1. Introduction:

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, delivering personalized experiences has become a critical aspect of engaging and retaining customers. At the heart of this transformation lies Eloqua's dynamic content—a powerful feature that allows marketers to create customized journeys based on individual preferences, behaviors, and demographics.

2. What is dynamic content in Eloqua?

The level of personalization in Eloqua goes beyond traditional static content, ensuring that each customer receives relevant and engaging content throughout their buyer's journey. This functionality allows for the inclusion or exclusion of specific content blocks, images, or text, depending on the individual's attributes or interactions with previous communications.

An excellent example of dynamic content that can be created and delivered through Eloqua is providing region-specific promotions tailored to local preferences and events for a global brand.

3. Benefits of using dynamic content:

Dynamic content offers many advantages for marketers seeking to enhance their marketing efforts and create meaningful customer experiences. Let's explore the key benefits of utilizing dynamic content in your marketing campaigns:

Increasing customer engagement

Dynamic content captures customers' attention and nurtures a sense of connection by delivering personalized and relevant content to each group of contacts (segment). When recipients receive content that aligns with their interests, preferences, and needs, they are more likely to engage with the material, leading to higher open rates, click-through rates, and overall interaction with your brand.

Minimizing configuration time

Utilizing dynamic content in Eloqua offers a significant advantage: the ability to consolidate multiple campaigns into a seamless operation. For instance, if you aim to promote three products, instead of creating individual campaigns for each, dynamic content allows you to build a single campaign with three rules—one for each product. This approach not only saves time but also reduces the number of Eloqua assets (campaigns) to manage, streamlining the monitoring process to focus on a single, comprehensive campaign rather than three separate ones.

Enhancing customer loyalty and retention

Personalized experiences delivered through dynamic content contribute to building stronger relationships with customers. When individuals feel valued and understood, they are more likely to develop a sense of loyalty toward your brand. Repeat buyers are essential for business success, and dynamic content is pivotal in nurturing customer loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases.

4. Implementing dynamic content in marketing campaigns:

Integrating dynamic content into your marketing campaigns can significantly enhance their effectiveness and deliver personalized experiences to your audience. Let's explore the key steps and strategies for the successful implementation of dynamic content in Eloqua:

Planning and preparing the data required for personalization

Before embarking on your dynamic content journey, it's essential to identify the data points that will drive personalization. Analyze your customer data, including demographics, behavior, preferences, and past interactions with your brand. Utilize Eloqua's data management capabilities to segment your audience effectively. By understanding your customers' unique characteristics, you can tailor dynamic content that resonates with their needs and interests.

Creating dynamic content templates in Eloqua

Eloqua doesn't provide an out of the box solution for creating a dynamic content template per se, but that doesn't mean we can't find a workaround. Initially, you can create a Master Email Template containing multiple sections of dynamic content. This Master Email must respect all brand design rules, regardless of its content. The users configuring dynamic emails no longer need to start from scratch. Instead, they only need to use the template and customize it with their own pieces of dynamic content. Finally, they must add the desired content to each section/rule within the dynamic content.

Consider different content elements that can be personalized, such as headlines, images, calls-to-action, and product recommendations.

Creating dynamic content templates in Eloqua

Assets -> Components -> Dynamic Content

In order to have a good folder structure in your Eloqua instance, please create a new folder for each campaign. After that, you can create the dynamic content inside the new folder.

Defining display rules and personalization conditions

After you hit the "New" button, the dynamic content window opens. First things first - the naming. To name a piece of dynamic content, you can either double click on "Untitled" or on the ">>" and then Settings.

Here you must give a name to the new dynamic content piece. The Description field is optional. Note that the ID becomes available only after saving the dynamic content.

After that, you must create the rules for the dynamic content. To do this you must click on the “+” button on the left side of the window.

The Default Rule will display content for contacts who do not meet any rule criteria. Additionally, the Default Rule cannot be deleted, moved, or renamed.

On the right-hand side of the dynamic content window, you'll find two sections: the Top Section will contain the rule criteria, while the Bottom Section will hold the content that appears when the rule is met.

Setting up the criteria for the new rule(s)

After selecting the rule from the left pane, proceed to configure the criteria for the new rule. You can choose from the following options:

·       Compare Contact Fields

·       Compare Account Fields

·       Has Linked Contact in Custom Object

·       Has Linked Record in Event

Each option is customizable, including the choice of operators between them, which can be either OR or AND. Additionally, you have the flexibility to group them according to your requirements.

Remember, you can add a maximum of 15 criteria for each rule.

Eloqua provides a range of rule-based personalization options to determine when and how dynamic content is displayed. Establish logical rules that align with your campaign objectives. For instance, you can set rules to showcase specific products based on a customer's previous purchases or customize content according to their geographic data. Experiment with various rules and conditions to deliver timely and relevant content to each recipient.

