Messaging

This is the action component of a messaging trigger. It requires the following pieces of information:

1. Content (required): You will need to select the creative/ message template that will be used for messaging the customer.
2. Send Settings (required): You will need to specify the sender information. You can do so by specifying the app and adapter.
3. Tracking Parameters (optional): You may also optionally specify UTM or custom tracking parameters for the campaign so that you can measure the impact of running the campaign.
4. Expiration (optional): You may optionally specify when an in-app message will expire.

Content

Select the creative/ message template that will be used for messaging the customer. You can also set up A/B Tests as required.

Send Settings

The send settings can vary by channel.

Here’s a breakdown of the different send settings by channel.

Setting	Description	Required?	Email	Push	SMS	In-App	Cloud App
Promotions	Specify your promo code	No	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
App	Choose the app for messaging e.g. Mailguin, Twilio etc.	Yes	✓	✓	✓	✓	x
Adapter	Choose the adapter i.e. credentials for messaging	Yes	✓	✓	✓	✓	x
From Name	Sender name	No	✓	x	x	x	x
From Address	The email address of the sender	No1	✓	x	x	x	x
Reply to Address	The email address to which replies will be sent	No1	✓	x	x	x	x
BCC	Send a copy of the message to these email addresses	No1	✓	x	x	x	x

¹By default Blueshift will use the value specified in the adapter settings but you can override that here in the trigger configuration. You can specify a liquid variable with appropriate attributes to dynamically populate the fields

Tracking Parameters

Adding tracking parameters to your messages allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your campaign and identify the best ways to drive more visitors to your website or app.

Blueshift supports both UTM and custom tracking parameters.

UTM Parameters

You can specify values for the 5 UTM parameters here:

• UTM Source: the source of your traffic. For example: Blueshift.
• UTM Campaign: the campaign name. For example: Abandoned Browse.
• UTM Medium: the medium the link was used on such as: email, SMS etc.
• UTM Content: optional parameter for additional details for A/B testing and content-targeted ads.
• UTM Term: optional parameter suggested for paid search to identify keywords for your ad.

You can specify static values as explained in the examples above or you can specify dynamic values using liquid variables. So you could specify an attribute from any of the below mentioned entities or a combination thereof:

• A user
• A recommendation
• An external fetch
• An event
• A transaction

When the message is rendered, these variables are replaced with actual values for a specific customer. You can then slice and dice your campaign performance using these attributes on a third party analytics platform like Google Analytics. For example, if you use content = {{user.gender}}, you can see how your campaign performed for men compared to women using the content param.

Custom Parameters

In addition to standard UTM parameters, you can also include custom URL tracking parameters. And just like UTM parameters, you can include Liquid expressions for setting these attributes.

Note: You can add tracking parameters directly to links in your message template. Tracking parameters defined in the trigger settings do not overwrite those specified in the creative. They only get added to links if the links didn't have these parameters already.

If you specify a direct value for a tracking parameter, it is saved in both sent and non-sent UCT parameters. If you add a Liquid expression as the value for a tracking parameter, the resulting value for the Liquid expression is saved. For example, if the value of the tracking parameter is set as {{my_param}}, and if the value of the Liquid expression is rendered as "abcd", the rendered value "abcd" is saved as the sent UCT, but the expression {{my_param}} is saved as the non-sent UCT. You can obtain the rendered value in non-sent UCTs by getting it from the sent UCT that has the same message_uuid as the non-sent UCT.

Link tracking and iOS 17

Apple's iOS 17 contains a major privacy enhancement called Link Tracking Protection. This feature offers increased user-level tracking safeguards in Messages, Mail, and Safari Private Browsing. It detects user-identifiable tracking parameters in link URLs, and automatically removes them.

Does this enhancement impact emails sent from the Blueshift platform?

No. These changes will not impact your ability to track links or how you measure campaign performance on the Blueshift platform. 

The Blueshift team has thoroughly reviewed and tested the upcoming changes and here are our takeaways:

• Only known ad link tracking parameters might get impacted depending upon how a customer accesses the link. Examples of such parameters include Google Adwords (gclid), Facebook (fbclid), Twitter Advertising (twclkd), Mailchimp (mc_eid), and Instagram (igshid).
• There will be no impact to UTM or custom tracking params or redirect params.
• Your campaigns and reports will continue to work just the way they did in the past.

Message Expiration

• This setting is available for in-app messages only.
• It allows you to set an expiration date for the message.
• Users logging into your app after the expiration date will not see the message. This ensures that infrequent users of your app don’t see messages that are old or stale.
• You can specify that an in-app message expires based on one of the following:
  • The amount of time that has passed since it was first sent.
  • A specific date and time (available for one-time sends only).
• The default setting to expire in-app messages is 30 days. The maximum expiration time can be set as 90 days (2160 hours or 13 weeks).