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Step 3 - Create Dedicated Marketo Assets - Personalized Delivery (One-to-One Personalization)
Step 3 - Create Dedicated Marketo Assets - Personalized Delivery (One-to-One Personalization)
Jason Olliver avatar
Written by Jason Olliver
Updated over a month ago

⚠︎ These Instructions are for Digesto Personalized Delivery method. For the Standard Delivery, please see this article instead.

Digesto One-to-One requires a field in Marketo to track subscriber topic or author preferences, two global static lists to make “all subscribers” (all blog subscribers) and “qualified subscribers” accessible to Digesto, and a dedicated Marketo program to send out your RSS Feed digest. In this article, we'll detail step-by-step how you can create these assets.

Step 1 - Create a (or Identify the Already-Existing) Field to Capture Subscribers' Preferred Topics or Authors

Subscriber preference tracking values will be stored in a dedicated Text Area field with semicolon separated values. We'll use preferences based on topics/categories as an example here instead of post authors, but you would follow the same instructions accordingly...

If you don't already have such a field in your Marketo instance, go to the "Admin" section of your instance, "Database Management -> Field Management", and create a New Custom Field titled: "Digesto Topic Interests", with the API name: "DIGESTO_TOPIC_INTERESTS".

Next, populate the field with your blog category names. For example:

"Compliance; Lead Generation; Marketing Operations; Press; Reporting and Analytics"

Note that as your blog categories change, new Values can be added at any time. However, values are case sensitive and MUST match exactly the values of Categories associated to blog posts on your RSS feed.

Step 2 - Create the Static Lists

Next, we will set up two global static lists to make “all subscribers” (all blog subscribers) and “qualified subscribers” accessible to Digesto.

Go to "Database" in your Marketo instance, right-click on "Group Lists", and create a "New Folder". Name the new folder something like "Digesto Lists".

Next, right-click on your new "Digesto Lists" folder and select "New List."

Create two lists, one for exporting called "Digesto - Personalized Blog Digest - All Subscribers (DO NOT EDIT)" and then repeat the process to create the second for importing, called, "Digesto - Personalized Blog Digest - Qualified Subscribers (DO NOT EDIT)". The description for both can be something like "Do not edit this manually".

Step 3 - Set up the Marketo Program

Now that you've got your field and two lists in place, you're ready to move to the final step: the Marketo program to send your email updates to your subscribers.

The program must have all the following components:

  • 1 Email script format Token for the feed content named: "DGTODynamicContentJSON" (case sensitive)

  • 1 Main email script format Token named: "DGTOMain" (case sensitive)

  • 1 VTL email script format Token named: "DGTOVTL" (case sensitive)

  • 1 Email to send to your subscribers

  • 1 Campaign to send the email

  • 1 Test Campaign to send a test email

3a - Create the Program

  • Create a new folder to host your Digesto program. Ex: "Digesto Blog Updates"

  • Create a new Standard program.

  • Additional Tip: Put some relevant information on the description of your program such as: "This program automates blog distribution via Digesto.io. DO NOT SCHEDULE OR ACTIVATE FROM MARKETO. Go to https://digesto.io/login to manage RSS Email."

3b - Create 3 Tokens in Your New Program

In your newly-created program, go to "My Tokens" and create the tokens exactly as described below.

Type

Name

Value

Check\Activate Person Token (Field):

Email Script Token

DigestoDynamicContentJSON

Use “-” as a placeholder

DIGESTO_TOPIC_INTERESTS

Email Script Token

DGTOMain

Use “-” as a placeholder

DIGESTO_TOPIC_INTERESTS

Email Script Token

DGTOVTL

Use “-” as a placeholder

DIGESTO_TOPIC_INTERESTS

Note: the fourth column in the table above refers to once these tokens open up, in addition to the values you enter on the left (see below), on the right-hand side you need to open up the custom objects tab and check off the field you created in step one of this article.

It should look like this when you're done:


3c - Create a Blog Email

Create a new local asset.


Select "Email.

Browse your Design Studio/My Templates for your new template named "Digesto" - "Your Digest Name" and select it.

Customize your email using the Marketo editor. Optionally you can insert {{my.DigestoEmailSubject:default=}} to bring the title of the latest post. Adjust your corporate logo, colors, etc. Make sure to approve your email when done with your edits. If you want to make changes to the blog content, go back to Digesto and edit the Digest template

B.Y.O (Bring Your Own) Marketo Template

The easiest way to setup your email is to pick one of our integrated templates, but If you still prefer to use your own Marketo Template make sure the tokens: {{my.DGTODynamicContentJSON}} {{my.DGTOMain}} {{my.DGTOVTL}}

are in place to receive the blog content.

3d - Create a Production Campaign and a Test Campaign

Digesto will schedule smart campaigns via the API. One campaign is dedicated to test your Digest (Test), while other will be used for the distribution to your subscribers (Production).

Name

Smartlist

Flow

Schedule

Send TEST Email

Specify your Test leads/internal
seed list (Ex: using email address filter)

Send Email : Your Digesto Email

Important: Set campaign to run Every Time,
but do not schedule it from Marketo.

Send PROD Email

Target your subscribers - this is unique to you,
based on the method you use to identify subscribers

Send Email : Your Digesto Email

Important: Set campaign to run Every Time,
but do not schedule it from Marketo.

! Important ! Both campaigns should remain as batch campaigns without any schedule - Digesto will schedule the campaign runs, based on the Digesto Schedule.

! Important ! If you are using static lists, please keep these lists outside of the Digesto Program.

Optional - if you'd like to track program status automatically in your Marketo program, view this article.

How It Works

Testing
When testing your Digest, all recent feed content will be sent to you from the program created in step 4 (via Send Test Email campaign)

Schedule
On set schedule, Digesto will look for newly published content. Your 1st run will consider everything as new, subsequent runs will only pick newly published content (based on publication date). When (and only when) new conent is detected, Digesto will create a new program and schedule the Send PROD Email for delivery:

  • Your Original Program will be cloned into a new program under the same parent folder as the original program

  • New program will be named after "original program name + delivery date". Ex: Initial program "UK Digesto Feed". New program "UK Digesto Feed - 2017-05-01T18:31UTC"

Congrats! you are done! Now back to Digesto, transcribe the Program Name, Campaign Name and Test Campaign Name in the dedicated section.

Next:

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