Real-Life Scenario #1: Content Translation

Let's consider a scenario where we want a message to be displayed based on the country of the viewer. To achieve this, we will define three custom rules along with a Default Rule. The custom rules will evaluate if the Contact's Country from the Contact Table is Spain, France, or Germany, and display the corresponding greetings in the appropriate language. The Default Rule will display the English content to the audience outside of Spain, France, or Germany.

Real-Life Scenario #2: Concurrent Qualification for Multiple Rules

What happens when a contact qualifies for two or more rules simultaneously?

When a contact qualifies for two or more rules in our Dynamic Content section, they will see the content of the first rule for which they qualify. Eloqua interrogates the rules in dynamic content from top to bottom, excluding the Default Rule.

Example: John has the following values in the Contact Table:

·       Country = Switzerland

·       Content Language = French

It's worth noting a potential trap: some might argue that John qualifies for the last rule because he precisely matches all the specified values, namely "Switzerland + French".

However, as mentioned earlier, Eloqua queries the rules from top to bottom and displays the content of the first rule for which our contact qualifies, namely "Switzerland" (the first rule below the Default Rule).

This means that John will see the content in German, and not the content in French.

Real-Life Scenario #3: Subject Line Personalization

Another scenario where Dynamic Content demonstrates its worth is when we aim to personalize the subject line by inserting the First Name . What happens if the First Name is blank? What message do we display?

For this scenario, we will create a dedicated rule to accommodate the case. The custom rule will evaluate if the First Name from the contact table is blank. In this case, the subject line will be "Dear customer, the full version of the eBook is here!". Otherwise, we will display by default the personalized subject line: "<First name>, the full version of the eBook is here!".

Other Real-life Scenarios:

·       Dynamic Content also comes in handy when setting up events. Let's say we have an event with multiple sessions in a day or spread across several days. What if a contact signs up for more than one session? Sending them separate emails for each session isn't practical. The solution is to use Dynamic Content. In the confirmation email, we create a section for each session using Dynamic Content. This way, a contact registering for multiple sessions receives all the details in one confirmation email.

·       Another scenario where we can leverage Dynamic Content is when we want to display content based on the Primary Area of Interest. For instance, if a contact has a Primary Area of Interest = Eloqua Audit, they will see, as the first article in the newsletter, a piece titled "Platform Redesign Success Story,". If someone else has a Primary Area of Interest = Reporting, they will view a Case Study on Reporting. Lastly, if someone is interested in Privacy, it is beneficial for that contact to see an article titled "Privacy Flow Redesign."

How to add a Dynamic Content nugget in your Email / Landing page:

To add Dynamic Content in your Email, you must open an email first, click on the “Dynamic Content” button from the left side > search for the dynamic content you want to add and finally drag and drop it into the HTML code of the email.

When using Design Email, you need to drag and drop the "Dynamic Content" option from the left side menu into the desired section of the email. Then, click on "Browse" and add your dynamic content piece.

How customers see the email with dynamic content in their inbox

Below, you can see how an email with dynamic content inside looks like in the customer's inbox. This example will display the content based on the receiver's country. If the contact has the United States as a country in your database, he will see the email from the right-hand side. If the contact has another country (different from the United States), he will see the email from the left-hand side.

In this scenario, the person in charge of configuration will need to create only one email object in Eloqua (with dynamic content) rather than two email objects with static content. Over time, if dynamic emails are used, the Eloqua instance will have fewer email objects and won't be as heavily loaded.

5. Reporting:

The importance of reporting in a Marketing Automation campaign cannot be overstated. Reporting is the key mechanism through which marketers gain valuable insights into their campaigns' performance. By analyzing data and metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and user interactions, marketers can assess the effectiveness of their strategies. This information is crucial for making informed decisions, optimizing campaign elements, and demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of marketing efforts.

Regarding reporting in Eloqua, it can be conducted for a variety of assets such as forms, emails, campaigns, and landing pages. When it comes to emails, specific reports can be generated, including Email Analysis Overview, Email Bounceback Overview, Email Clickthrough Link Breakdown, and Dynamic Content by Email.

The Dynamic Content by Email report is useful when our campaign includes an email with dynamic content, and we want to evaluate the performance of each dynamic content rule. For example, we might want to compare the performance of US vs Non-US audiences.

Such a report may include the following columns:

6. What's next:

Dynamic content transcends traditional one-size-fits-all approaches, allowing marketers to deliver tailored messages that resonate with individual customers. By harnessing the power of data-driven personalization, businesses can elevate their marketing efforts to new heights, fostering meaningful connections and customer loyalty.

Are you intrigued by the potential of personalization and eager to discover additional tried-and-tested marketing automation tactics? Explore our comprehensive article dedicated to optimizing marketing strategies and enhancing conversion rates.

Alternatively, reach out to us to tap into our extended expertise and discover how we can tailor our knowledge to suit your specific needs.