The Logical Way To Send Email: Dynamic Content

We have been blogging a lot in recent weeks about the cool new features included in Bronto's Fall 2009 release. To keep this ball rolling, I'd like to use this post to tell you about our new Dynamic Content feature.

Dynamic Content...Huh?

In programmer speak, Dynamic Content allows you to add content to your message based on whether or not certain conditions are met (i.e. conditional logic). In plain English, Dynamic Content allows you to display different content to your contacts based on who is receiving it. For example, if you are sending out a message to parents with a newborn baby, you can use Dynamic Content to display one block of content if they had a boy, and another block of content if they had a girl.

Getting Started With Dynamic Content

The easiest way to get started using Dynamic Content is to use the WYSIWYG editor.

To insert dynamic content using the wizard:

1. Click on the Inset Dynamic Content button in the WYSIWYG editor, or the Dynamic Content button if you are viewing the text version of a message.
2. Choose the conditional. For the first block, by default, you can only choose if.
3. Choose the operator. The available operators are:
   • In List
   • In Segment
   • Field Is Blank
   • Field Is Equal To
   • Field Is Not Equal To
   • Field Is Greater Than
   • Field Is Less Than
4. Choose a value. The values that you can choose from depend on the operator you choose in the previous step. Click OR to add an additional value.
5. Add the content that will be displayed if the Dynamic Content conditions are met.
6. (Optional) If you wish to add nested conditionals to a Dynamic Content block, click Logic. You can add 2 nested conditionals per Dynamic Content block. To add additional Dynamic Content blocks, click Add Block.
7. Click Insert Dynamic Content.

What's All That Strange Text In My Message?

After you click Insert Dynamic Content, you will notice that some strange looking text has been added to your message. This text, known as Dynamic Code (more on this in a later post), represents the Dynamic Content you just built using the wizard. In the example below, the text in blue gets displayed if the value in the "child" field is equal to "boy", and the text in pink get's displayed if the value for the "child" field is equal to "girl". 

In upcoming posts, we'll look at ways to make your Dynamic Content even more powerful by adding in additional content blocks and nested conditionals. In the mean time, you can use the information in this post to get started testing and using Dynamic Content. If you have already started using Dynamic Content, we'd love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments section below.

John Gunther
Technical Writer/eLearning Specialist at Bronto