Trigger Mailings Documentation

General description

The primary goal of Trigger Mailings is to achieve higher customer relationships. The system allows you to send a pre-structured emailing in response to a real-time contact event or action, resulting in higher open rates and increased user engagement over time.
Trigger Mailings can be utilised for different kinds of contact events:

• subscription processes (Double-Opt-In with following welcome emailing),
• birthday emailings, other anniversaries and special days (Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc.),
• regular marketing emailings,
• abandoned cart reminders,
• inactive customer reactivation,
• password recovery,
• late order notifications,
• invoice emailings, etc.

As can be seen above, contact events – or simple contact filters – in many cases are essential in driving the Trigger Mailings. They act as the trigger, initiating the process in response to an internal or external event. A specific contact event is generally assigned to only one Trigger Mailing.

You can reach Trigger Mailings via Mailings in Maileon. There are three submenu items within the section:

• Active Triggers,
• Trigger Drafts and
• Trigger History.

Below, we focus in detail on the Trigger Drafts, where Trigger Mailings are edited and precisely configured.

The main difference in creating a Trigger Mailing compared to the general emailings is entering the event in the 4th workflow step “Dispatch logic and approval” (for normal emailings step 5, labeled “Sending”).

Here, in the “Mailing Logic” > “Type” field, either

1. “Start using Marketing Automation”,
2. “Individual dispatch for contact event”,
3. “Continuous collective dispatch”, or
4. “RSS feed-controlled collective dispatch” must be selected.

Please see below the in-depth description of each of the four options, their specific characteristics and their main types.

Please note: Trigger Mailings are never manually sent but activated as they are triggered by a specially assigned, predefined logic (contact event, contact filter criteria, etc.).

Follow the steps of each process to activate Trigger Mailings in the right corner of the screen.

Types of the Mailing logic

The choice of which type of emailing logic to use depends on the type of Trigger Mailing: content, product, offer, message, etc. However, it’s essential to select the right contact event or filter, as it serves as the primary driver for Trigger Mailings.

“Start using Marketing Automation”

This option allows Trigger Mailings to be dispatched as part of a Marketing Automation. For this process, please click on the „Activate Trigger Mailing“ button in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Note: Clicking on this button only adds the Trigger Mailing to the Marketing Automation library. It will only be activated when it’s integrated into a specific Marketing Automation.


Note: By default, it is not necessary to tick the “Permission neutral sendout possible” checkbox.

When the checkbox is not ticked, all the users with permission will receive the Trigger Mailing. In this case, the emailing may contain marketing messages.

Otherwise, when the checkbox is ticked, all users will receive the Trigger Mailing, regardless of their permission status.

To start, access Marketing Automation to create a new process.

In case you need more information about Marketing Automation, please review the detailed document, which outlines the entire structure and offers an in-depth description of its operational mechanisms.

The corresponding Trigger Mailing will only be activated by inserting it into the process. To access the general settings, click on the Action Node in the menu bar on the right.

To activate the Trigger Mailing, complete the Automation process and click on the green radio button on the right.

This dispatching mode can be utilised for all types of Trigger Mailings, including those that are sent only once, or are linked to a predetermined date, such as a birthday emailings or general marketing campaigns.

“Single dispatch for an event”

Unlike Marketing Automation, which can send several Trigger Mailings within its process, a single dispatch only sends one. In this case, an event triggers the dispatch of the emailing.

The first step in this process is to select the contact event in the Event field. The appropriate contact event defines which data will be transferred to the Trigger Mailing. Whenever the assigned contact event is triggered, the dispatch of the Trigger Mailing is initiated.

In this example the contact event is a DOI link confirmation after DOI subscription, which is relevant for a single dispatch as it occurs only once. This Trigger Mailing is intended to be dispatched after subscription confirmation.

The “Validity” checkbox in the „Mailing logic“ of Trigger Mailings is only relevant for those users who receive a Trigger Mailing for the first time (e.g. if the user is new). After that, the subscription remains valid for any subsequent dispatches (e.g. birthday emailings).

By default, please tick the “All active DOI Mails” checkbox. A specification (other option) is needed in cases such as when the same letter is sent simultaneously in multiple languages.

Any contact event can activate a Trigger Mailing indeed, but in these cases only one letter is sent as well.

