Create and Send Multi-Version Emails

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Introduction

Admins can easily create and send multiple variations of an email within one Outreach or Program to scale personalized customer communications and simplify reporting. You can also schedule these versions to be sent at different times based on specific criteria you have selected.

In the example below, email variations have been configured based on different languages, since this is a common use case. These email variations can also be scheduled to be sent at different times based on the contacts’ time zones.

Create a Power List and Select a Customer Segment

When developing a Power List for a Multi-Version Email, it is important to remember to include a field in the criteria that can appropriately match your customer segments with the email variations. This criteria or field likely determines the object you choose to build this list off of.

In this example, an English version of an Outreach is sent to the customers in the United States, as well as a Spanish version of the same Outreach is sent to the customers in Spain. With this in mind, the Contact object is selected because it contains the Country field. This field can be used as criteria for each version.

Before building the Power List, consider which segments of the customers require an email version.
Select a field that can be used to segment the customers effectively. Ideally, this should be a picklist field that can be used to schedule the versions to be sent at different times.
Select the object that contains this field in the Derive list of recipients from option. Create filters for the field that pulls in the relevant customer segments.
Add this field to the Select Fields section of the Power List as shown below.

For more information on how to build a Power List, see the article Create Journey Orchestrator Power Lists (aka, email contact list).

Create Email Template Versions

Versions are separate forms of the same email, contained within a single email template. Each program is meant to be sent to a different segment of customers. You will not assign segments to each version when creating your email template. Instead, you will complete this step as part of program configuration.

First, you must create a multi-version template before you can configure a multi-version program.

The existing Default version cannot be deleted.

To add versions to an email template:

Click + adjacent to VERSIONS. The New Version page appears.
Note: You can create a maximum of 15 versions.
In the Version Name field, enter the name of the version.
Select an opt-out language in the Choose an Opt-Out Language dropdown menu.
Select either Fluid or Fixed option in the Choose a Layout section.
Click CREATE.

Note: Admins can also Edit, Clone, and Delete versions by clicking the three dots adjacent to the Version.

IMPORTANT:

It is a requirement that if the default version has a survey, then every version MUST include that survey either as a link or button. If not, this can adversely affect reporting.
Admins can add up to a maximum of 20 versions in an email template.

Configure Email Outreach

For more information on how to configure a Journey Orchestrator Outreach, see the article Create and Execute Journey Orchestrator Outreaches (aka, schedule emails).

In the To field, select the Power List you created earlier.
In the Template field, select the Multi-Version email template.

Set the filter conditions for each version by clicking the filter icon in the top-left of the version's layout.

Notes:
- You need to set the filter conditions for each variation you have selected. This matches the version with the appropriate segment of customers you would like to send it to.
- You can click the Null checkbox to select a value of Null as your filter value.

Select Advanced Logic conditions including equals, not equals, greater than, greater or equal, less than, lesser or equal, contains, and does not contain.
Select multiple filters and use Advanced Logic to select how the filters are applied with AND and OR operators.

Notes:
- The AND operator denotes that all of the combined filter conditions are fulfilled by a contact for the version to be sent to them. The OR operator denotes that at least one of the combined filter conditions must be fulfilled by a contact for the version to be sent to them.
- When building a Multi-Version Email Outreach, a checkbox at the bottom of the Outreach page called “Send the default version, in case of version filter value is not matched,” is displayed.
  When enabled, this option allows for the default version to be sent to any customers in the Power List that do not meet the selected version filter criteria. If this is not checked, then no Outreach will be sent to customers that do not meet any of the version criteria.

Schedule Outreach

If you are not interested in scheduling your versions to be sent at different times, you can schedule them using the default method outlined in Create and Execute Outreaches.
To schedule your versions to be sent at different times, first select a Time Scheduler Field at the bottom of the Outreach page. This field will be used to determine which customer segments receive the Outreach during the scheduled delivery.

Note: Only picklist fields are supported in Time Scheduler Field. This is why Gainsight recommends using a picklist field to determine segments of customers for each version outreach, as the same field can then be used as the Time Scheduler.

Save your configurations.
Proceed to schedule the outreach.
After selecting the date you would like to send the outreach, a pop up window displays the following options to schedule the delivery time for the outreach.

One Time

Recurring Schedule

In the example, the Spanish customers are in a different timezone from the US customers, and will likely be active at different times of the day.

Note: The scheduler displays the time according to the org’s set timezone. You cannot schedule a delivery time earlier than the current time, and the earliest time configured will be considered the next scheduled run time for the outreach. You receive the results email after the first scheduled delivery is completed.

Additional Example Uses

Run A/B testing on your customer communications by creating alternate versions of an email and comparing response results
Reduce the number of emails and campaigns by tailoring the message according to recipient or customer attribute for the same email content. For example, send a Product Announcement that has varying messages for each role within one outreach and analyze response rates within one report.

Schedule an outreach multiple times a day

Perform the following steps to get the PowerList to be refreshed every time while sending the email.

Select Refresh the power list before outreach execution check box as shown in the following image.

Create multiple recurring schedules for the same Outreach in a day instead of creating multiple Outreaches. For example, one outreach is scheduled at 11 AM and other at 12 PM, you can create one Outreach for both.
Navigate to Schedule screen where you click on the date in the calendar and schedule an outreach.

If you have questions or feedback about the feature explained in this article, please share them on community.gainsight.com.