Configure an EDP SMS Text Campaign: Setup 

Note: For an EDP-driven Event-triggered Campaign, Engage+ doesn't display any Audience configuration options. The steps in this topic relate only to Regular One-off and Date-triggered Campaigns.

1. Next to "EDP Audience", click Browse for Audience. The "Select EDP Audiences" pop-up window is displayed. Optionally you can search for a Segment by name using the "Search" field. You can also sort the list of Segments by name, created date, or updated date.

2. Select the desired Segment, the click Select.

Note: Segments are defined within the EDP application, then surfaced within Messaging when building the Campaign. The business rules and criteria that define the Segment are built and managed within EDP, not from within Messaging. For more details, please see the EDP Online Help.

Note: If the Segment uses a logical condition based on a field, and that field isn't present in the Campaign-ready file, the platform will skip that logical question.

EDP-driven Campaigns require that the selected Sender Profile be assigned a Classification (Promotional or Transactional). Please see the Sender Profiles topic for more details on this process.

To select the Sender Profile for an EDP-driven Campaign:

1. In the Sender Profile sub-section, from the Sender Profile drop-down menu, select the desired Sender Profile.

Note: If the selected Sender Profile has not been assigned a Classification, an error message is displayed. You must first assign a Classification to this Sender Profile before you can use it.

2. For Email Campaigns, if the selected Sender Profile has more than one VMTA pool associated to it, an additional VMTA Pool drop-down menu is displayed and populated with all available VMTA pools. From this menu, select the desired VMTA pool.

3. If you're using Message Subscriptions as an additional level of permission management, select a Message Subscription field from the drop-down menu, and click the Add button. Repeat this step as needed.

Note: The Suspend Email and Suspend Email Transactional Message Subscription attributes are not available for selection from this drop-down menu. These system-level attributes are always utilized by the platform.

4. Define the business rules for the selected Message Subscriptions:

   • From the first drop-down menu, select either be subscribed or not be subscribed.

   • From the second drop-down menu, select either ANY (that is, an OR condition), or ALL (that is, an AND condition).

1. From the "Message Encoding" drop-down menu, select the encoding method for your Campaign:

   • Latin 9 (ISO) -- Messages can be up to 160 characters in length, as long as all characters in the message conform to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) encoding standard. If you included a non-GSM character, the platform will automatically convert your message to Unicode.

   • Unicode -- Messages can be 70 characters in length.

2. Optionally, in the "Expiration Date" field, enter an end-date for sending Keyword-driven automated responses sent out by this Campaign. See the "Responses" section below for more information on Keyword-driven responses. 

3. Optionally, check Shorten Links to use a URL Shortener to convert a URL into a condensed format. 

4. In the "Message Content" field, enter your SMS Text message. The "Remaining Characters" counter beneath the field displays the current number of characters you have left, based on the Message Encoding option you selected above. The Preview rendering on the right is refreshed to show how your message will appear to your recipients. 

New Personalization Field

To add a new personalization field to your message content:

1. Within the text editor, position your cursor where you want to insert the personalization field.

2. Click the Personalization & Library bar along the right-hand side of the screen to expand the Personalization Pane. Within this panel, the available fields are organized into different expandable / collapsible groups. For example, you'll see a section for your Campaign source table, or a section called "Dynamic Attributes" if you have Dynamic Attributes defined and enabled for use.

Note: If you're building content that uses the Engagement Data Platform (EDP) as the data source, only the fields tagged as "use in Cheetah Digital" are available for personalization. Please see the EDP and Loyalty Data Manager for more details on this process.

3. Within the Personalization Pane, expand the desired group to find the personalization field you want to use. Optionally, you can sort the personalization fields alphabetically (by default, the fields are sorted based on the field sequence defined for this table on the Tables screen). You can also use the search function within the Personalization Pane to search for a particular text string within the field name.

4. Double-click on the personalization field name (or, optionally, you can drag the desired personalization field from the Personalization Pane, and drop it into the text editor at the desired insert location). An "Insert Field Value" pop-up window is displayed.

5. Optionally, enter a default value for this personalization field in the "Default" text box. The default value is used if a record doesn't have a valid value in the field being used to personalize the message.