Main types of single dispatch emailings:

• cart abandonment,
• forgotten password,
• invoice emailings,
• delivery/late delivery,
• welcome emailing.

Note: Ticking the “Permission neutral possible” checkbox results in all the users associated with the contact event receiving the Trigger Mailing regardless of their permission status.

Before activating the Trigger Mailing, please set the “Dispatch limit”, which determines the maximum number of dispatches to a contact within a certain time period.

Then, as in the previous case, activate the Trigger Mailing by clicking on the button in the bottom right corner of the screen. In this case, pressing the button activates the process.
Note: activating the process is not the same as sending! The process will go „live“ immediately and will be listed under „Active Trigger.“ It is now prepared to send emailings to contacts according to the configured dispatch logic.

“Continuous consolidated dispatch”

This emailing logic enables the dispatch of multiple Trigger Mailings simultaneously at a scheduled time such as for birthday Trigger Mailings. In addition to the manually adjustable time interval, it is necessary to specify whether an event or a contact filter affiliation will activate the process.
With the “Event” option, Maileon collects all addresses and additional required data externally via a certain predefined contact event, whereas with the “Contact filter affiliation” option, Maileon collects all recipients within the system who meet specific conditions.

Event-based triggers can follow the examples mentioned previously. The „Contact Filter Affiliation“ option is applicable for the following types:

• “we miss you” emailings,
• birthday and jubilee emailings, and
• general marketing campaigns.

In this case the RSS feed is the trigger which must be manually adjusted. In addition, you can also set the timing schedule for the dispatch.

In the “Dispatch conditions” you can specify the type of RSS feed update that triggers the emailing.

The “Minimum number” sets the threshold for how many new RSS feed entries are required for the process to start. It can depend on the product: for text content, such as blog articles, one new entry may activate the sending of a Trigger Mailing, whereas for products it is advisable to specify a higher minimum threshold.
After setting this, select the appropriate product sorting and choose an ascending or descending order.

Before activation, simply select the relevant contact filter (or create one) and specify the dispatch limit.

Summary: The choice of which type of emailing logic to use depends on the type of Trigger Mailing: content, product, offer, message, etc. However, it’s essential to select the right contact event or filter, as it serves as the primary driver for Trigger Mailings.

Insert placeholder

Creating a new trigger draft

When editing Trigger Mailings, the first step starts in Mailings > Trigger mailings > Trigger Drafts. Create a new Trigger Mailing by using the “+” icon.

Clicking on the icon “+” will lead you to the editor, where you can create a Trigger Mailing using the same steps as for the general emailing template. For more information, please navigate to Editor2 in the Help-Center. The display is analogous to general emailings with a few exceptions. The differences encountered during the editing process are detailed below.
The editor takes you through the usual steps of content creation. After filling in the basic settings, you can build your emailing using “Saved templates”, from the “Templates gallery”, by “Import HTML file” or “From scratch”.

Insert placeholder

During the content creation process in the editor, there is an option to insert placeholders in the context menu of the text element.
Placeholders individualise the Trigger Mailing, which increases engagement and personalises the tone of wording. You can add multiple placeholders in the emailing, including personal name, address, date, city or even products.

The curly brackets { } indicate the specification of the contact’s parameters. The selected placeholders can be inserted into the text, customising it according to the placeholders. The more placeholders in the emailing, the more personalised the emailing becomes. However, please ensure that the proportions are appropriately maintained.

Clicking on the { } icon activates a drop-down menu where you can choose – in the case of Trigger Mailings – from four placeholder types. One of these is the “Contact field”, which offers placeholders for every contact field available in the user contact area, e.g. First name.


Clicking on First name will insert the placeholder [[% firstname]] in double square brackets in the text area. In the dispatching process the placeholder will then be replaced by the personalised information – in this case, the first name of the user.

During the content creation process you can insert placeholders for both external and internal data sources.

Internal sources for placeholders are those that occur within the Maileon system, such as the name and the unsubscribe link.

In the case of external sources, the data is usually obtained via API interfaces. Contact events represent definitions of a contact’s activities that are transmitted through the interface. They contain a set of properties. Each property is labelled with a name, which will later be the placeholder’s name.

