There's a lot to do, and it will take some time, but don't feel daunted by the scale of the task ahead of us. We have successfully onboarded thousands of clients already, and we know that the secret to success lies in transparency, good communication and the right preparation.
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Your onboarding journey
When you first see this article, it most likely means that you have just signed the contract with Emarsys and the clock is ticking.
Your company should already have provided Emarsys with details of your contact database, projected growth and business strategy, and appointed a project manager to handle things at your end. From our side, our solution consultants will have prepared a handover document for the implementation team that outlines your marketing needs and the package of features you have signed up for (see Who's Who in onboarding for a list of the roles involved on both sides).
It's now up to all of us to work together to onboard you as quickly and smoothly as possible, so you can start seeing returns on this great investment you've made.
We break down the onboarding journey into five distinct stages:
Within each stage there are different milestones you will pass.
Key milestones
These are the key milestones on your journey, with their prerequisites and the subsequent steps that are dependent on them.
1. Account creation
We want to create your Emarsys Platform account as soon as possible. This is a prerequisite for everything else. Because the account name is referenced throughout our system, changing it later carries overheads in terms of effort. Please decide on the names for your accounts asap and stick to them.
You need to:
Decide what name you want for your account(s) and pass this to your Emarsys contact.
You should do this as soon as possible (ideally before the Initiation call).
2. Account Owner appointed
The Account Owner is the user who is responsible for creating and maintaining all the user profiles in your account, as well as setting up their permissions, and the account security settings.
You need to:
Decide which of your colleagues will take this role (there can be more than one) and pass the names and email addresses of these people to us. We will then create their profiles and trigger the automated verification process which enable them to log in and set their passwords. We will also create users for them in our Help Portal so that they can read up on their role and responsibilities.
Account owners are not just responsible for managing user profiles and permissions, they also set up the connections to WebDAV and SFTP folders and create API users. It is therefore recommended that at least one of them has a technical role (e.g. data specialist).
Read more about this here:
You should do this as soon as you have decided on the account name.
3. Data integration
Data is at the heart of everything we do at Emarsys. Importing your existing contact, product and sales data, and setting up their daily synchronization, is a prerequisite for using every one of our products.
You need to:
- Decide which methods you will use for data capture and synchronization.
- Make sure that your data files are formatted according to our standards.
Your data specialist can begin to plan for data onboarding even before your account has been created. They should familiarize themselves with the following:
If you are using our mobile channels, you will also need to read:
4. Data collection
As well as migrating your contact, product and sales data to Emarsys, you also need to collect all your daily customer interactions on your website. You can do this as soon as your account has been created and you have your Merchant ID.
You need to:
Pass this link to your web specialist so that they can start preparing the integration of our JavaScript commands in your website:
5. Send your first test messages
As soon as your account has been created, and while your data is being prepared, you can already begin to upload your brand creatives and set up your messages on all the channels you will be using. For most channels you can already send test campaigns without a full data integration with your web shop or any other external platforms.
You need to:
- Define your message brand on each channel (from email addresses, SMS sender name, etc.).
- Upload your corporate fonts and images to the Media Database.
Read more about this here:
6. Enabling your account to send emails
This is the last real milestone before we begin the ramp-up plan that will migrate your current email campaigns over to our infrastructure.
You need to:
Follow our compliance guidelines carefully and make any changes that are needed to your contact registration and data privacy processes.
Read more about this here:
7. Email migration
The final step in your onboarding journey will be to move your existing email campaigns over to the Emarsys sending infrastructure.
This is done via a carefully-controlled ramp-up process, where we start by sending your most important campaigns to a small set of your most responsive contacts, then gradually increase the volume as the ISPs accept your new IP addresses and your sender reputation is established.
You need to:
Move the creatives for your most important email campaigns over to your Emarsys account and create the automated programs that will launch them.
Read more about this here:
How long will it take?
In our experience, a 30-day implementation for the core package and email as the only channel is possible, depending on the size of your contact database, the quality of your data, and the technical resources available on your side. The advanced and premium packages will take longer, typically up to 90 days, depending on the number of channels used and the complexity of data integration.
This is the time you can expect to take before your current digital marketing campaigns are fully migrated to Emarsys, and when you can start to build on those and improve them using our technology.
What varies is your email ramp-up time, where you establish your new sender reputation. This time can be anything from a week to three months, depending on your email content, frequency, volume and sender reputation. This is usually the longest phase of onboarding and it is therefore important that you complete your Email compliance self-assessment and read our ramp-up guide so that you can plan and begin your migration as early as possible.
If our onboarding journey had a maxim, it would be: More haste, less speed.
You are laying the foundations for your future marketing success with us, so getting it right now is a lot less expensive than making corrections later.
In particular, this is a great opportunity to clean up your data before you migrate it over. Remember, it is much easier to increase the size of a good list than improve the quality of a large list.
Making the most of onboarding
Here are our tips for making the most of your onboarding journey with Emarsys.
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Prepare, prepare, prepare
Time is money, and this is seldom more true than when migrating to a new technology platform. You don't want to lose a single unnecessary day, so make sure to have all the information and resources required available well in advance.
The more time you spend preparing for each step, and the more decisions you can take in advance, the faster and smoother the entire process will be. -
Get the team right
Most of the onboarding steps require specialist knowledge of one sort or another, so ask your project team to read up on their respective onboarding documentation and get back to you with any issues that they feel uncertain about. For a list of the roles required, see: Who's Who in onboarding. -
Work in parallel
Encourage all your project team to start as early as possible on their tasks. This should not be viewed as a linear narrative but rather as a simultaneous team effort. Dependencies between tasks will be made clear and will help you to plan and assign your resources more effectively. -
Keep looking at the big picture
The biggest advantage you now have over your competitors is that Emarsys has a unified, coherent approach to omnichannel engagement with your customer base, which relies heavily on the latest AI-driven technologies.
But we can only make this 1-to-1 personalization possible if all your platform modules are working properly. Don't settle for anything less than the best setup possible!
In other words, even if it's tempting to sideline a particular aspect of onboarding if it is causing you problems, don't do it. Get it right now, and you'll be thankful later.
Help and Support at Emarsys
It is important that you identify the key members of your onboarding team and that they have the right access to this Help Portal and to our project management tool.
All communication and escalation of issues during onboarding will be with out Implementation Consultants through this PM tool. After that you will be supported by our Professional Services team through this Help Portal.
In addition to these tools, we will have regular (weekly) update calls. The schedule will be decided between you and your Implementation Consultant.
We also provide a number of articles to help you work with our Platform and our Help Portal, and to advise you in terms of how to raise a support request and what to expect when you do so.
Please remember that the number of people who can raise support tickets is determined by your support package. If you are unsure whether you have the right package for your requirements, please contact your Implementation Consultant or Success Manager to discuss an upgrade.
The Emarsys Academy
Your onboarding journey will end with a tailored training program for your end users.
We have three training packages:
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Led by a Training Manager
Depending on your package and the availability of a training manager in your country, a bespoke training schedule can be discussed. -
Led by your Implementation Consultant
The IC assigned to your project will help you with your training modules. -
Self-service training
You and your team are responsible for watching the online tutorials on this help portal. For a selected number of clients we are currently piloting an online learning manager software called Emarsys Academy.
Training is based on tutorial videos, followed up by online tests. After successful completion of the training module all users receive a certificate.
You are advised to complete the certification right before you start to work with the Platform, so that you can immediately put what you have learned to use. However, you can view the training videos in advance whenever you want: