Emails are often perceived as sending a message from you to your customers - usually informing them about a sale, a specific item or product, or an invitation to come back and shop... but did you ever consider taking this one-way communication and turning it into an interchangeable conversation that is almost effortless?
Understanding your customers' likes, dislikes, styles, and preferences can be hard if you aren't using a preference center where you're explicitly asking for customer information. But, why not take the resources you're already producing and ask for information with just a click?
Use Cases
Survey/Feedback: "Tell us what you think!" "How are you liking your new product?" "How likely are you to recommend us?" It's easy to give quick feedback, but our time is valuable and even with an incentive, a survey can be a tough sell.
Solution: Write a catchy subject line that grabs your customers' attention and design a clean, clutter-free email that makes it easy for them to participate. Insert a range of buttons from 1-10 paired with a simple question, such as "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?" This allows them to give you valuable feedback quickly and easily, and you can save these responses in segmentation fields to use for filtering and targeting.
Opt-down, Not out: We're approaching the holidays - a time of year that's jam-packed with marketing. This year, let's say you're launching a '12 days of Christmas' campaign, where your customers receive 12 emails over 12 days, each with a new offer. This send frequency will overwhelm some customers, and may result in an influx of unsubscribes.
Solution: Place a call-to-action button near the bottom of every 12 Days email that allows your customers to mute this specific holiday campaign. They're not unsubscribing altogether, so you can use filtering to remove them just from your 12 Days sends. This tactic can reduce list churn and keep subscribers engaged with your other emails.
This/That: Male or female? Red or white wine? Flats or heels? Dog or cat? Homeowner or interior designer? Your customers click through your emails regularly, and not paying attention to their behavior is a waste of valuable data.
Solution: Track where your customers click in your campaign and record this information in segmentation fields. Pair this data with behavioral-targeting solutions like dynamic content and Predictive Product Recommendations to send targeted campaigns that engage your customers 1:1.
Setup
For this example, we're creating an email that asks customers to vote for a specific style. This provides you with feedback that you can use to deliver personalized emails to each customer and even make production decisions.
Creating Profile Fields
The first step is to set up a profile field group with the applicable profile fields to house the information about what a contact clicked. If these fields already exist, skip to the next section.
First, ensure you are on the list your email will be sent from.
Navigate to Contacts > Email Profile Fields.
Then click Create Field Group.
💡 If you already have a group created a group associated with this data, click into the group.
Enter a name to easily identify the group of data, for example Customer Preferences.
Next you will set up the applicable fields. For example, suit/dress, male/female, red/white/blue.
⚠️ When creating these fields, be sure to set the data type to Radio Button.
Creating the Subscribe Contact Form
The subscribe contact form code is used to generate custom code that allows you to capture information about your customers. This form provides a way to collection information on the action (click) a contact takes through your email. You will only need the action link for this specific use case.
First, ensure you are on the list your email will be sent from.
Navigate to Help & Support > Subscribe Contact Form.
Locate the action link in the Subscribe Form Code section. This will be in the first line of code.
💡 Uses the CLTR Find function to search for action.
Copy this link and place it in a code editor.
💡 This link sends your customers to a generic page thanking them for subscribing (as shown below). You can add a redirect to drive contacts back to a page on your site or a Listrak landing page configured in your web content by following the directions below.
To create a redirect link:
Navigate to the After submission, redirect to section above the code.
Enter the applicable URL if you would like the link to redirect to somewhere other than the generic page.
Click Update.
You should see a crvs value added below the action link that was previously copied above.
Copy the value in the quotation marks and place it in your code editor.
Building the Link Structure
The link structure allows Listrak to capture and store data in the specific profile fields created based on the data you would like to capture. Swap out the appropriate parameters, or follow step-by-step below.
You will need to build out each individual link that will be tracked in your email. This will allow you to write data into each of the different profile fields based on the specific links clicked by a client.
⚠️ The links below are examples only. These are based on the specific branding and configuration of your own account so be sure to insert your unique variables.
?email=#listrak\email#&crvs=[VALUE]&RadioButton.[Listrak Field Group]=[Listrak Field Name]
First, use the action link copied.
https://customers.listrak.com/q/aXI_JzbJ_6qmbSzHx-9sBfmQ5K-E2dC
Add the following snippet directly after the link. This is the system link that's being used to pass the email address and information about the subscriber back to Listrak.
?email=#listrak\email#
Then, add the field data type. This should be a radio button. Don't forget the ampersand.
https://customers.listrak.com/q/aXI_JzbJ_6qmbSzHx-9sBfmQ5K-E2dC?email=#listrak\email#&RadioButton
Next, add a period and the field group name.
https://customers.listrak.com/q/aXI_JzbJ_6qmbSzHx-9sBfmQ5K-E2dC?email=#listrak\email#&RadioButton.CustomerPreferences
Lastly, add an equal sign and then the field name.
https://customers.listrak.com/q/aXI_JzbJ_6qmbSzHx-9sBfmQ5K-E2dC?email=#listrak\email#&RadioButton.CustomerPreferences=Dresses
Repeat this process for any additional fields you wish to collect.
Gather Your Links
The easiest way to gather all links is to use a text editor that allows copying and pasting as well as gathering all links. Your text editor may look like the example below with three different radio buttons tracked.
Adding the Redirect
If using the link redirect created above, you can now add the redirect to your gathered link.
This is being placed right after email#.
Add an &crvs=[value copied from Listrak]
After the value, add an & before the remaining portion of the string
https://customers.listrak.com/q/gQmJZnYZJwzLBEnP18E5F-arkK8Vubs?email=#listrak\email#&crvs=HXRHTjzPURVAV_N_450YABNgPpGgJYLPNv6Ykt3UXimpdo2wm2wPrWa8SmPZQH5YlbhqRTA2_SOv6MJrL05gKyUCOrjX6L7OE_InvdUDY8I&RadioButton.CustomerPreferences=Dresses
You can see another example of code below:
Create the Message
You can build your email in Composer or in HTML. For this example of a Composer email, there's a section with three different styles (as images), and buttons placed under each of the images.
Adjusting a Link
Click on the image associated with the first link you have created
Paste your created link into the Link URL
Adjusting a Button
Click on the button associated with the first link you have created
Paste your created link into the Link URL
Repeat for the remaining items in your email. Be sure to apply the correct field snippet to the correct item in the email.
Testing
After you've added the applicable snippets to your images and buttons, navigate back to the message authoring screen and send yourself a test message.
⚠️ The email must be subscribed to the list
After you receive the message, click on a button or link tracking a specific interest.
In the Listrak platform, navigate to Contacts > Email Contacts Search for a Contact.
Enter your test email address and view the email address.
Open the profile and locate the applicable segmentation.
If the radio button is selected your link has worked correctly.
Using Data in Email
After you've gathered preferences and information about your customers, you can use this data to personalize their sends. For example, target different groups with each of your sends. Learn more about how to do this here.
You can also create a single email that can be delivered to a large group of people, but still be highly personalized to their preferences using Dynamic Content.