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Summer 2009 Release PDF Print E-mail

ExactTarget invests more in software development and infrastructure than any other Email service provider. With 4 releases a year ExactTarget users always have the latest technology at the heart of their email marketing program. Read about all the summer 2009 enhancements here! Watch for the Fall 2009 Release - Approx. November 1. 2009!

  • Live Content Enhancements
  • Sharing Content with Social Networks
Key:
The symbol indicates features that are not automatic, but are available by request.
See the particular feature for additional info.

Note: The release notes are subject to change until the release date.

pdf printable version



LIVE IMAGE

Live image is the newest addition to the suite of live content features. Live content features allow you to control the content of your emails at the time your subscriber opens them, not just at the time the message is sent.

The live image feature allows you to select two images from your portfolio to include in the same content area. You control which image appears each time the email is rendered. You can set up live image to change between the two images based on time, impressions, or clicks, and you can change the image manually at any time.

For example, suppose you have an image in your email with information about a webinar your company is offering. You could use the time-based control to show the image until the date of the webinar, and then switch to content that is fresher. If a subscriber opens the email after the webinar is over, the subscriber will see the alternate image.

The user may switch from any two images in portfolio based time, impressions, clicks, or manually as the job is in flight.

(Manual override is available with all the switch methods after a job has been sent!)


Social Forward

Social Forward allows your subscribers to share some or all of the content from your emails to their favorite social networking sites. You can use this feature regardless of whether you create your emails by using content areas, paste HTML, or AMPscript.

This feature helps you determine how effective your content is by providing means of determining how many times a piece of content was shared and understanding the reach of that shared content in creating brand advocates for remarketing purposes.

You can also cause the content to look different after it is shared than before. For example, you could set up a content area in your newsletter to be sharable. After a subscriber shares it to a social networking site, the shared content could also contain a form where friends can sign up to also receive the newsletter.

Impact on Content Creation

This release allows the user

  • to insert social networking capabilities via the editor.
  • to insert social networking capabilities via paste html.
  • to specify social networking preferences via Email preferences.
  • to specify content specific to a shared content landing page
  • to set the CSS style of the sharing page per content block.
  • to set a meta description tag for a piece of content (used by Facebook for page "blurb").
  • to set a page title for a shared piece of content (used by Social Networks as the default content title).

Note: Social Forward will be available in customer accounts by Wednesday, July 22nd.


Portfolio

A portfolio is a single-entry point to manage the image, document, and media files that you use and refer to in your emails and microsites. If you do not currently have the portfolio feature enabled in your account, it will appear with the Summer 2009 Release.

Your image, document, and content libraries will still be available, but you will also be able to use the portfolio to contain this content. You must use the portfolio for any content related to live offers and social forward.

Advantages of Portfolio

Portfolio allows the storage of your images and other files by maintaining them in a single folder. Additionally, with this new feature, you can retain the filename on a file you import, allowing you to predict the URL of a file. Lastly, with Portfolio you can upload some file types such as CSS and javascript files that you cannot upload with other asset library features. A list of supported filetypes can be found here.

Note: two additional filetypes, XSL and XSLT will be available Fri, July 17th.


SupPression Lists

If you currently have the ability to exclude lists or groups from your email sends, this feature will be enabled in your account by default. Customers using Enterprise 2.0 edition accounts will also have the ability to import into a suppression list.

A suppression list helps you manage opt-outs for email sends. When you create a user-initiated or triggered email interaction, you can select a suppression list relevant to the email and the system suppresses any sends to subscribers on the suppression list. You cannot select a suppression list from the send wizard.

When subscribers do a one-click unsubscribe, they are unsubscribed from the list the email was sent to (if a list was used) as well as added to the suppression list tied to the send (if a suppression list was used).

You can choose to make your suppression lists public so they are available for subscribers to select in the subscription center. When subscribers select the checkbox next to the suppression list, they are added to the suppression list and do NOT receive emails with that suppression list. If you choose to make suppression lists public, you should be careful in naming them so subscribers understand that by selecting it, they are opting out.


user information

Password and Security Response Email Notifications

Previously when a user modified a password and security response, a notification email was sent in plain text including the user's password and the security question and answer. Both the user's password and security question and answer have been removed from this notification.

Previous
Summer 2009 Version

additional tab creation

In this release you may create your own tabs in the ExactTarget interface. You can specify the URL of a page to appear when a user clicks the tab. You must have the new, horizontal tab orientation turned on to use this feature.


email overlay enhancement

This release contains two new changes to the email overlay view in the enhanced tracking:

  • A message will display while the data is being loaded on the page (“Loading…Please Wait”).
  • The program will display a grid at the bottom of the page for any unmatched links.


additional salesforce data for enhanced tracking


With this release we have added Salesforce Contact ID and Record Type to the subscriber view and exports. These values were already available in traditional tracking, and are being added to the enhanced tracking with this release.

Click for full-size image.


adding link clicked to subscriber exports

This version allows you to include the link that was clicked in the tracking data that you export.

Click for full-size image.


wsdl support for roles/permissions

This release supports assigning (add/remove) roles to users, and supports creating a new role in an account. Permissions need to be manually added to a role through the UI.

NOTE: Roles are available in Enterprise 2.0 edition accounts, but can be turned on for other editions as well. Contact ExactTarget if you would like to enable this feature in your account.


data extension support for dynamic subject line

Our new release allows clients sending to Data Extensions to create dynamic subject lines in the same way currently used by list-based clients.


mt support for shared short codes

This feature allows SMS users with a shared short code to send MT (outbound) messages to their subscribers. It also provides the ability to process the JOIN action for a shared short code.

*This features is implemented by turning on the appropriate Business Rule.

