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Automated messages

Overview

Automated messages are used for triggering message sends by one of Cordial's available methods:

Any of the above sending methods can be filtered by audience rules.

Automated messages overview video

Create an automation

1. Navigate to Message Automation › Create New Automation.

2. Fill out the fields to create a new automated message.

  • Message name: The friendly name that will be referenced in the system.
  • Message key: The name used to reference the message in the database for API calls. Message keys are not generated for batch messages.
  • Tags: Tags are useful for grouping messages together (similar to folders) when building audiences and filtering message reports.

    Tags are case sensitive. For example, promo and Promo are two unique tags.

  • Classification: Give the message a classification to comply with SPAM laws.
    • Promotional: For subscribers that gave permission to receive a promotional message. Note that promotional messages will only be sent to contacts that are both valid and have a subscribe status of subscribed.
    • Transactional: For subscribers that are receiving the message based on an order. Transactional messages can be sent to anyone who is valid, regardless of their subscribe status. This classification is not available for SMS and Push automated messages.

      If your account has multiple sending transports, be sure to choose the appropriate transport for the designated message classification. Transactional classification should only be set when you are certain the message meets your local legislation for what is defined as a transactional message.

  • Channels: Choose the supported channel to send the message. Automated messages currently support email, SMS, and mobile push channels.

Create message content

The message content requirements will differ depending on the selected channel. The following articles provide more information about creating message content for the available message channels:

Send a test

You can send a test message in order to check rendering in the inbox. Before a test message can be sent, the message headers and message content must be provided.

Enter Contacts: Type or paste one or more email addresses separated by commas. This is convenient for sending test messages to frequently used test accounts.

Search and select contacts: Search for contacts by keyword. This is useful for retrieving a list of contacts that match your criteria, such as those that have your email domain (@yourdomain.com).

When ready, click the Send Test Now button.

1.) All test email addresses must exist as valid and subscribed contacts in your account. 2.) Test message links will expire after 24 hours if link tracking is enabled for the message. 3.) If you receive an Internal Render Error when trying to send test messages, it may be a result of badly formed links in your HTML. Be sure to check all links for any unnecessary spaces or characters in your URLs.

When sending multiple message tests, it's useful to have a unique subject line for each send because some email clients will group all messages with the same subject line within a message thread (Gmail, for example, does this). This could make it difficult for your contacts to see new messages immediately.

You can use the following getNow Smarty utility to generate a unique subject line per test send:

 {$utils->getNow('America/Los_Angeles', "Y-m-d H:i:s")} This is a subject line

Publish the message

Before a message is published, it's labeled as a draft message, and sending methods will be disabled.

After completing the message headers and message content, the message can be published by clicking the Publish button. The published message is the "live" version that will be sent when a sending message trigger is met.

You are able to work on another draft and send tests without affecting the published version. Once you are happy with the draft, you can click Publish. The current published version will then be saved to the Past Versions tab and available for recall.

Enable the sending method

The sending method determines how the message will be sent. There are three sending methods:

  • API: messages that are sent via an API call.
  • Event Triggered: messages that are sent from an event trigger.
  • Recurring: messages that are sent on a recurring basis.

Learn more about sending methods here.

Configure message settings

Under the settings section, you can configure settings for Goals and Tracking as well as Delivery Settings.

Goals and Tracking

Stats aggregation

Choose whether the aggregate message performance stats will be rolled up daily or hourly. After a message has been sent, you can view message aggregate performance under the Message Performance tab.

Options for daily and hourly stats aggregation can only be selected for Event and API Triggered message sends. Recurring message stats are always aggregated at the scheduled interval.

Link tracking

Choose whether to enable or disable link tracking for all links in the message. This only applies to the email channel. You can disable link tracking for individual links using the data-crdl-notrack Smarty attribute, or conditionally at the message level using the setEmailLinkTracking Smarty utility.

You can disable email opens tracking using the setEmailOpensTracking Smarty utility.

All event activity is stored in Cordial for 18 months. Message open and link click events are tracked for 30 days from the time the message is sent. Links will continue to work after 30 days, but tracking will be disabled. Attribution is not tracked for purchases made via links after the 30 day period.

Select the Message Transport

Transport names available for selection in the Message Header will depend on the designated Promotional or Transactional classification. From Email domains available for selection in the dropdown menu will subsequently be determined by the chosen transport.

Message transport selection only applies to the email channel.

Visit this article to learn more about message transports and how to set Message Header defaults for new messages.

In the next article, you can learn about content versioning.

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