Template types

Samba Drag & Drop editor uses 5 different Template types:

• 1. Segmentation Template
  2. Personalization Template
  3. Repeated Orders (Trigger) Template
  4. Abandoned Cart (Trigger) Template
  5. Shopping Intention (Trigger) Template

Please note, that the Picasso editor is not compatible with Drag & Drop template types. Picasso templates use different logic for adding products and for content management in general. 

Switching to different template type

Type of the template can be changed after the template is created. Prior to switch, make sure that the Merge Tag variables are relevant for the particular type are included in the template. Otherwise validation will throw errors and template cannot be saved.

Converting HTML to Drag&Drop and vice versa

Be aware that HTML templates cannot be edited in a Drag & Drop designer since they were created in editors with different representation of the template structure. When you convert Drag&Drop type to HTML, the reverse action is not possible.

Using personalised products

In order to use product personalisation you need to use so called dynamic merge tags.

Template specific Merge Tags for products

Which Merge Tag should be used to represent the product? It depends on the type of the template. Samba supports 5 types (segmentation, personalization and 3 trigger types). 

1/ Segmentation template don’t use any Merge Tags for products

2/ Personalized Template Merge Tags 

3/ Every trigger template type slightly varies in available Merge Tags variables.

     3a/ Abandoned Cart Merge Tags

     3b/ Shopping Intention Merge Tags

     3c/ Repeated Orders Merge Tags

Adding Products in general

For personalization purposes, Samba algorithms automatically attach products’ details to a email content delivered to a specific customer. How does Samba know, where exactly in a template will be those product details presented?

Samba uses variables as dynamic directives for product representation inside the email templates. Prior to sending it to a specific customer, variables are automatically replaced for product attributes (link to image, link to product, product name and description) etc. Variables are called Merge Tags and must be used in specific format – {{merge_tag_example}}. They use double bracket to indicate where the variable definition starts ‘{{‘ and ends ‘}}’.

Adding Merge Tags for Products

There are multiple ways to add Merge Tag  to the template. 

1/ Either you write them manually. This requires knowledge, which Merge Tags can be used in which template type. The section below in this article covers the topic of differences among template types.

2/ Choosing from the list of Merge tags

 

3/ If Merge Tag is a variable that represents link, you can choose from the list of Special links.

Here is a list of product related attributes that can be represented by Merge Tag variables. Merge Tags representing these properties will be replaced with the data from your platform data feed.

• Title – Name of the product/ product variant
• Price – Current  price or the price after discount
• Price Before – Price of the product before the discount
• URL – The link (path) to a product presented on the e-commerce platform.
• Image – Alternate text, which is used when the image is not loaded in a delivered email for some reason.
• Description – Detailed information about the product
• Brand – Name of the product’s brand 

This is the minimum. Additional properties are listed in a specification of specific template.

Product Images and placeholders

Placeholders (example below) represent the size of the final product image and place, where the image of specific product will be replaced.

Size of the image and product ID can be specified through the property panel on the right side.

URLs for the image placeholder has to be copy-pasted and changed according to desired product ID and image size.

Product attributes visibility

Some product attributes might not be specified in your data feed. For example not every product is in a discount, and it can also be only temporary state. If the product ends up discounted, presenting original price before the discount is desirable. 

For that matter we can to use additional Merge Tag, which present the value, only if it exists. In the example above, it is the situation when product is currently discounted.

It’s required to use special opening (#) an closing (/) directives inside the Merge Tags. Here is an example considering the usecase mentioned above.

{{#main_product_price_before}}

any information with conditional visibility, e.g. 3,456czk

{{/main_product_price_before}}

Anything that is in between Merge Tags {{#main_product_price_before}} and {{/main_product_price_before}} will be visible only if the value for main_product_price_before exists.

This can be applied to any Merge Tags in any template type.

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Before Sending

It’s beneficial to check, whether the template is valid. There is a possibility of multiple problems.