Private and Shared Shortcodes Version Comparison Chart

Private Shortcode Shared Shortcode Pre-133 Shared Shortcode Post-133
Definition Five- or six-digit number assigned to a single entity for use in sending and receiving SMS messages Five- or six-digit number shared across multiple entities for use in receiving SMS messages Five- or six-digit number shared across multiple entities for use in sending and receiving SMS messages
How Keywords Work Can use any keyword and account for intentional or unintentional misspellings
  • Limited to 5 keywords per account
  • Must be registered by ExactTarget representative
  • No misspelling support
  • Limited to 5 keywords per account
  • Must be registered by ExactTarget representative
  • No misspelling support
Double Opt-In Can add users through a mobile device to a publication list for future MT sends Disabled Can add users through a mobile device to a publication list for future MT sends
Triggered MT Sends Can send MT messages using data extensions and publication lists Disabled Can send MT messages using data extensions and publication lists
Tracking Limited to messages sent No send tracking available Limited to messages sent
AMPscript Full Support Support limited based on support of shared keywords and conversations Full Support*

*Please test and verify your AMPscript before deploying it as part of a live SMS send


international sms

The new international SMS features include the ability to send MT (outgoing) messages to 80 countries outside of the US. Also featured is support for Multiple Vendors and Short Codes (Long Codes) per account, GSM and Unicode Content Support, and API support for International Number Formats.

*The user must enable SMS Sending BR to get these rights. Fees apply.


maintenance

Among the maintenance features in the new release are the following:

  • The campaign ID at Individual Email Result object level is populated for sends with one target campaign or report.
  • This version enables mapping of text/html preference to Salesforce sends.

http://image.exct.net/lib/fef2127772640d/m/1/maintenance2.jpg


transactional send unsubscribe

With this release, you will be able to send to subscribers that have a master unsubscribed status, or are unsubscribed in Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics CRM if the Send classification for the Send is transactional (operational).


error handling

This release introduces a new control for error handling for triggered send interactions:

  • There is a new control for Triggered Send definitions.
  • If the checkbox is not selected and an error occurs, the system will perform as as usual. The subscriber submissions will be queued until error is resolved.
  • If the checkbox is selected and an error occurs, the subscriber submission will return an error and no send will occur.

Click for full-size image.


sharing for data extensions

With the Summer 2009 Release, enterprise 2.0 edition users will be able to set sharing parameters on a data extension.


shared folder permissions

The Shared Folder Permission changes

  • allow Enterprise 2.0 users to set permissions on Shared Folders. In other words, just as users are able to set permissions for shared emails, templates, etc., users are also able to control permissions of a shared folder to determine what business units can create sub-folders, view, edit, and delete.
  • allow Enterprise 2.0 users working in sub-business units to created shared folders, assuming they have the correct permissions.

Click for full-size image.


Shared Dynamic Content

With the Summer 2009 Release, Enterprise 2.0 customers will be able to use shared content in their dynamic content, and to save dynamic content to their shared folders.


livemail™ data extract

This new metrics and campaign data feed now gives Coremetrics customers the following data by job or campaign id to be used with LIVEmail.

  • Date
  • Job ID
  • Job Name
  • Message Type
  • List ID
  • List Name
  • Sent
  • Delivered
  • Opens

  • Clicks
  • Soft Bounces
  • Total Bounces
  • Blocked Bounces
  • Unsubscribed
  • Subscribed
  • Forwarded
  • Excluded
  • Complaints

allow long ampscript

If you use AMPscript in your email subject lines, you know that it is difficult to edit the code within the one-line text box. With this release, a multi-line text box will be available for creating your subject lines. With the click of a button, you will be able to see a multi-line text box for the subject line on user-initiated sends, when you create a new email message, and when you edit email properties.

If your emails have AMPscript in the subject lines, the email grid will show “AMPscript Subject Line” for the subject column, instead of showing the actual code.

Click for full-size image.


transform xml

XML uses tags that the user defines, but that browsers don't know how to render when displaying the code to viewers. This AMPscript function will allow you to "transform" the XML to HTML (or other mark-up languages) using the rules you define in an XSLT file.


portfolio file support for xsl, xslt

This support allows you to import XSL and XSLT files into your portfolio.


sfid conversion ampscript

This release contains an AMPscript function to properly convert the SFID. This function returns the 18-character Salesforce ID from a shortened 15-character version.


Ampscript lookup functions

Two new case-sensitive functions have been added which support lookups:

  • LookupRowsCS()
  • LookupOrderedRowsCS()

These functions work just like LookupRows and LookupOrderedRows except that any string key values are used in a case sensitive manner.


Importing Blank files

Currently if you import to a data extension, intending to overwrite the data, and you have the “Skip Rows with Bad Data” checkbox selected, the system will ignore the import and leave the data that’s currently in the data extension intact if your import file has no records.

After this release, you can request that ExactTarget configure your account to behave differently in this scenario. The system would than delete all the existing data in the data extension instead. Please contact ExactTarget to configure to the alternate behavior.


Infrastructure Updates

The ExactTarget infrastructure is updated to include the following enhancements:

  • Increased performance for outbound mail, which increases the rate of data transfer for your email sends
  • Increased performance of system database, which increases the rate of data transfer for your email sends
  • Increased performance, reliability, and scalability of subscriber processing, which provides dependable, consistent processing for a larger set of your subscribers
  • Increased performance for data extension imports, which increases the rate of data transfer when importing your data extensions
  • Increased scalability of imports , which enhances the ability to import larger sets of your data, such as subscriber lists and data extensions
  • Increased security, which provides enhanced protection for your marketing campaigns
    • Password change notification emails no longer display the full text of passwords and security questions with answers
 

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