[Also applies to v8]{class="badge positive" title="Also applies to Campaign v8"}

Build personalized content build-personalized-content

When designing your message content, try to avoid common issues that could prevent you from executing your delivery. Most of the time, possible errors are related to personalization, formatting and images.

Optimize personalization optimize-personalization

To avoid common issues that could prevent you from executing your delivery and to improve your recipients’ experience, Adobe Campaign enables you to personalize your messages.

You can use recipients’ data stored in the Adobe Campaign database, or collected through tracking, landing pages, subscriptions, etc.
Personalization basics are presented in this section.

Make sure your message content is properly designed to avoid any errors, which are generally related to personalization.

Tips: In personalization fields coming from external files provided by third-party vendors, external HTML content can be wrong. To avoid this, check syntax, use of tags, characters, etc. For example, an Adobe Campaign personalization tag always has the following form: <%=table.field%>. For more on this, see this section.

The incorrect use of parameters in personalization blocks can be an issue. For example, variables in JavaScript should be used as follows:

<%

var brand = "xxx"

%>

For more on personalization blocks, refer to the this section.

You can prepare personalization data in a workflow to improve delivery preparation analysis. This should be used specially if the personalization data come from an external table through Federated Data Access (FDA). This option is described in this this section

Build optimized content optimize-content

When building your emails, keep the general best practices below in mind.

Subject line

Work on the subject line to improve open rates:

Mirror page

Always include a mirror page link. Preferred position is a the top of the email. Learn more

Unsubscription link

The unsubscription link is essential. It must be visible and valid, and the form must be functional. By default, when the message is analyzed, a typology rule checks whether an opt-out link has been included and generates a warning if it is missing.

Tip: Because human error is always possible, check that the opt-out link works correctly before each time you send. For example, when sending the proof, make sure the link is valid, that the form is on-line and that the No longer contact this recipient field is changed to Yes.

Learn how to insert an opt-out link in this section.

Email size

To avoid performance or deliverability issues, the recommended maximum size of an email is about 35KB. To check the message size, go the Preview tab and choose a test profile. Once generated, the message size will be displayed in the top right corner.

To keep your email under the limit, consider the following:

Make sure to test any changes before the final sending

SMS length

By default, the number of characters in an SMS meets the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standards. SMS messages using GSM encoding are limited to 160 characters, or 153 characters per SMS for messages sent in multiple parts.

Transliteration consists of replacing one character of an SMS by another when that character is not taken into account by the GSM standard. Note that inserting personalization fields into the content of your SMS message may introduce characters that are not taken into account by the GSM encoding. You can authorize character transliteration by checking the corresponding box in the SMPP channel settings tab of the corresponding External account.
Learn more in this section.

Tips:

Learn more in this section.

Work on formatting formatting

To avoid common formatting errors, check the following elements:

Responsive email design

Responsive design ensures that an email renders optimally for the device on which it is opened.

Manage images manage-images

Follow the guidelines below when it comes to using images.

Prevent images blocking

Some email clients block images by default, and some users change their settings to block images for saving on data usage. Therefore, if images are not downloaded, the whole message can be lost. To avoid this:

Make images responsive

Try to make images responsive and resizable. Note that this can have a cost impact as it takes longer to build.

Use absolute image references

To be accessible from the outside, the images used in emails and public resources linked to campaigns must be present on an externally accessible server.

Preview your message preview-msg

Adobe recommends previewing your message to check its personalization and how your recipients will see your delivery.