Before you start

Trigger SmartBlocks can currently only be used when Dotdigital Marketing is your messaging provider.

Trigger SmartBlocks allow you to display products for inclusion in your triggered messaging, for example, in cart abandonment or back in stock emails. When you create a Trigger SmartBlock, you select a template to use as the base layout, which you can then edit to suit your specific message or use case.

By default, we provide a number of system templates for you to choose from, but you can also create your own customized templates.

For each template, you can specify the messaging channel it can be used for — email or SMS — and you can also limit the message types that this template should be available for. For example, you can create a template for abandoned cart or browse messaging specifically, and prevent it from being shown as an option for back in stock or price drop Trigger SmartBlocks.

Create a new template

In Personalization, go to Automation > Trigger SmartBlock Templates.
Select Create template.
Enter a name for your template, then select Continue.
Either
- Select a system template, for example, Abandoned cart responsive table.
  Recommended.
  or
- Select Blank template to create your template layout entirely from scratch.
Select Continue.

Design your template

The Trigger SmartBlock template designer allows you to fully customize your SmartBlock layout. You can add any fields you want, control the look and feel, manage channel and message type settings, and add custom link tracking for more detailed analytics.

The template designer has two main sections:

The left side panel allows you to add or edit sections and fields. These fields and sections are then visible in the editor when you create a Trigger SmartBlock from the template.
The right side panel holds two tabs; the HTML editor and the Trigger SmartBlock preview.

If you select a system template to work from, the left side panel and HTML editor are already populated with the key sections and fields you’re likely to need for the related message type. You can remove, edit, or add any fields or sections you want.

If you choose to start from a blank template, you need to manually create all the sections and fields you want.

Sections

A section groups together several related fields. For example, you could have a Product info section which contains fields such as product name, price, image URL, and so on.

Fields you configure in the template mean that when a user is editing the Trigger SmartBlock, they can change things like the font, alignment, and colours of the SmartBlock content without having to alter any code.

To add a new section, expand the Add drop-down menu and select Section.

Field types

Field type	Description
Text	A basic text input field.
Number	A basic number input field.
Color/Multiple Color	Creates a color picker. The Multiple option allows for elements where both a foreground and background color is required, or in special cases where more than two colors may be used. Both field types can support transparency.
Boolean	A yes/no, true/false, 1/0 field.
Font	Creates a dropdown of available fonts that can be selected from.
Columns	Creates a selectable number of columns. For example, this is useful to control the number of products shown per row in a recommendation SmartBlock.
Italics	Enables or disables italic formatting for related text.
Bold	Enables or disables bold formatting for related text.
Image URL	Creates a field to allow the entry of an image URL and an upload button to upload images to be used in the SmartBlock.
Select	Creates a dropdown with options and values. The values available in the layout can be entered in the field settings, under Options, when the field is created or amended.
Font size	Creates both a number field and a units dropdown to allow sizes to be specified. Could be used for other size values, not just font size.
URL	Creates a text entry field, similar to a text field, and can have Jinja enabled.
Location image	Creates a dropdown of which location field to use as the image. Used when the Trigger SmartBlock is linked to a location set.
Location extra data	Creates a dropdown of which location field to use as the extra data. Used when the Trigger SmartBlock is linked to a location set.
Custom signal	Creates a drop-down list all of the custom signal triggers in the account.
Padding	Creates both a number field and a units dropdown to allow padding to be specified.
Date time	Creates a date/time picker.
Timezone	Creates a drop-down of time zones.
Group	Creates a toggle field and allows sub-fields to be added. These are controlled by the group toggle, enabling or disabling them all in the UI based on the state of the group field. This impacts the ID of the sub-fields you add in, so any item in the group automatically contains the group name. For example, a Color field within the Border group has an ID of border.borderColor.

Create a new field

Expand the section you want to place the field in.
Select New field, and then select the field type you want to create.
When you have created a new field, you must reference it in the template HTML.
Repeat these steps for all fields you want to add.

