Deliver concepts

Several basic concepts are important to understanding how to use Unica Deliver to create and manage messaging campaigns.

Recipient lists

In Deliver, a recipient list provides a connection to selected recipient-specific data in your marketing databases that Deliver uses to address and personalize outbound marketing messages. The data is contained in a database table that is called an Output List Table (OLT). You define and populate an OLT in Unica Campaign to select individuals that receive a personalized message and to provide personal information about each message recipient.
Note: An OLT is not required for transactional messages.

You create a recipient list by running a Campaign flowchart that contains a Deliver process. The OLT is the output of the Deliver process. When you configure the OLT, you define personalization fields that you can add to messages.

Each personalization field maps to a field in your marketing database. For example, you can define a personalization field that maps to the first name or account number that you have on file for each message recipient. When you transmit messages as part of a messaging campaign, Deliver replaces every personalization field in each message with data that is specific to the individual message recipient.

Personalization

Personalization features in Deliver provide various ways for you to tailor each message to address the individual preferences or characteristics of the message recipient. The information that is required to personalize a message comes from records that are stored in your marketing database and uploaded to the Unica hosted messaging environment.

Personalization features in Deliver depend on personalization fields. Each field references a specific field in your marketing database. Personalization fields provide the means to automatically add recipient-specific information from your marketing database to the messages that you send. Personalization fields are also used in advanced scripts for email messaging and in rules that control how conditionalized content displays.

Communications

A communication is an object that you use in the Message Editor to define the structure and content of personalized messages and landing pages. To create a message or landing page, you must create a new communication or edit an existing communication. The design of the communication determines the appearance and behavior of the message that is delivered to each recipient. A published communication is a required input to every messaging run.

Templates

Some types of communications are based on an HTML template that you create outside of the Message Editor. The template defines the layout of the message or landing page that is based on the communication. In the Message Editor, you can add content and personalizations to create a communication. You can also embed various content and personalization elements, including personalization fields, directly into the body of the template.

Templates are stored in the Content Library that is part of the Message Editor. The marketer must upload the template to the Content Library where it can be used to create a message or landing page communication. The Message Editor provides an editor that marketers can use to modify templates as needed.

In some cases, templates can be created by third-party vendors that provide the template to the marketer.

Landing pages

A landing page is a web page that is served from the Unica hosted messaging environment. Links in personalized messages can point to the hosted landing page. If the landing page includes personalization elements that are defined in the message, Unica renders the page differently to each message recipient that goes to the page.

You design and maintain landing pages in the Message Editor. You can also design a landing page to serve as an online form to gather information or process requests from message recipients.

If you create a version of an email message that can be displayed as a web page, Deliver creates a landing page that duplicates the email message.

Messaging

A Deliver messaging creates the framework for organizing and running an digital marketing campaign. You create and configure Deliver messaging in Unica Campaign. Each mailing represents a separate messaging campaign.

When you enable Unica Deliver, the Campaign interface adds a link that you can use add a messaging to a campaign. Each mailing that you add to a campaign appears as a separate tab in the campaign summary.

Each standard messaging must reference an Output List Table (OLT) that provides a list of email recipients, phone numbers, Whatsapp numbers and an email communication that defines the appearance and behavior of the email message. You send personalized message by conducting a mailing run. During the mailing run, Deliver creates individual messages by merging personalization data from the OLT into individual messages that are based on the communication.

Transactional messages do not rely on an OLT for address data or other personal data. The transactional request or location trigger provide the required information.

You can also configure a standard mailing to run as an A/B test.

Transactional message

A transactional message is a message that is sent in response to a specific, predetermined transaction that is detected in your business systems. Unica® provides the Deliver Transactional Messaging Service (TMS) as a hosted web service to process transactional messages. Digital marketers work with application developers to integrate corporate transaction management systems with the Deliver TMS.

By sending a transactional message, you can respond automatically to specific customer or customer-related activities with a personalized message. You can use any event that you can detect in your business systems to prompt a transactional message.

Advanced scripts for personalized messaging

Advanced scripting for personalized messaging is template-based scripting language for creating self-contained scripts that you can insert into templates for HTML or text-only email. It offers a way to create types of personalized content that you cannot easily duplicate in the Message Editor. The script syntax includes several tags and elements that are used exclusively by Deliver.

You can use advanced scripting to design a script that displays a list of recipient-specific information in a data table. You can also create an advanced script that defines multiple levels of conditional content in a single message. This type of conditional content hierarchy is also referred to as nested conditional content.

You can add advanced scripts directly into a message template or HTML snippet that you add to a message. In a script, you can reference personalization fields that are defined in an output list table (OLT). You can also include content reference labels that are defined in the Content Library.