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Creating Target Groups for Outbound E-mail

A Target Group defines a category of user. In Outbound E-mail, you can personalize the content of a Mailing using Target Groups.

Before you begin

  • To create a Target Group you must have Customer Management rights and Write permissions for the containing Folder.
  • You must have created a taxonomy for Outbound E-mail Contacts (the definition of a Target Group in Outbound E-mail is based on Keywords).

About this task

Target Groups define a set of user characteristics (of mail recipients, in the case of Outbound E-mail). You use Target Groups to display different content—of what is essentially the same Mailing— to different Contacts depending on what Target Group(s) the Contact is a member of.

For example, if you have a Mailing that you want to send to Customers and Prospects because it is essentially the same, except with one small difference which is applicable for Customers only, you can create a Target Group called Customer and associate the content (the Component Presentation on a Page) with this Target Group. The result is that the e-mail sent to a Contact marked as a Customer will be slightly different to the e-mail sent to a Contact marked as a Prospect.

Keywords are properties or attributes of a Contact that define a Contact's preferences and interests, such as a preferred brand of car or hobbies. A Contact may have multiple Keywords from one or more Categories.

You create Target Groups in a Folder in the Building Blocks of a Publication.

Procedure

  1. Open the Content Manager Explorer.
  2. Navigate to the Publication > Building Blocks Folder.
  3. Select a Folder in which you want to create the Target Group and Click the New Target Group icon in the toolbar.
    The New Target Group window opens.
  4. In the General tab, enter a unique Name and a Description for the Target Group.
  5. In the Definition tab:
    1. Select Tracking Keys.
    2. Select a Keyword from the list of Keywords.
    3. Select = as the comparison Operator.
    4. Enter 1 in the Tracking value (number) text box.
    5. Select Include (include Contacts with these Keywords) or Exclude (exclude Contacts with these Keyword and include all others).
    6. Click Add. The Keyword appears in the Target Group Definition.
  6. Repeat this step to add multiple Keywords to include or exclude from the same Category, or from other Categories.
  7. Click Save and Close to save your new Target Group.

Results

You have created a Target Group.

What to do next

When you have created your Target Groups you can associate a Component Presentation in an E-mail Page with one or more of these Target Groups to personalize the content of an e-mail.