Reference fields in HTML

Once you've created a new field, you must reference it in the template HTML, in an appropriate position, using a Jinja2 merge.

To do this:

Select the HTML tab.
Right-click where you want the field reference to be placed in the HTML panel.
A menu appears that contains a list of all of the fields. Select the field you want to add.

It’s also possible to manually add fields to the HTML by entering the Jinja2 merge directly into the HTML, for example, to add a new text field:

Select Add section.
Inside your new section, select New field, and then select Text Field.
Enter a name for the new field.
Select the Settings icon for the new field, and copy the ID that’s been generated.
Add the HTML for the new text box in the right hand panel, including the field ID:
{{ mergeField( fields.priorityAnnouncement.text) }}
Select Validate output, then, in the pop-over window, select Save.

Once you’ve added all the fields you want, select Validate output, then, in the pop-over window, select Save.

Field options

To access options for a field, select the Settings icon.

Option name	Description
Name	The user facing name, shown when editing the Trigger SmartBlock.
Make ID	Creates an ID based on the name you entered, and whether the field is in a group.
Description	This text appears in the tooltip shown when a user selects the ? icon for the field.
First	Determines whether the field should appear on a new row or on a row alongside the previous field. Fields that have the First toggle set to On start a new row.
Sort order	The order the fields should show in.
Merge Jinja Only available on some field types	If enabled, allows Jinja 2 within the field to be merged when the Trigger SmartBlock is displayed to the contact. For example, you could include the following to merge in their points value: `{{ person.loyalty.points }}`.
Allow negative numbers Only available on some field types	When enabled, allows a numerical field to accept and display negative values.

Other settings

On this tab, you can set:

Channel setting
This controls what messaging channel the template is available for.

Select the input field then select Email or SMS. You can only select one channel per template.

Blocked message types
This controls which messaging types the template is available for.

Select the input field then choose from:
- Back in stock
- Browse abandonment
- Cart abandonment
- Low stock
- Post-purchase
- Price drop
You can select multiple messaging types for a single template. The template will not be available to use for the messaging types you select here.

Creation mode
This allows you to define whether the template is shared, or not.

A shared template means that any Trigger SmartBlock you create from the template is affected by changes to it. This is helpful when you want to be able to make bulk changes to multiple Trigger SmartBlocks.

If you choose not to create a shared template, then when changes are made to the template, any Trigger SmartBlocks created from it are unaffected. Changes only apply to the template itself.

To set the template to shared, select the Shared template checkbox.

JSON

The JSON tab allows you to view, edit, or copy the template in JSON format.

Links

This tab allows you to manage links and link tracking for your template.

Under Links you can set the destination URL for the different link types in your template. Link fields support Jinja, so you can create dynamic links, for example, using {{ product.u }} to automatically insert the URL of the associated product.

Under Tracking parameters, you can add tracking parameters such as UTM tags or other, custom, parameters to the links in the Trigger SmartBlock layout.

These tracking parameters act as the default for Trigger SmartBlocks created from the template. If you set tracking parameters at the trigger program level which differ from those set on the Trigger SmartBlock template, the parameters set on the trigger program are used.

To do this:

Expand the Tracking parameters section.
Select Create tracking parameter.
Enter the name and value for your tracking parameter.
Select Create.
Repeat steps 1—4 for any other tracking parameters you want to add.

Preview and save a template

On the right hand side of the Editing template page, under Template HTML, the default view shows the raw HTML for your template.

To preview what your content will look like in a message:

Select the Preview tab.
In the top right corner of the preview, select the icons to switch between desktop, mobile, or custom previews.

For a custom preview, enter the size in pixels for the preview you want to view.

When you’re happy with your template, select Validate output.

If validation is successful, you see options to:

Copy JSON
Copy HTML
Save as
Save
Save and preview

Edit a template

To edit an existing Trigger SmartBlock template:

In Personalization, go to Automation > Trigger SmartBlock Templates.
Select the template you want.
Select Edit.

When you edit a default template, you can only save the changes as a new template. You can’t overwrite the original default template.

Create Trigger SmartBlock templates