Problems with Global Variables in Email Editor 2.0 with dynamic content

[Tyson_Jurgens]

Almost ready to submit a ticket but I figure I'd see if anyone here has worked on the same challenges:

We redesigned our email templates to capitalize on the features and functionality of Email Editor 2.0. We created a global color variable for accent text that can be changed in the module UI, and used this to style some <span> tags in some editable <divs>.

When I make these editable <divs> dynamic to change the text for our UK segment, the global color no longer renders.

Our html in the editable div is:

<p style="padding: 0px; color: #898989; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 20px;" class="bodyText">Download <span style="color: ${globalcolor}; font-weight: regular;"><em>An Executive Critique of the Customer Experience </em></span>to push your CX program to the next level. <br />  </p>

When I preview the email in Marketo I see:

When I send a regular test with no lead rendering (just default email Send Sample) I see:

But when I send a test rendered with a lead email address, whether or not that lead is in my default segment or specified segment, I see:

So, question is: has anyone come up against these strange quirks with using Varibales AND Dynamic Content? Is this a known bug or are we approaching this incorrectly? I'm more than happy to swap our the color variable for manual <span> styling, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the variable in the first place for our email design...

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Tyson,

I have not tried to combine variables and dynamic content, but if I had to bet, I would say this has probably to to with the order by which things are executed (resolving the variable first, then the dynamic content).

Justin Cooperman​ if THE person to know whether this should be possible.

-Greg

[Tyson_Jurgens]

Yeah, my first inclination when I saw this behavior was to take the variables out of the editable div, which would alter either our design or the method of editing the content for each segment. It seems like those were intended to live outside of editable divs to maintain design control...

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Yes, please file a support ticket so we can investigate and track this issue. I do believe this is a bug.

[Anonymous]

Hi Justin!

I wanted to reach out because we are seeing this same issue and having a hard time getting it resolved. We submitted a ticket and were told that "The send sample function doesn't process emails in quite the same way as a flow step does, so it's not uncommon that things don't look exactly the same. I recommend adding yourself to the database as a lead (we did this) and then using the Send Email single flow action to send yourself the email (LeadDatabase-Find your lead-Marketing-send email) (we did this), or going through the same process your leads would (in a test campaign that would be sending this email). This ensures that you're getting the email exactly as they would in the email client they are using. Regarding the infrastructure of the email code and encoding between the preview, sample and final version, at a high level we understand its an issue, and we have addressed it in our enhanced email editor that allows you to see how each email will render in each client. Unfortunately, in support we can only articulate the expected the behavior."

What seems to be missing in the communication is that what we're experiencing is using global variables as well as dynamic content. The global variables that also have dynamic content associated with it (I think) seem to be the reason that the main styling elements are being stripped out, regardless of which segment it is being sent to (same as the example posted above originally). When we do the live sends internally to test, there are certain places where elements with global variables strip out original styling. So, it doesn't seem to be a CSS or coding issue, it seems to be directly correlated to global variables that are also dynamic.

Were you ever able to figure out why this is happening?

Thanks in advance!

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Global variables themselves cannot be made dynamic, but I think what you're saying is your putting a global variable within a rich-text element that has been made dynamic. Is this right? It's certainly possible there is an issue here, can you shoot me an email with links to the emails in your subscription where you are seeing this? jcooperman@marketo.com

Justin

[Dave_Roberts]

I've also had issues with the email 2.0 editor when using Variables inside of editable content areas. It'll either freeze the editor or not apply the edit until I've reloaded the editor page in the browser. There might also be an issue with using Dynamic Content with variables, but I thought I'd mention I've seen this issue with variables inside of editable areas since the release of the EM2.0 editor -- I had always assumed this had something to do with the load order on render.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Dave,

you should log a support case.

-Greg