Learn About Triggered Emails

Triggered emails allow you to automatically send an email to identified users based on their behavior, or based on a change in your inventory. See below for the supported use cases.

Dynamic Yield uses the SendGrid ESP by default to send the emails, but you can also configure emails to send via Oracle Bronto, Listrak, or any other ESP that has rest APIs.

You create the body of the email in your ESP to include data from Dynamic Yield such as recently viewed products that were not purchased, a recommendation widget, or an item that recently dropped in price.

Supported Use Cases

• Cart Abandonment: A user added items to their cart, but did not complete a purchase or return to the site.
• Product View Abandonment: A user viewed a product page, but did not make a purchase or return to the site.
• Category View Abandonment: A user viewed a category page, but did not view a product, add one to the cart, purchase a product, or return to the site.
• Custom: A user triggered a specific event.
• Price Drop: A user viewed a product, but did not purchase it. The product later dropped in price.

How Abandonment Triggered Emails Work

The flow for abandonment triggered emails is composed of five main steps:

1. User is identified using his or her email address.
2. A trigger event is executed by the user on the site setting off the triggered email.
3. The email send time is calculated using the defined delay.
4. Cancel events are monitored while the email is pending.
5. The email message is sent to the user.

1. User is identified with email address

In order to send an email to a user, Dynamic Yield has to retain an email address associated with this user; we do this by using omni-channel events. Dynamic Yield assigns a unique identifier to every user browsing the site. This identifier (called ‘DYID’) is used to track all user activities on the site and is stored in the browser cookie (or device local storage for apps). When an omni-channel event is fired (i.e. Login, Signup or Register to Newsletter), it includes the user’s hashed email as a parameter. We then use this information to associate the DYID with the hashed email. A special PII compliant DB table holds the link between the hashed and the plain text email which can be used for sending emails to the user.

2. Trigger events executed by user on the site

Dynamic Yield tracks all events performed by your users while browsing your site. Some events can be defined as triggers, meaning they may result in sending an email to the user that performed them. In the most common triggers, data relevant to the trigger event is saved in the Dynamic Yield server. For example, the ‘add to cart’ event is the event triggering a ‘cart abandonment’ email, the relevant data in this case is the items a user currently has in the cart.

3. The email send time is calculated considering the delay

You can set a delay that controls how much time after the trigger event is performed, should the email message be sent. Between the occurrence of the trigger event and the send time – the email is pending for the user.

4. Cancel events are monitored may cancel sending the email

You can define a set of events that will cancel the sending of a pending email message. For example, a purchase event will cancel the sending of a cart abandonment email since it’s always defined as a cancel event for cart abandonment triggered emails.
Note: Frequency capping conditions, as well as other settings, might also result in suppressing a message.

5. The email message is sent

When the send time arrives and providing no cancel events occurred, the email will be sent. This is done by Dynamic Yield firing an activation API to the email service provider. The API call includes the recipient's email address, the email subject, the sender's name and email address, and the HTML content of the email body. Composing the email content in the Dynamic Yield admin is an important step in the definition of a triggered email.

How Price-Drop Triggered Emails Work

The flow for price drop triggered emails is composed of the following main steps:

1. A user is identified using his or her email address.
2. A user engages with products on your site.
3. We monitor the prices of relevant products. 
4. The email message is sent to the user.

1. User is identified with an email address

In order to send an email to a user, Dynamic Yield has to retain an email address associated with this user; we do this by using omnichannel events. Dynamic Yield assigns a unique identifier to every user browsing the site. This identifier (called ‘DYID’) is used to track all user activities on the site and is stored in the browser cookie (or device local storage for apps). When an omnichannel event is fired (i.e. Login, Signup, or Register to Newsletter), it includes the user’s hashed email as a parameter. We then use this information to associate the DYID with the hashed email. A special PII compliant DB table holds the link between the hashed and the plain text email which can be used for sending emails to the user.

2. User Engages with Products on your Site

As users browse your site, we track their behavior. You define the level of engagement required for the trigger as either views or cart abandonment.

3. Product Price Monitoring

Any products that the user has engaged with are tracked. We monitor and update product prices once per day, in the currency defined for your site.

When creating your campaigns, you define the magnitude of price change required to trigger an email. If a product price drops more than the defined amount, it is eligible to be included in a price drop campaign as long as the user has not viewed the product with its new price.

4. Sending the Email

Each campaign can be sent up to once per day at a time you define. All eligible products can be included, but the number of products displayed is based on the number of slots in your campaign. The products that have been engaged by the user most recently are included.

Once a product has been purchased or included in a campaign, it is no longer eligible unless there is an additional price drop. Additionally, any product that has been purchased will not be included in a price drop campaign within 30 days.

Eligible products that have not yet been included in a campaign are still eligible to be included in subsequent days even if there is no new change in price or new user engagement.

You can use the frequency capping setting to limit the frequency of emails sent to your users.

Emails are sent by Dynamic Yield firing an activation API to the email service provider. The API call includes the recipient's email address, the email subject, the sender's name and email address, and the HTML content of the email body. Composing the email content in the Dynamic Yield admin is an important step in the definition of a triggered email.