you start experimenting with Script Tokens, please note that the field variable you use in your script must be checked under "Lead Objects" in your right hand navigation. That is not obvious.

This little script just says:

If the field "salutation" is not empty (i.e. we do know the lead's gender), put in "Mr. Smith". If it is empty, make it "Jack".

[Anonymous]

I can only do this with a data field. I'm trying to isolate leads in a specific list. So, if the lead is not in the customer list, then show the promotional content.

[Phillip_Wild]

Yes, you would need a field which defines which list someone belongs to. Which probably defeats the purpose!

[Anonymous]

Philipp and Sam,

yes, you're right. You need a field. But populating a segment through a list is practically the same as populating a field through a list. Either way: You can't base dynamic content on list membership directly.