The Personalization Settings is only available with the Self-service setup.
However, clients are able to use Relational Data for personalization with any of the setup types. (For full-service clients, Emarsys is doing the personalization setup.)
Relational Data with personalization is where you can turn virtually any of your data into meaningful, relevant and persuasive content.
Prerequisites
For using personalization in Relational Data you need to meet the following requirements:
- Synchronizing data to the Contact Database,
- Synchronizing data to a database connected to Relational Data,
- Overlapping of fields, i.e. Existing in both your Relational Data and in Contact Database.
Relational database
The relational part of Relational Data is about enabling the Emarsys Platform to contextualize the different data sets on execution. Then to find the right data from your Relational Data database and use it correctly in the campaigns.
To make the Relational Data usable for the personalization service you need to configure your data sources (tables or views) so that they can be used, and to present the correct information. You do this by designating reference fields and further fine-tune this functionality by defining the sort order of your data.
Reference fields
A reference field is a common field acting as the key that enables data to be matched between the Platform’s contact database and the Relational Database itself. This common key enables the personalization service to know where to look in order to pick the right data and what makes it relational.
When using a reference field, you must ensure all fields are indexed. Failing to do so will result in slower queries, which can in some cases cause your campaign to deploy with the Relational Data-based content missing.
Composite indices (primary keys or indices with multiple columns) are usable only for reference fields that uses all the columns in the index in the right order, or uses just the first column, the first two columns, the first three columns, and so on.
Data views
In some instances, you might not have the right data point in your table. In this case, you need to create a view that combines tables. This is a usable data view with a correlating data point which can be referenced.
Key considerations: Reference fields, Sorting fields
- You need a minimum of one reference field to create a personalization preset using this particular data source.
- The personalization service will use the first entry it finds that matches the criteria and the reference field is the criteria you are telling the system to use.
- Depending on your use case you can use either a single reference field, or a combination of reference fields to make sure that your results are presented in the correct order.
The Sorting fields feature lets you preview the fields you want to use in your personalization tokens. If you add those fields in the configuration you can verify that it is showing up correctly when using the Personalization Preview.
Personalizing your Relational Data
Follow these steps to make your Relational Data personalization ready:
Once you have completed these steps your campaigns will include data as part of the personalized content.
You need to complete these steps each time you want to include new data in a personalization token.
1. Defining one or more reference fields
First, you need to set up your reference fields, so that you could use your tables for personalization.
- Go to Add-ons-> Relational Data.
- In the tables and views tab select the table or view that you want to configure.
- Click the cogwheel icon to open the Personalization Settings.
- In the Configure Fields tab you can specify which Reference fields you want to use, and also how you would like the Sorting fields feature to prioritize your results.
For details, see Defining a single reference field, Defining additional reference fields, Setting up fields to sort. - In the Personalization Preview tab you can get a preview of the data. You can see how the resulting data looks like and ensure that the right data is used. For details, see Sorting your data correctly.
Defining a single reference field
- In the Reference field drop-down you can choose from any of the available fields in the table or view that you want to set up. If you cannot select a desired field, then it does not exist in this table or view.
- The Default value toggle allows you to manually specify a fallback value in case the field you use has no data available.
The Sorting fields function is not needed when using a single reference field.
Defining additional reference fields
Once the personalization service runs it will use the first result it finds that matches. If you have a data set with lots of non-unique entries (e.g. historic sales data, multiple subscriptions, etc.) then you need to add multiple reference fields.
When you have data with lots of entries per individual, combining multiple reference fields allows you to find and list the data so that the correct entry is at the top and will be used on launch.
Click the plus sign ➕ to add another field and repeat it as many time as it is necessary.
Each time you add a reference field it is removed from the drop-down, so that you do not accidentally add the same one multiple times.
Setting up fields to sort
Once you have added all your necessary reference fields you can use the Sorting fields feature to define how you want to order your referenced fields.
When you are done click Save your field configuration. Check your data is displaying correctly via the Personalization Preview tab.
Sorting your data correctly
You can configure your personalization tokens using the Emarsys Scripting Language (ESL). Define explicitly the data to use in your token by stating the field name. Specify the result that you want to use, i.e. 1st result, 2nd, 3rd.
2. Personalization Preview
The Personalization Preview tab allows you to see what your data will look like to the personalization service. Personalization Preview helps you verify that the desired result is present and correctly displayed.
- Click Filter, and you can get a preview of the data for up to 10 contact records.
You can also narrow the results by entering a result to filter by in your reference field and then clicking Filter to see your results. It is useful if you want to check against a specific parameter (e.g. city name). - Click Reload with additional fields to see output changes when you adjust the results you can add in more reference fields.
You cannot make any changes to the way the data is sorted here. To sort your data go back to the Configure Fields tab.
To apply changes, go back to the Reference Fields tab where you can make any adjustments and then save your field configuration.
3. Creating a Relational Data personalization preset
Now that your data source has been configured you simply need to create your presets and tokens to make your data usable when the campaign is launched.
For detailed information, see Creating Relational Data tokens.