For example: If in the external source (e.g. webshop) exists a field “last name“ and you want to use it in the Trigger Mailing, you would set up a property in the contact event and name it accordingly “lastname” or “last_name”. Note: no blank spaces allowed in property names! After the contact event is set up with all required properties, you assign it to your Trigger Mailing in the phase “Dispatch Logic & Approval”. Now you can use any property of the assigned contact event within a placeholder, just where you need it in the Trigger Mailing.

Clicking on the { } icon again, the “Contact event” option from the drop-down menu is only available for Trigger Mailings.

Since a Trigger Mailing is initiated by an event, the parameters and specifications of this event can be embedded in the emailing.
Select the corresponding type of “Contact event” by clicking on it, and then the appropriate “Contact event property” as well. If there is no appropriate contact event yet, please create a corresponding one before starting to use the editor. The contact events must be transferred via API.


You can further customise the placeholders shown in the Trigger Mailing by selecting the „Use default value“ checkbox. The value entered manually in the pop-up box depends on the type of “Contact event”. The box also contains examples to fill it correctly.

See below two examples.

∑ (sum) sign

It is a tool that allows you to set the output of the information under „Contact event property“, such as security settings, decimal values, upper/lower case letters, abbreviations, etc. The three of these, which consist of numbers, are three different methods to encode your output. This is useful in cases where you don’t want your information to be seen.

Further placeholders

You can also place “Email properties”– such as send date and subject line as placeholders – and “Voucher codes” in the content. For further information, please navigate to Editor2 in the Help-Center.

Salutation rules in Trigger Mailings

IMPORTANT:

Dynamic Texts (Conditional Content), which can be found at Media & Templates > Dynamic Elements > Dynamic Texts are not allowed within Trigger Mailings. These can only be used for regular emailings.

To insert salutation or personalised content from contact fields please use contact fields with fallback or personalisation scriptlets.

Maileon works here with IF and ELSE rules to assign the appropriate salutation. If detailed information about a contact is not available, a general salutation is included as a fallback option.

Some examples to illustrate:

1. Last name or “Hello,”

• Hello Mr. XY,
• Hello Ms. XY,
• Fallback: Hello,

[[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|LASTNAME]][[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|SALUTATION]][[IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mr‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Hello Mr. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME ]],[[ELSE]]Hello Ms. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME]],[[/IF]][[ELSE]]Good afternoon,[[/IF]][[ELSE]]Good afternoon,[[/ IF]]

2. Last name or “Dear Sir or Madam,”

• Dear Mr. XY,
• Dear Ms. XY,
• (Fallback:) Dear Sir or Madam,

[[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|LASTNAME]][[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|SALUTATION]][[IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mr‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear Mr. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME ]],[[ELSE-IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mrs‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear Ms. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME]],[[ELSE]]Dear Sir or Madam,[[/ IF]][[ELSE]]Dear ladies and gentlemen,[[/IF]][[ELSE]]Dear ladies and gentlemen,[[/IF]]

3. Last name or “Dear newsletter reader,”

• Dear Mr. XY,
• Dear Ms. XY,
• (Fallback:) Dear newsletter readers,

[[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|LASTNAME]][[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|SALUTATION]][[IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mr‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear Mr. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME] ],[[ELSE-IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mrs‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear Ms. [[CONTACT|LASTNAME]],[[ELSE]]Dear newsletter readers,[[/IF]] [[ELSE]]Dear newsletter readers,[[/IF]][[ELSE]]Dear newsletter readers,[[/IF]]

4. First name or “Dear company fan,”

• Dear XY,
• Dear XY,
• (Fallback:) Dear company fan,

[[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|FIRSTNAME]][[IF|EXISTS|CONTACT|SALUTATION]][[IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mr‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear [[CONTACT|FIRSTNAME]] ,[[ELSE-IF|CONTAINS-IGNORE-CASE(‚Mrs‘)|CONTACT|SALUTATION]]Dear [[CONTACT|FIRSTNAME]],[[ELSE]]Dear company fan,[[/IF]][[ ELSE]]Dear company fan,[[/IF]][[ELSE]]Dear company fan,[[/IF]]

Trigger Mailings from Template gallery

Trigger Mailing drafts can also be found in the Template gallery. When editing, please select “Template gallery” from the emailing creation options, and then choose “Trigger Mailing”, which contains some predesigned drafts – and there are more to come.


Among these you will find the most essential Trigger Mailing templates, which are fully customisable, editable, and available for use. The emailing patterns include the most essential Trigger Mailings, such as examples of abandoned cart, birthday, welcome, and double opt-in emailings.

JTL templates

In the Template gallery you will find the JTL templates, which use different names for the contact event and properties compared to the others.

Please note: Templates that are used by default in Maileon are not compatible with the JTL plugin. Those users who utilise JTL Shop need a plugin to connect both systems. The features are the same as in the other plugins.

For further details on this topic, please refer to the JTL Shop plugin documentation.

Testing of Trigger Mailings

The testing of Trigger Mailings is different from normal emailings because the inserted placeholders contain unique transactional data. As a result, testing involves a multi-step process, which is outlined below.

Note: All the details cannot be displayed due to privacy concerns. While the description of the process does not include specific details, its structure remains straightforward to understand.

Once you have completed editing the emailing, click on “Preview” (screen icon).

Once on the test page, click on the “+ Create sample” button to activate the contact event in your plugin. Note: The text version (with the red dot) should always be activated when accessing the preview.

Next, since an empty box pops up here, specify the sample contact event by entering the sample transaction JSON code within it.

Note: The JSON contains a list of information in standardised format that belongs to an emailing address. For more details, please refer to the relevant section of the Help-Center.

The code can be entered manually in multiple steps. To input it, please go to List & Contacts > Contact Events > Event Data. Select one “Event Data” and click on it.

Any order can be utilised for testing purposes, provided it contains genuine order parameters.

The following list contains the comprehensive history of the contact event. Note: For data protection reasons, the data in the figure is not real. Click on a magnifying glass icon here to activate the transformation. To conduct the testing, any dataset parameters are suitable.

The long code in the following pop-up window contains the sample transaction JSON code. Please copy the formatted information to finalise the testing purposes.

Note: For data protection reasons, the data in the figure is not real.

Active triggers

If a Trigger Mailing is activated, it is stored in the Mailings > Trigger Mailings > Active Trigger Mailings folder and provides continuous information about the response achieved. Various individual and collective processing options can be carried out via the table menu on the right.

Here is a brief overview from left to right:

• Pipette icon: Chi² independence test. It’s a statistical method used to determine if the response difference of emailings is random or statistically significant. To use this feature, select two Trigger Mailings for comparison, then click the icon to include them in the test.
• Arrow icon: Export listing or shipping figures.
• Double-sheet icon: Copy selected Trigger Mailings to Trigger Drafts for editing.
• Circle icon: Stop sending and move Trigger Mailings to the Trigger History.

As shown, all active and paused Trigger Mailings are listed in the tabular overview. The individual columns offer extensive information and functionalities (from left to right):

