Email with dynamic table

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I need to send our customers an email to inform them that their contracts are approaching expiry. While most of our customers have one contract, the email needs to accommodate for those with 2 or more. For each contract, we want to display 3 fields: RegistrationNumber, AmountDue, ExpiryDate. I want to avoid creating 3 times n fields to store this information and want to ensure the customer receives one email only.

The email should contain a table that contains:

RegistrationNumber, AmountDue, ExpiryDate
AAA111, $10000, 04/05/2014
XYZ1123, $5674, 07/05/2014
etc.

Any suggestions? Please note that we are not currently using a CRM to synchronise contract details. Data will be imported manually.

What I have been able to come up with is:
1. Outside of Marketo: Build a HTML table to hold the contract details for each customer and store as a field in a CSV file.
2. In Marketo: Create a custom field (type text) called Expiry Notification Details and import the contract details as a HTML table.
3. In Marketo: Use the Expiry Notification Details token in the email.

The above seems to work fine when I send samples but am wondering if there is a better way.

Thanks,
Ersel

[Anonymous]

Hey Ersel,

You will want to create 3 fields, one for each data point and import the data into each respective field. You will want the ExpiryDate field to be a Date type and the AmountDue to be a Currency or an Integer type. This will allow you to use tokens for all three pieces of information and trigger alerts off the ExpiryDate field.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jeff. Unfortunately, the the email will be a batch send and the customer must receive one email with all the relevant details. This data will be imported once per month. There could be one-to-many of RegistrationNumber, ExpiryDate, AmountDue.

[Anonymous]

Ah, I see. I will say that it will be difficult to trigger reminders or alerts if you have the ExpiryDate in a text field. How many contracts can one person potentially have?

[Anonymous]

We will not be triggering the email. It will be sent monthly as a batch when contracts are approaching expiry. This list will be imported manually. The contracts are vehicle leases and while most have one, some have close to ten.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hey, I recently ran into the same problem and was directed here:
http://developers.marketo.com/documentation/email-scripting/

The example covers this exact problem. Hope this helps someone (even if a few months late!)

[Anonymous]

Thanks David, that looks a like good solution. I will have a go at converting what I've done into an email script, similar to the example.

Since we import the data into a list, my workaround involved generating HTML tables for cell values in a spreadsheet and inserting the code into a field in Marketo. The field is then inserted as a token in an email.