During email offer execution emails are sent to qualifying individuals only where a valid email address exists. Textual and HTML content are consistent with that defined within the Offer Designer, and any attributes included within the email template are resolved for inclusion within the body of the email.
The emails to be sent will depend on the email offer’s Content mode setting:
•If set to Multi-part, both HTML and text emails will be sent.
•If set to Text only, only text emails will be sent.
•If set to HTML only, only HTML emails will be sent.
If an email offer has been defined to perform fulfillment at a specific scheduled time, on executing the offer in Production mode in advance of that time, it immediately assumes a Completed status. Emails are delivered later in accordance with the offer channel’s settings.
If the email offer’s channel's Recipient email field is populated with an attribute with a target table that is incompatible with any of its workflow's audiences , a warning message is displayed at workflow activation. For each email offer in the workflow, the following message is shown:
'An issue was encountered validating offer activity [activity name], Join not found between [audience table] and [email attribute table]'
When email execution takes place using an email channel, the system automatically de-duplicates on email address. One row is added to the Offer History table per pre-deduplication record. The Selected field in the Offer History table indicates whether a given record survived the deduplication exercise.
An external email service provider (ESP – Salesforce Marketing Cloud, SendGrid, CheetahMail, Acoustic, SparkPost, Instiller, Responsys, Dotdigital, Listrak, Mailchimp, Cordial, LuxSci, Paubox, Amazon SES or Amazon Pinpoint) is responsible for sending the emails. If the channel has been defined as auto-suppressing, email addresses present in the email suppression table are not contacted.
If the connection to the ESP’s email service cannot be made, RPI repeats its attempt to connect every minute for 10 minutes before failing.
When an email offer contains an embedded asset, during recurring execution (in a recurring workflow or following an interactive activity), when the asset is updated, the latest version of the asset is included in delivered email content. The same applies at nested embedded assets.
You cannot execute an email offer in Production mode if it contains an image asset that is larger than the maximum permissible size defined by system configuration setting MaxEmailImageSize. Note that this setting does not apply if the images used are hosted (privately or publicly) at an external content provider.
If configured, Realtime in Outbound can be used to vary delivered content served by an email channel. For more information, please see the Smart Asset Designer documentation.
Use of the RPI Realtime service to personalize outbound messages is supported at the following email providers:
•CheetahMail
•Cordial
•dotdigital
•Acoustic
•Amazon Pinpoint
•Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
•Instiller
•Listrak
•LuxSci
•Mailchimp
•Paubox
•Responsys
•Salesforce Marketing Cloud
•SendGrid
•SparkPost
If the email offer contains a URL, and the channel is configured with compatible Google Analytics, web events, Matomo or Kissmetrics adapters, on traversing the link in the posted message, website activity can be tracked and monitored. This is carried out by the appending of query string parameters to the URL.
The following parameters are appended for a Google Analytics adapter:
•utm_source
•utm_medium
•utm_content
•utm_campaign
Any supplied meta tags are rendered appropriately.
The following parameters are appended for a Web Events adapter:
•rpcid: RPContactID
•exid: ChannelExecutionID
The following parameters are appended for a Matomo adapter:
•clid: ClientID
•exid: ChannelExecutionID
•rpcid: RPContactID
The following parameters are appended for a Kissmetrics adapter:
•kme: DeliveryMethod
•kmi: Contact Key
•km_exid: ChannelExecutionID
•km_campaign: Offer activity name
When an email offer is executed via a channel associated with one or more PURL adapters, URL parameters are appended to URLs with which web links in the email content are configured, in accordance with PURL adapter configuration.
If more than one PURL adapter is associated with channel, all URL parameters are appended. If a PURL adapter's Web Site URL is not set, parameters are appended to URLs in all links in the email content. If a PURL adapter's Web Site URL is set, parameters are only appended to URLs accordant with the setting.
Multiple parameters are appended in the order defined within the PURL adapter configuration interface. Parameter values are set to the value of the relevant attributes for the email recipient. Note that a validation error is raised at runtime if the attribute with which a URL is configured is incompatible with the audience definition used by an audience within the interaction workflow.
Note also that, if a link URL is sourced from an attribute value, the personalization thereof using a PURL adapter is not supported.
Following a hard bounce due to email undeliverability, a record is added to the email suppression table; its UnsubscribedMethod is set to ‘Hard Bounce’
If you invoke Stop at a Playing workflow that contains a Playing production email offer, and email data has been uploaded to the ESP, the offer is terminated as expected. However, emails will still be delivered, and state information will continue to be monitored for.
On receipt of an email sent via an email channel, if the email offer content was defined as for Marketing purposes, the following elements are automatically included:
•'To view this email as a web page, go here': this link is displayed above the email’s content. Clicking the link launches (a new tab within) the client application machine’s default web browser to display the contents of the email as a web page.
•'This mail was sent to: [recipient's email address]': displayed immediately below the email’s content.
•‘This mail was sent by [sender name and address]’.
•One-Click Unsubscribe: clicking the link launches (a new tab within) the client application machine’s default browser to display the Unsubscribe Center.
•Update Profile: clicking the link launches (a new tab within) the client application machine’s default browser to display the Subscription Center.
•Manage Subscriptions
A runtime validation error is raised when a non-queue listener workflow contains an email offer fulfilled using an email channel without a Recipient email property.
The following RPI email service providers support use of an email offer's Reply-to Email property:
•Mailchimp (note that the reply-to email address needs to be verified at the Mailchimp portal before it can be used)
•Cordial
•Instiller
•Listrak
•LuxSci
•Paubox (when replying to a secure message, Paubox always uses Sender-email as the default Reply-to email)
•SendGrid
•SparkPost
If an email offer sent using one of the above providers includes a Reply-to Email address, if Reply or Reply All is clicked in respect of a received email offer, the configured address will be used as the reply's 'To' address. If not configured, Sender email is used instead.
If sent using a provider that does not support Reply-to, a runtime validation error is raised at workflow execution. In the event of proceeding with execution, the default Reply-to address as configured at the email service provider account is used.
If a BCC email address has been set up at the email channel (and/or overridden at the offer), the following apply:
•A runtime validation error is raised if the current channel provider doesn't support BCC and BCC was overridden at the offer.
•One BCC email is sent to the BCC email address per delivered email, in accordance with the channel and offer settings.
•Dynamic content variations are reflected in delivered BCC emails.
•BCC emails are not sent if the supplied BCC email address is invalid.
•If a contact is undeliverable, a BCC email is not sent.