• Checkbox: Select one or more Trigger Mailings to perform further actions via the menu at the top right of the table.
• Slider: Trigger Mailings that are not currently being used can be paused here with a mouse click. You can reactivate the Trigger Mailing at any time by clicking on the slider again.
• Release date: The date and time provide information about the first activation of your Trigger Mailing.
• Trigger Mailing: Internal name (not visible to recipients) and the subject (visible to recipients) of your Trigger Mailing. You can use the envelope icon to send a test emailing to different recipient quantities. This test corresponds to a normal emailing test in the Checks & Tests phase.
  Click on the title to open the Trigger Mailing Evaluation with detailed information on the response, parameters and the success of the Trigger Mailing. Here you can edit the images and links in the active Trigger Mailings. For more information, please see below.
• Recipients: Here you can see the number of recipients and any contacts that have not been sent. In case of misconfiguration/filtering it shows separately also any contacts that have not been sent.
• Converter: This column goes beyond the basic setup and is therefore not included in every account. It is particularly interesting for shop owners. Here you will find information about the further behavior of potential customers regarding purchase decisions. The information is shown in absolute figures and below in percentages.
• Openers (Unique open rate): This refers to the “unique opens”, i.e. all recipients who have opened Trigger Mailings at least once (multiple openings are not shown here). A click on a number of leads to the contact detail display with the option of downloading a list.
• Clickers (Unique click rate): These are “unique clickers”, i.e. all recipients who have clicked on a link in the Trigger Mailing at least once (multiple clicks are not shown here). Clicking on the number leads to further detailed information and a download link.
• Bouncers: Contacts to whom the Trigger Mailing was not delivered for various reasons. Clicking on the number provides further details, such as hard and soft bouncers, time of the rejected delivery, email addresses, bounce codes and their description with possible reasons for rejection. This information can be downloaded as a complete list.
• Unsubscribers: A click on the number opens the contact detail display with extended evaluation data on the cancellations. Here, too, we offer you a summary as a download.
• Icon “stop dispatch” (red circle icon): Clicking on this icon stops Trigger Mailings permanently – as opposed to temporarily deactivating it by using the slider – and at the same time moves it to the Trigger History area. Note: Trigger Mailing can no longer be reactivated from here. However, you have the option of copying the stopped Trigger Mailing in the Trigger History area. The copy is then moved to the Trigger Drafts area as a new draft and can be edited, changed and reactivated there.
• Icon “copy mailing” (double-sheet icon): Use this button to generate a copy of your active Trigger Mailing which is then stored directly in the Trigger Drafts area. During the copying process, you will be forwarded directly to this area.

Note: To make changes, copy the active Trigger Mailing to create an editable draft. An activated Trigger Mailing cannot be re-drafted in order not to distort statistical analyses.

After a sendout it is possible to make certain changes regarding images and hyperlinks
according to the following instruction:

Select an activated Trigger Mailing and click on it.

The “Trigger Mail Evaluation” pop-up opens. Click on the spanner icon („Modify elements“) on the top right.

Another pop-up opens with an area, which allows the adjustment of images and links in active, paused or historical emailings. For technical reasons, only images delivered by system´s servers can be edited. For the same reasons, only trackable, non-personalised links can be edited.

The editable elements are optically highlighted in the visual representation and can be edited with a click. Due to caching measures, a change can take up to a few minutes to take effect. To display the latest status of changed images in this window, the browser cache should be cleared.

Click again on the spanner icon on the right.

Now a pop-up opens, which shows all containing links. In this area, you can change the URLs of a sent or active emailing. Note: The links shown in the example below are for illustrative purposes only.

Example: If you want to change a hyperlink from https://www.maileon.com/es to https://www.maileon.com/it, this can be done by replacement of the hyperlink in the input field.

Finally, take a look at a brief overview of the statistics and options available by clicking on „Active Triggers”.

Here you have various download options, including

• Recipients: Here you can see the number of recipients and any contacts that have not been sent. The numbers are linked and lead to further information about the contacts.
• Reporting URL: This link can be used to open a reporting overview without Maileon access, which is of interest to the extended customer base, for example. The data is updated each time the URL is called up again.
• Dispatch & Mailing information: If you unfold this area via the double arrow, you can see a range of basic and dispatch settings; downloads for an HTML or even graphic version of your Trigger Mailing are also offered at the bottom.
• Response: The performance information can also be downloaded, and the Show details and Visual click map links lead to further detailed analysis information, some with additional download options.

Trigger History

The deactivated Trigger Mailings are placed in the Trigger History. However, you may reuse the content by creating a copy in the same method as before.

You have the option to delete Trigger Mailing permanently from Trigger History. This can be done by clicking on the red circle, after which you will be prompted to confirm the deletion in a pop-up window.

Note: The deletion is final and cannot be restored.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I stop my already active Trigger Mailing?

If a Trigger Mailing is no longer used, you can stop it using the red icon on the far right. This action moves it to the Trigger Mailings > Trigger History folder, where it remains listed until you delete it permanently (see Trigger Mailings > Trigger History).

How can I assign a distribution list?

In the workflow for Trigger Mailings, it is not possible to assign a distribution list, as these Emailings are usually sent individually for a specific contact event or are sent collectively continuously. The distribution list is therefore determined in advance, as Trigger Mailings are usually triggered by a specific contact filter affiliation. Changes to the content are no longer possible in the “Active Trigger Mailings” menu. Such changes would distort the reporting results because some of the recipients would receive different content than the remaining recipients.