6. Optionally select a formatting mask from the "Formatter" drop-down menu. The formatting mask is used to control the appearance of the text in the personalization field. For example, you can format date fields as "mm/dd/yyyy." The system includes formatting masks for dollar amounts, dates, numbers, and URLs. You can also use a formatting mask to truncate or encode the personalization field.

7. If you selected a "Number" format or a "Money" format in step 6, the system displays a "Locale" drop-down menu. This menu allows you to define the formatting and presentation of the number or money value, based on your location. The Locale from your User Profile will be selected by default, but you can optionally select a different Locale from the drop-down menu.

8. Click ok. The system creates a new Merge Symbol for this personalization field, and inserts it at the current cursor position (or at the drop location if you drag-and-dropped the item from the Dynamic Pane).

A Merge Symbol is a textual representation of the personalization field, consisting of the field name enclosed in double-brackets. For example: {(first_name)}. If you defined a default value above in step 5, this value is also displayed within the Merge Symbol. For example: {(first_name|Customer)}. If you selected a formatting mask above in step 6, the formatting mask is displayed within the Merge Symbol using a special code. For example, the "mm/dd/yy" date field format mask is represented by the code: "d:d." Therefore, the Merge Symbol for this field would be: "{(date_field||d:d)}."

9. Optionally, you can test the Personalization Field to verify that the content is being displayed correctly. Click generate sample data. The platform populates the Merge Symbols with test values pulled from a random record in the database, and displays them within the preview rendering. 

Reuse a Personalization Field

Once you add a personalization field to the message content, the Merge Symbol for that field is added to the "Included Items" section of the Personalization Pane. This section allows you to conveniently find and reuse a personalization field without having to search for it every time.

Note: After adding a Personalization Field to the message content, you may need to close / reopen the Personalization Pane in order to "refresh" the values listed within the "Included Items" section.

To reuse a personalization field that you previously added to the message content:

1. Within the text editor, position your cursor where you want to insert the personalization field.

2. Click the "Personalization & Library" bar along the right-hand side of the screen to expand the Personalization Pane.

3. Within the "Included Items" section of the Personalization Pane, double-click on the desired Merge Symbol. The system inserts the Merge Symbol at the current cursor position. Or, optionally, you can drag the desired Merge Symbol from the "Included Items" section, and drop it into the text editor at the desired insert location

Note: If you remove all instances of a personalization field, the platform will remove its Merge Symbol from the "Included Items" section.

1. In the Tool Bar, click preview. The system displays a pop-up window containing a simulated version of your content.

2. When finished, click the X icon to close the Preview window.

1. In the Tool Bar, click preview.

2. Click the Dynamic Content tab, in the right pane. The system displays all of the "Content Block" type assets (Content Blocks, Dynamic Blocks, etc.) included within the header and / or message content.

3. Place check marks next to each asset that you want to include within the message preview. The system refreshes the Preview window.

4. For Dynamic Blocks, the system displays all the Rule / Block Pairs defined with the Dynamic Block. To test a specific Rule / Block Pair, place a check mark next to it. The system refreshes the Preview window to show how the content appears for the selected Rule / Block Pair. Repeat this step as necessary to test other Rule / Block Pairs.

Note: If you have Dynamic Content in your header, the header fields are listed separately than the Dynamic Content fields in the message content.

From within the Preview window, you can send proofs.

Note: You can also send proofs from the review section of the Campaign screen (see Review for more details on this section). The proof method available from within the Preview window provides nearly the same functionality, but with one notable difference -- the Preview window method lets you enter custom Personalization values. Conversely, the review section method of proofing will use values pulled from a random Test Member in the EDP database.

To send a proof from the Preview window:

1. In the Tool Bar, click preview.

2. Optionally, enter the desired Personalization values (see "Test Personalization" above for more details on this process).

3. Optionally, select the desired Dynamic Content variations (see "Test Dynamic Content" above for more details on this process).

4. Click the Review tab.

5. The Your Phone Number field is used to define the recipients of the proof message. In this field, type in one or more mobile phone numbers, separated by commas. 

