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With  Evergage for Email  Open-time Email Campaigns, you can deliver more personalized emails to customers and prospects. Personalized content and product recommendations are delivered once an email is opened by the recipient. The solution is designed to work with any email or marketing automation provider. Once you have finalized the layout of the email template, you can clone the campaign to reuse it with the same recipe for additional open-time email campaigns. Evergage seamlessly allows you to layer over category inclusions and exclusions at the campaign level so you can keep recommendations tailored to your overall email strategy.

titleThis Article Explains

This article details the process for creating an item template for product recommendations, creating open-time email content, simulating the experience, and creating the HTML code you can use in your email campaign. You can follow a similar process to insert personalized content (e.g., images, blog posts, eBooks etc.) into email campaigns.

titleSections in this Article

Table of Contents

Create an Item Template

Before you can create an open-time email campaign, you need to design a template that controls how content and product recommendations display in your email campaigns. It is helpful to be familiar with HTML so you can ensure the item template matches your company’s branding.

  1. Log into the Evergage platform

  2. In the Channels & Campaigns section of the left navigation, select Email > Open Time Item Templates

  3. You will see a list of previously created Item Templates
  5. Enter the Name for the Item Template (e.g., Email Recommendations)
  6. Select the Item Type (options dependent on what has been defined for the dataset)
  7. Enter the Dimensions (width and height in pixels)

    You are defining the block for a single image or item – not a row or grid of items. When building a campaign, you will have an opportunity to add additional rows (as sections) and items.

  8. Select Insert > {Dynamic} > Promoted Item to add additional dynamic values (ID, Name, Description, URL, Image URL, Price, Price Description, List Price, Inventory Count)
  9. Adjust the HTML around the dynamic fields to change how the content will render in your email campaign(s). This is where it’s helpful to be familiar with HTML.
  10. Click Save to preview the Item Template
  11. When you’re comfortable with the look and feel of the template, click Publish

    The publishing process will create a new image for every product in your catalog, which could take some time to complete.



Create Email Content

After you have created the item template for your open-time email, you need to add it to a campaign to create the recommendations content you will send through your email system. It’s here that you can determine how many images to render and which recommendation strategy to apply for each content block in the campaign.

  1. In the Channels & Campaigns section of the left navigation, select Email > Open Time Campaigns 
  2. Select Open Time Email from the New Campaign dropdown
  3. Enter the Campaign Name
  4. Enter the content block Name
  5. Select Product as the Item Type (or a different item type depending on your email strategy)
  6. Select Display Block Title if you want to add a title to the content block
    1. Add a Title which will display at the top of the content block
    2. Add Title CSS to style the title
  7. Select an Item Template (e.g., Email Recommendations) and then configure:
    1. Block Size: the height and width of the block, in pixels
    2. Number of Items: the number of items to include in the section
    3. Block CSS: the CSS around all the items
    4. Item Wrapper CSS: the CSS for the template wrapper
  8. Select RECIPE as the Promotion Type
  9. Select a Recipe. The list will include any recipes you have already created
  10. Select Disable Trending Fallback... if you do not want trending items added to recommendations blocks without results. The default behavior is to include trending items if the recipe does not return any results
  11. Select EXCLUDE or INCLUDE as needed

    For open-time email campaign, it is more efficient and more flexible to omit exclusions/inclusions at the recipe level and instead control any exclusions or inclusions at the campaign-level so you can reuse the same recipe for multiple campaigns

  12. Select the exclusion or inclusion type
  13. Complete additional parameters based on what you selected
  14. Add any additional exclusions or inclusions as needed
  15. Click Save
  16. Add additional customizations as needed:
    1. Click Add another block to choose another Item Template and a different recommendation strategy
    2. Add different experiences to target different audiences with the same campaign details

      For more information on both of these capabilities, please contact your customer success representative

Simulate Email Content

Once you have created the email content for your open-time message, you need to simulate the experience to confirm that the recommendations are rendering as expected. While you may have thoroughly tested the recipe when you built it, it is still critical to simulate them in the email environment.

  1. Click SIMULATE
  2. A user will already be selected with the recommendations populated
  3. You can copy and paste a userID into the drop down to test recommendations for other specific users
  4. Click X to close the simulation

Create the HTML Code for Your Email Campaign

In this step, the objective is to generate HTML code that can be inserted into an open-time email campaign in your email marketing system to deliver personalized experiences . It’s here that you can determine how many images to render and which recommendation strategy to apply to the campaignto recipients.  

  1. Select Publish & Generate HTML

  2. Copy the HTML code and paste it into your email template in your ESP
  3. Once your email template is complete, you should test it in your ESP. Make sure that your test group contains representative profiles similar to your opt-in list so you can realistically simulate the results