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Scenario Guide: Using Interactions to Send to Salesforce Reports and Campaigns
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This document is intended for users of ExactTarget for Appexchange, the integration between ExactTarget and Salesforce.com.
Scenario: Using Interactions with the Salesforce Integration A marketer at Northern Trail Outfitters uses Salesforce to manage customer relationships and ExactTarget for creating and sending email communication to leads and contacts. Northern Trail Outfitters offers a 30-day free trial on its premium shoppers program. Every day, the marketer sends: - A standard welcome email messages to new leads who have signed up for the free trial that day (Day 1).
- A standard follow-up email message to leads who signed up for the free trial 14 days before (Day 14).
- A standard notification message to leads who signed up for the free trial 27 days before to remind them that their free trial is about to run out (Day 28).
The marketer would like to automate these tasks to save time, prevent human error, and make the send time consistent from day-to-day (even on weekends). Because the marketer had been performing these tasks manually, some of the pieces he needs already exist: - In Salesforce, the reports that contain Day 1 Leads, Day 14 Leads, and Day 27 Leads.
- In ExactTarget, the email messages and user-initiated email message send definitions to send to each of these reports.
To begin automating sending to these audiences, the marketer logs in to ExactTarget and clicks the Interactions tab. He selects Messages>Email>User-Initiated Email to display the User Initiated Emails screen. Here he clicks the Create button to begin creating a user-initiated email interaction (also called a send definition). In the Message field, the marketer selects the email message content that he used for completing this process manually. In the Audience section, he clicked the Edit Audience link to display the Send Definition Audience screen. On this screen, the marketer selects Salesforce Reports in the Select an Audience box and clicks the >> button. The Add Reports window appears, where the marketer can perform a search to find the report he wants. He selects the Day 1: Today's New Leads report and clicks OK. He saves the audience and the user-initiated email message interaction. He repeats this process for the Day 14 and Day 27 audiences to create a separate email message interaction that associates each report to each email message content. While still on the Interactions tab in ExactTarget, the marketer clicks Programs>My Programs. He clicks the Create button to start a new program he can use the program to group the send definitions to be processed together. NOTE: The marketer also could have used a Salesforce.com campaign, and even filtered the campaign members based on their status. He clicks the Edit Process link to tell the system to use the three send definitions that he created when running this program. This program contains only one step because the three send definitions can be sent at the same time. If the program contained tasks that needed to be completed before the next one could begin, the marketer would include the tasks in separate steps. When the marketer clicks the Add Task link, the Interactions window appears. The marketer selects each of the three send definitions that he wants to automate and clicks the add button. When he is done, he clicks the Save button. To schedule the program to run automatically and recur every day, the marketer clicks the Edit Schedule link. He selects the starting date and time and indicates that he wants the program to repeat daily. He enters a very high number of occurrences so the program does not stop sending messages in the foreseeable future, unless he intentionally stops it. The marketer clicks the Save button to save the schedule for the program. Even though the program is complete, the marketer must start the interaction in order for it to run. He starts the program from the screen where he creates it by clicking the button. Beginning on 7/21/2008 at 2 p.m., the ExactTarget application runs the 30 Day Free Trial Lead Nurturing program. The system gets the appropriate Salesforce report and sends the email message content automatically to leads based on which drip campaign report they appear on that day. If, later, the marketer wanted to add a message on day 30 to remind the leads that the trial expires today, the marketer would: - Create a report in Salesforce.com with the 30-day old leads.
- Create the content for the email.
- Create the send definition for the email.
- Pause the program by clicking the Pause button.
- Add the new send definition to the program in the same step. © 2008 ExactTarget, Inc. Page 8 of 13
- Start the program again.
Procedures This section contains procedures you use to use interactions to automate and schedule sends to Salesforce reports or campaigns. Before you begin these procedures, you must have the Salesforce reports to send to and the email message content to send. If the reports do not already exist, first create them in Salesforce.com. The reports (also referred to as "buckets") that you create for your drip marketing campaign can be simple or complex, depending on your business need. For example, to create a simple, relative-date report of new leads created 14 days ago, create a Lead Report with the follow criteria: - CreatedDate equals Last 14 Days
- CreatedDate does not equal Last 13 Days
How to Create a Sender Profile After you complete the send classification procedure, you can include the sender profile in that classification. The sender profile will contain the name and address that the message appears to be from in the subscriber's email client. Note: If you have the Subscriber-Specific From feature enabled, you must have created a subscriber attribute or data extension to contain the subscriber-specific from information before you perform this procedure. To learn about creating data extensions, see the Data Extensions Guide. Once you have a data extension created containing From addresses, you can use an AMPscript lookup function to dynamically set the From name and From address, as in this example:
%%=Lookup("ReplyInformation","Name","State", state)=%%
Alternatively, you can simply create an additional attribute or field on your sendable list or data extension and enter a standard substitution string in these fields (for example, %%FromName%%). Use the following steps to create a sender profile: Note: If you do not see these custom settings, this feature may not be enabled in your account. Enabling this feature helps you to more effectively manage your replies by giving you additional options. Contact your ExactTarget account representative if you would like to enable this feature. - Click the Admin tab in the navigation bar.