6. Click send proof.

1. If you have recently updated your message content, the platform displays a warning message within the "Link Tracking" section, telling you that the link tracking information needs to be refreshed. Click "Refresh now."

2. If you have multiple domains set up for your account, the "Link Tracking Domain" drop-down menu is displayed. From this menu, select a domain.

3. Select a link view:

   • Aggregate: This view method is selected by default. This method lists all of the unique URLs found within the message content. For a URL to be considered "unique," it must contain the same URL address AND the same "friendly name." For example, if you had a link to your corporate home page displayed twice in the message, and in both cases, you gave those links the same friendly name of "Home page," then that URL would appear only once within the Aggregate view. If, however, you gave them different friendly names, such as "Home-Header" and "Home-Footer," then each URL would be listed separately.

   • All Links: This view method lists every instance of every link found within the message content. If the same URL is used multiple times within the content, each instance is displayed separately when using this link view.

   • Excluded: This view method shows all of the links found in the message content that have been explicitly set to "Do not track" through the Link Library.

4. The individual links will be tracked in reports generated by the platform. Cheetah Digital's best practice is to provide "friendly" names for the links to make these reports easier to read. For example, instead of viewing a URL like "http://www.mycompany.com/homepage.aspx," a friendly name of “Home Page” can be assigned.

In addition to improving report readability, the use of friendly names allows you to keep links distinct from each other, even if they go to the same destination URL. For example, you might have two links to your company's home page within your message content. By giving these two links different friendly names ("Home Header" and "Home Footer" for example), you can track these two links separately.

The system provides several different ways to assign a friendly name for a link:

• Define the link and the friendly name in the Link Library.   

• Define the friendly name within the Content Editor when you build the message.

• Within HTML content, add a name attribute ("data-link-name") to the anchor tag, as shown here:

<a data-link-name="Cheetah Digital home" href="http://www.cheetahdigital.com">Cheetah Digital Home Page</a>  

• Within either HTML or Text content, use a new URL merge tag to specify the friendly name, as shown here:

{@Cheetah Digital home|http://www.cheetahdigital.com@}

Note: The link name parameter can be used only in HTML or Text format versions. Also, links contained within Looping Blocks will not support the link name parameter.

If the friendly name has not previously been defined through the Link Library, or within the Content Editor, then the system will use a default name, such as "Link 01" followed by the URL. You can manually override this default name, and enter a new friendly name in the "Link Tracking" list. When you launch the Campaign, the system will automatically add this link / friendly name to the Link Library.

Note: In order for the platform to recognize the link friendly name, the link name and URL (or href tag) must be located in the same content source. For example, if you have links contained within Content Blocks used within a Campaign, the Content Block would need to contain both the link name parameter and the URL or href tag.

5. Optionally, to search for a specific link, enter all or part of the URL into the "search" field at the top of the Link Tracking section. The system refreshes the screen to show only the links that have this text string anywhere within the URL.

6. Optionally, to test a link, click the eye icon next to the URL. The platform opens this URL in a separate browser window. The eye icon is then underlined to show that you've tested this URL.

7. If using the "Aggregate" view method, the "Location" column indicates all the places where this link was found within the message content, such as the "Main" content, and / or within a specific asset, such as a Content Block. If a link is used multiple times, the "Location" column displays a drop-down menu, listing all of the places where the link is used. For example, a link might appear within the "Main" content, and within two different Content Blocks. If a link appears within a Content Block, you can optionally jump directly to the Content Block screen by selecting the Block's name in the "Location" column. The system opens up this Content Block in a new tab in the Top Navigation Pane.

8. If using the "All Links" view method, the "Location" column and "Format" column indicate where this specific instance of this link is located -- either the "Main" content, or an asset, such as a Content Block, as well as the specific format version. Optionally, if you click on the value in the "Location" column, the system displays that content with the link highlighted. If the location is "Main," then the Content Editor is displayed; if the location is an asset such as a Content Block, then the asset details screen is displayed.

9. To enable link tracking, in the "Track" column, place a check mark next to each link that you want the system to track for reporting purposes. To automatically select all links, place a check mark in the check box in the header row.