Duplicates and missing values

Make sure that the Merge Tags variables are not duplicated. Merge Tag variable with the same name will include the same value in one email template. Assigning {{product2_title}} where Product 1 Title suppose to be will cause confusion.

Ignore this warning, if the duplication is intentional. Sometimes you do want to use a Title of the specific product in an introduction paragraph. This is completely OK.

Final look

Send the test email to your email address to see the product pictures and real product attributes represtented by Merge Tags. Note that the products are filled based on the filtering criteria and/or our A.I. algorithms

Preview the template and test responsivity by switching between desktop and mobile preview.

 

Manage Static Products

With this functionality, you can easily generate product tiles using information from your product database. The resulting tiles are a rendered image.

Properties

• It can be used in any type of template (segmentation, personalized, triggers).
• Uniform display in all email clients is guaranteed.
• Compared to using regular styling, it increases the overall size of the HTML very little.

Instructions for using rendered product tiles

HTML Snippet

To take advantage of this functionality, you must first insert a short piece of HTML code into the template for each such product position using CONTENT> HTML

in the following form:

<a id="productX" class="Y" href="https://samba.ai"><img src="https://via.placeholder.com/160x200/cccccc/000000?text=productX" style="max-width:100%; " alt="Samba.ai" /></a>

• X
  • Number 1, 2, … specifying the number/order of the product in the template, used for orientation in product management.
  • Each snippet must contain a unique number.
• Y
  • Number 1, 2, …, 6 specifying the number of columns into which the row in the template is divided. According to this, the size of the product tile is automatically determined, which can be further changed.

For example, if you insert the first product on a row of 2 columns (see image above), the resulting snippet looks like this:

<a id="product1" class="2" href="https://samba.ai"><img src="https://via.placeholder.com/160x200/cccccc/000000?text=product1" style="max-width:100%; " alt="Samba.ai" /></a>

 

Product Search

After clicking the Manage Static Products button

a new window will appear where you can search for a product by Name or ID. The search can also be limited to currently in stock products.

Use the Refresh button to reload the current data for the selected product from the product database, or use the Remove button to deselect the product and select another.

 

Tile design

The following content elements can be modified for the loaded product. Each element can also be completely hidden using the switch toggle.

• Container – determines the basic properties of the entire product tile
• Image – product picture
• Title – the name of the product
• Brand – product manufacturer
• Description – product specification
• Button (CTA) – call-to-action button, e.g., “Buy”
• URL – link to product detail
• Price – the current price of the product
• Price before – the original price of the product before the discount
• Sale – discount on the given product in %
• Custom text elements – any other content elements

When selecting Position: Absolute, you can use the mouse to drag the element to the selected position in the tile.

 

Product Templates

Using the Save As Product Template button, you can simply save the entire tile design for later use.

You can find all designs saved in this way in the Product Templates tab, where you can later use the Apply Template option to use a previously saved design to style the product in the current selection.

After further editing the product tile design, you can Save Changes to an existing template or Save as New Product Template.

 

Save & Render

To finally save the changes into the template, i.e., render the product tile with the selected product to the given position, click Save & Render.

For each product, where you have made a change, the generation must be confirmed in this way.  Products with unsaved changes are highlighted by the “Draft” label.

The appearance of the resulting tile is then immediately visible in the template.

 

Product Reloading

After closing the static product management interface and checking the resulting design in the template itself, you can switch to product management again by clicking the Manage Static Products as in the beginning.

Positions where products have already been generated remember the product template used. The Refresh button reloads the current product information from the product database. Therefore, if your design adjustments also included rewriting text elements, you’ll need to make that change again.

 

Display on mobile devices

• To display in full width in responsive display, use the “Full size on mobile” option in the Container settings.
  
• We recommend to take into account the size of the display on mobile devices and generate a special design for them, which can be hidden/shown according to the choice of the device.
  

This post is also available in: Čeština (Czech)