- Click Send Management.
- Click Sender Profiles.
The Sender Profiles workspace appears. - Click the Create button.
- Complete the information in the Properties section:
| Name | Name of the sender profile. Use this name to identify the sender profile in the ExactTarget application. | | External Key | A unique value that identifies the sender profile. Use this value to identify the sender profile with an API call. | | Description | Description of the sender profile. Use this description to further help identify the sender profile within the ExactTarget application. | - Complete the information in the Sender Information section:
| Sender | The from name and address the system uses for sends associated with this sender profile. Valid values include:
- Choose from list If you select this value, you must select the from name and address from the list of users.
- Use the specified information If you select this value, you must enter the From Name and From Email address.
| | From Name | Enter the From Name. Complete this field if you selected Use the specified information in the Sender field. For a Subscriber-Specific From, enter a substitution string. For example, if the from name for a subscriber is stored in the ownername attribute, enter %%ownername%% | | From Email | Enter the From Email address. Complete this field if you selected Use the specified information in the Sender field. For a Subscriber-Specific From, enter a substitution string. For example, if the from email for a subscriber is stored in the owneremail attribute, enter %%owneremail%%. | - Complete the information in the Custom Reply Mail Management Settings. Use the following screen as a guideline.
- Click Save.
How to Create a User-Initiated Email Interaction You create a user-initiated Email Message interaction to include a send to user-initiated subscriber list or data extension in your program. Before you begin this procedure, you must create the email message content and the send classification. After you complete this procedure, you can send the email or include the interaction in a program. 
Use the following steps to create a user-initiated email interaction: -
Click the Interactions tab on the navigation bar. - Click Messages.
- Click Email.
- Click User-initiated.
- Click Create from the toolbar.
- Complete the information in the Properties section.
- Name - The name of the message. You use this name to identify the message in the application. Subscribers cannot see the name.
- External Key - A value you choose that uniquely identifies the message. You use this value to identify the message when using the API.
- Description - The description of the message. You use this description to further help identify the message within the application. Subscribers cannot see the description.
- Message - The message content that is sent by this interaction.
- Subject - The subject line of the email message sent by this interaction. Click the Insert button to select a personalization string. To view a larger subject text field, click the Expand button under the Subject text field. Click the Collapse button to return the text field to its orginal size. The larger text field can be helpful when adding large amounts of AMPscript to create a dynamic subject line.
- Complete the information in the Send Management section:
- Send Classification - The send classification the system uses for this interaction.
- Override Sender Profile checkbox - Determines whether the interaction uses a different sender profile than what is specified on the send classification. If you select this checkbox, you must select the override sender profile to use in the dropdown menu next to the checkbox.
- Override Delivery Profile checkbox - Determines whether the interaction uses a different delivery profile than what is specified on the send classification. If you select this checkbox, you must select the override delivery profile to use in the dropdown menu next to the checkbox.
- Click Edit Recipeints:
- Target Recipients - The lists, groups, data extensions, or filters to receive the email message sent with this interaction.
You can also choose a Salesforce report or campaign, if your account is integrated with Salesforce. For Salesforce campaigns, you can filter based on member status. See the Salesforce help for more information. Note: Your user must be mapped to a Salesforce user to use this functionality.
Select a list, group, or data extension from the left and click >> to add it to the target list.
- Exclusion Audience (optional) - The lists, groups, data extensions, or filters that are excluded from the send. Subscribers that appear in both the Target Audience field and the Excluded Audience field are EXCLUDED from the send. Select a list, group, or data extension from the left and click >> to add it to the excluded list.
- De-Duplicate by Email Address checkbox - Determines whether the interaction prevents multiple messages from this interaction from being sent to the same email address. If you do not see this button, click the plus sign next to Data Extension Audience Options.
- Audience Exclusion Script checkbox - Determines whether subscribers are excluded from the send based on script logic. If you select this checkbox, you must provide the exclusion AMPscript.
- Click Edit Test Audience:
- Select Recipients - The lists, groups, and/or data extensions to receive the email message sent with this interaction. Select a list, group, or data extension from the left and click >> to add it to the target list.