Deep link functionality must be enabled in your account in order to be available, and your web domain (or optionally multiple domains) must be registered  to allow your app to handle the URLs. In addition, you must provide your "Universal Links Files for IOS, or App Links files for Android" to Marigold, to be hosted within the platform. This file authenticates your domain with your app, meaning that links from this domain can be opened in your app.

When configuring deep links in your Campaign, you typically need to provide a deep link "tag." This tag value tells the mobile device what page to open in the app. A tag value is needed if your app doesn't have the ability to parse Engage+'s link tracking (Engage+ obfuscates the URL when the platform tracks link), or if the recipient is opening the link on a phone without cell service or network access, so the URL can't be parsed. A deep link tag is appended to the end of the URL using the parameter "dl."

The syntax of the deep link tag depends on your app, and what it expects to see. The tag value could be a full URL, or it could just be part of the URL, such as "/products/1398," for example. Your app developers should be able to tell you want you need to provide as a deep link tag value.

To configure deep links in your Campaign:

1. Within the "Link Tracking" section, if you have multiple deep link domains registered, select the desired domain from the "Deep Link Tracking Domain" drop-down menu.

2. Select the Aggregate link view.

3. Optionally, to search for a specific link, enter all or part of the URL into the "search" field at the top of the Link Tracking screen. The system refreshes the screen to show only the links that have this text string anywhere within the URL.

4. Optionally, to add a tag to a deep link, place a check mark within the "Deep Link Tag" column next to the appropriate link, then enter the desired tag value in the text field.

1. If you have recently updated your message content, the platform displays a warning message within the "Link Tracking" section, telling you that the link tracking information needs to be refreshed. Click Refresh now.

2. Select a link view:

   • Aggregate: This view method is selected by default. This method lists all of the unique URLs found within the message content. For a URL to be considered "unique," it must contain the same URL address AND the same "friendly name." For example, if you had a link to your corporate home page displayed twice, and in both cases, you gave those links the same friendly name of "Home page," then that URL would appear only once within the Aggregate view. If, however, you gave them different friendly names, such as "Home-Header" and "Home-Footer," then each URL would be listed separately.

   • All Links: This view method lists every instance of every link found within the message content. If the same URL is used multiple times within the content, each instance is displayed separately when using this link view.

   • Excluded: This view method shows all of the links found in the message content that have been explicitly set to "Do not track" through the Link Library.

3. Click validate links. The system "pings" each URL to see if it gets a response within an optimal amount of time.

4. The results of the validation test are displayed within the "Status" column -- either a green check mark icon for valid links, or a red exclamation mark icon for links that couldn't be verified.

Note: If you get any "Unable to Verify" results, check that the text of your URL is correct, and that the target link will be working at the time of the Campaign delivery. You can test the target link by clicking the eyeball icon next to the URL; the system opens the target URL in a separate browser window.

To assign a Tag to a link:

1. If you have recently updated your message content, the platform displays a warning message within the "Link Tracking" section, telling you that the link tracking information needs to be refreshed. Click "Refresh now."

2. Select the Aggregate link view (Tags are read-only in the "All Links" view, and they're not available in the "Excluded" view).

3. In the "Link Tag" column, click the Tag field next to a link. The system displays a menu of every Tag value used within the current system. You can pick one or more of these tags, or type in a new tag and press Enter. To remove a tag, click the X icon next to the tag value.

If you use Looping Blocks in your Campaign content, the platform will automatically apply Append Codes to all hard-coded links found within the Looping Block. A hard-coded link is any link starting with "<a href="https://", or <a href="http://". For example:

<a href="https://{$page_url}">

<a href="https://cheetahdigital.com">

<a href="http://cheetahdigital.com{$page_url}">

Append Codes can be manually entered at the Campaign level, or they can be defined as repeatable Append Code sets. Append Code sets can also be defined as "Default," meaning the platform will automatically assign them to every Email Campaign. For more information on how to create and manage Append Code sets, please see the Append Codes Help topic.

To assign Append Codes to your Campaign:

1. If you have recently updated your message content, the platform displays a warning message within the "Link Tracking" section, telling you that the link tracking information needs to be refreshed. Click Refresh now.

