The Emarsys Relational Data Service (RDS) enables you to load your business-specific data to the Emarsys Platform, in order to use it for segmentation and message personalization purposes.
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What is Relational Data?
Relational Data allows you to integrate your business-specific databases with the Emarsys platform. In a relational database structure you can combine different data sources to make complex data easily accessible.
The connected databases can be of two types: external or internal.
- External databases are hosted and maintained by the customer. Segment template creation and segment creation are both available. For information, see Relational Data onboarding for clients using external (Client-hosted) databases.
- In case of internal databases, they are hosted by Emarsys and they always use mySQL. Segment template creation is only available for the self-service option, while with full service, only the segment templates created by Emarsys are available for segmentation. For information, see Relational Data onboarding for clients using internal (Emarsys-hosted) databases.
Segment definition
You can create segment definitions by connecting different data tables in the core of the system and providing flexible segmentation.
The flexible Segment Template helps you fetch data from any number of cloud-based databases, or even your locally hosted database, and import it to Emarsys for further use. Instead of storing the data, Relational Data connects to other databases, making the whole process compliant with the strictest data privacy regulations. It provides hundreds of segmentation scenarios for marketers without imposing any IT barriers. For detailed information, see Relational Segments.
Personalization
RDS also allows you to use objects called views in the email campaigns to target your customers with one-to-one personalized content based on predefined business rules. For detailed information, see Personalizing Content With Relational Data.
Examples: Use cases
Relational Data is the best solution for:
- Sending offers and recommendations
- Wish-list-related notifications and price-drops
- Replenishment, renewal, abandoned cart or reminder campaigns
- Business-specific use cases where your own data is crucial
Reminder for retention
Contract renewal with incentives
When a contract is about to expire, an SMS or email will be sent with the focus on a new mobile phone. This is an aggressive campaign with big discounts.
Upsell
An airline wants to send offers for activities and accommodation
Between the date of booking and before the actual flight date, a campaign is sent with personalized offers for products or activities to buy, and suggestions for accommodation, based on the destination city. This is an automated campaigns sent on a daily basis.
Abandoned cart
E-commerce website brings customers back to complete unfinished purchases
A web shop is targeting customers who have added products to their cart but have not finished their purchase at the payment step. The campaign is to be sent every six hours. There is a link to the checkout page included to let the customer continue the purchase where they left off. The personalized subject line shows the most expensive product.
What options are there for setup and hosting?
Relation Data setup can either be performed by you (Self-service), can be a hosted self-service setup or performed by Emarsys (Fully Managed).
Each of these have their own variations depending on your data management requirements. Details of these options are provided below. For more information, please contact your Success Manager.
Level of service
| Service Hosting | Self-service | Hosted Self-service | Fully Managed Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer hosts database | Yes | No | No |
| Customer use and modify segment templates, data structure and personalisation | Yes |
Yes |
No |
| IT personnel recommended on-site | Yes |
No |
No* |
* Use of the Emarsys Scripting Language may require programming skills.