- Excluded Recipients (optional) - This lists, groups, and/or data extensions that are excluded from the send. Subscribers that appear in both the Target Recipients field and the Excluded Recipients field are EXCLUDED from the send. Select a list, group, or data extension from the left and click >> to add it to the excluded list.
- De-duplicate by email address checkbox - Determines whether the interaction prevents multiple messages from this interaction from being sent to the same email address.
- Exclusion Script checkbox - Determines whether subscribers are excluded from the send based on script logic. If you select this checkbox, you must provide the exclusion AMPscript.
- Complete the information in the Message Properties section:
- CC Email Address(es) - Sends a copy of the email to the addresses entered in this field. Email addresses in this field are visible to all recipients of the email. (This feature may not be enabled in your account. Contact your ExactTarget representative for more information.)
- BCC Email Address(es) - Sends a copy of the email to the addresses entered in this field. Email addresses in this field are not visible to recipients of the email. (This feature may not be enabled in your account. Contact your ExactTarget representative for more information.)
- Multi-part MIME checkbox - Determines whether the system sends the message using multi-part MIME to provide an HTML version of the message content to inboxes that can display it and a text-only version to inboxes that cannot render HTML.
- Complete the information in the User Tracking section:
- Track all links found within this email checkbox - Determines whether the system collects tracking information on the links in this email. If you select this checkbox, the system collects tracking on the links.
- Suppress this Send from Reports checkbox - Determines whether sends with this interaction are included in reports. If you select this checkbox, sends from this interaction are excluded from reports.
- Click Save.
To send a user-initiated email, see How to Send a User-Initiated Email Interaction. How to Create a Program You must create the Activities and Messages to include in the Programs before you perform this procedure. After you complete this procedure, you can start the program or schedule the program. Use the following steps to create a program: -
Click the Interactions tab from the navigation bar. - Click Programs.
- Click My Programs.
- Click the Create button from the toolbar.
- Complete the information in the Properties section:
- Name - The name of the program. You use this name to identify the program in the application.
- External Key - A unique value that identifies the program. You use this value to identify the program with an API call.
- Description - The description of the program. You use this description to further help identify the program within the application.
- Complete the information in the Notifications section:
- Send Status Notification checkbox - Determines whether the system sends a notification email when the program completes or encounters an error.
- Notification Email Address(es) - One or more email addresses to receive the status notification. Separate values with a semicolon.
- Click Edit Process. The Program Process screen appears.
- Click Add task. The Interactions window appears.
- Select the activity to execute or message to send in this step.
- Repeat steps 8-9 for each task in the step. Tasks in the same step occur concurrently.
- If you want another step in the program, click Add step.
- Repeat steps 8-9 for the new step. Tasks in separate steps occur sequentially.
- Click Save.
- If you want to schedule the program, click Edit Schedule. See step 6 of the procedure How to Schedule a Program.
How to Schedule a Program You must create a program before you perform this procedure. After you complete this procedure, you can start the program. The program will not execute according to the schedule until you start the program. If you change a scheduled program after you start it, the change will not take effect until the second scheduled running after you make the change. To make the changes take effect immediately, you can stop and re-start the program after you make the change. Use the following steps to schedule a program: - Click the Interactions tab on the navigation bar.
- Click Programs.
- Click My Programs.
- Select the checkbox next to the program to schedule.
- Click the Edit Schedule button under the Schedule tab.
- Complete the fields:
The time listed for your program in my programs under the Last Ran On column reflects your Account Settings timezone rather than the time you selected above. - Start Date - The date of the first time this program will run.
- Start Time - The time of the first time this program will run.
- Scheduled Timezone - The Timezone you want your Start Date/Time to honor. Select from Daily, Every Weekday (Mon-Fri), Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. Scheduled Timezone does not honor Hourly.
- Repeats - The frequency at which the program recurs. The value in this field determines the fields you set in the Repeats every section. Valid values include:
- Hourly
- Daily
- Every Weekday (Mon-Fri)
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Yearly
- Repeats Every - The specifics on the recurrence of the program. The fields in this section vary depending on the value you select in the Repeats field.
- Ends - The ending information for the report. You can choose a specific date when the program ends or the number of occurrences to complete.
- Click Save.
 How to Start a Program
You must create a program before you perform this procedure. You can choose to schedule a program before you perform this procedure. After you complete this procedure, you can stop the program to prevent the steps that have not already started from occurring. -
Use the following steps to start a program: - Click the Interactions tab on the navigation bar.
- Click Programs.
- Click My Programs.
- Select the checkbox next to the program to start.
- Click the Start button.
- Select the start options. Valid options include:
- Start once
- Start using the recurring schedule
- Schedule once
- Click the Start button.
This page was last updated by Ryan Williams on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:22:51 GMT.
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