2. Click append codes. The Append Codes menu is displayed, showing all of your options for assigning Append Codes to this Campaign. All the Append Code sets that were defined as "Default," will automatically appear within this menu (Default sets are marked with an orange star icon).

   • To manually assign a new Append Code, enter the Key Value Pair(s) in the "Append Codes" field. It's not necessary to enter the query string delimiter ("?"); the platform will add that automatically for you. If entering multiple Append Codes, be sure to separate each Key Value Pair with an ampersand ("&"). Please note that any Key Value Pairs you enter here will be displayed on the Campaign details screen within the "Responses" section (and conversely, any Key Value Pairs you enter back on the Campaign details screen will be reflected here within the "Append Codes" field).

Sample Append Code

To assign an Append Code set, select the desired set from the "Append Code Sets" drop-down menu, then click the add button (plus-sign icon). The system adds this Append Code set to the bottom of the list of assigned Append Code sets.

• To remove an Append Code set, click the remove button (X icon) to the right of the set's name. You can also remove Default sets that were assigned automatically.

• To rearrange the sequence of Append Code sets, click on the gray rectangle to the left of the Append Code set name, and drag-and-drop the set into its new location. Append Code sets will be displayed in the URL in the order they are shown, from top to bottom.

Note: Within the list of assigned Append Code sets, the manually-entered Append Codes appear as the item labelled "Append Codes." You can rearrange this item, just like an Append Code set; however, you can't remove this item. If you don't want to assign any manually-entered Append Codes to this Campaign, simply leave the "Append Codes" field blank.

In order for Google Analytics to parse out customer activity from a particular Campaign, you must configure certain query string parameters in the links that are included in the Campaign's message content. To define these query string parameters:

1. From the "Advanced Options" menu in the "Responses" section, select Append Google Analytics. A new "Google Analytics Tracking" section is displayed within the "Responses" section. This new section displays the Google parameters.

2. For each Google parameter, enter the desired value for this Campaign.

Note: The Google tracking parameters will be automatically appended to all tracked URLs in your Campaign; they will not be appended to URLs if sending Proofs.

3. Optionally, to remove Google Analytics from this Campaign, click the Remove icon from within the "Google Analytics Tracking" section. 

To add a Keyword-driven automated response to your Campaign:

1. Within the "Responses" sub-section, click add keyword response. The "SMS Keyword Responses" dialog box is displayed.

2. From the "Short Code" drop-down menu, select the Short Code to which customers will text their responses.

3. From the "Keyword" drop-down menu, select the desired Keyword Group.

Note: Only Keyword Groups that do NOT use Regular Expressions (and therefore are not being used for data capture purposes) are available in this drop-down menu.

4. From the "Match Phone Field" drop-down menu, select the Phone field on the Campaign's source table. The system will look for a match between the mobile phone number on the customer's response and the field you select here, in order to identify the customer.

5. In the "Confirmation Message" text field, optionally enter the confirmation message that will automatically get sent back to the customer upon receipt of one of the Keywords in the selected Keyword Group.

Note: If you enter a message in this "Confirmation Message" field, AND also enter a message in the Campaign's main "Content" field, the consumer will receive BOTH messages. This may or may not be desirable, depending on your Campaign strategy. If you want to send only one message, you should enter your message in only one of these two places, both of which have their advantages. The "Content" field on the main Campaign screen offers more sophisticated options regarding personalization, Content Blocks, etc. The downside to using that field is that this message is slower to send since it goes through the full message deployment process. The "Confirmation Message" field, on the other hand, does not offer any personalization options, but it sends almost instantly.

6. Click save. The system adds this Keyword Group to the list of SMS Keywords. From this list, you can see all the automated response Keyword Groups assigned to this Campaign.

7. Repeat the above steps as needed to add more Keyword Groups to this Campaign. 

8. If you need to remove a Keyword Group, click the Delete icon next to the group name. To remove all assigned Keyword Groups, click delete all keyword responses. 

9. If you need to edit the Keyword Group, click the Edit icon to bring up the SMS Keyword Responses dialog box.

For more information on setting up Keyword Groups, see the SMS Keywords topic.