What are Personalisation Blocks in Adobe Campaign?

Everything you need to know about using personalisation blocks in email automation 

Personalisation blocks are a powerful tool used to customise email communications and customer experiences. 

They’re dynamic, tailored, and specific, reducing the time it takes to personalise messaging en masse. 

If you’re looking to level up your personalisation-at-scale capabilities and learn a new Adobe Campaign dynamic content feature, keep reading to discover more about personalisation blocks.

How do personalisation blocks work?

Personalisation blocks change how two users see the same delivery template or web application based on specific criteria. You can also use them for cross-device adaptations to optimise the user experience on mobile and desktop. 

Personalisation blocks contain specific rendering code for elements like:

• Headers and footers
• Greetings
• Images and logos
• Subscription links
• Verification and confirmation links
• Mirror pages
• Personalised offers
• Variable HTML styling
• Social sharing links

It can be as simple as addressing the recipient by name.

Or you can use personalisation blocks to display relevant content based on a user’s subscriptions, actions, or preferences.

What’s the big deal with personalisation blocks?

Using personalisation blocks simplifies how you create deliveries and web apps in Adobe Campaign.

Rather than needing to update individual links, replace content blocks, or duplicate templates for segmented audiences, you can use personalisation blocks.

For example, when a brand updates its logo, applying the change to every delivery template and web app will take hours. However, if they’d used Adobe Campaign’s dynamic content blocks, it would have been done in minutes.

Reusing personalisation blocks also cuts down testing time. You only need to test functionality in one template and rest assured it will flow to every delivery.

Or let’s say TAP CXM launches a new tech support service.

We want our clients to know about the service and get the relevant contact details for their area.

Using content blocks, we can vary the information a recipient sees based on individual criteria in the Adobe Campaign database. And if they don’t have a product listed, we can customise the message all the same.

Rather than creating several different delivery templates, we drop a personalisation block into one template and use the variables within it to tailor our message. 

How to create a personalisation block 

You’ll find personalisation blocks in the Administration menu, under Campaign Management and Personalisation blocks.

Depending on your instance, Adobe Campaign includes out-of-the-box personalisation blocks, which are great for getting started. 

But, naturally, we want to use this powerful feature to its full potential.

Creating custom personalisation blocks is an effective way to tailor content in a delivery template based on unique criteria.

Custom blocks are useful for tailoring content based on a recipient’s demographic criteria, actions, or expressed preferences. They can also use contextual data such as the user’s time zone, season, weather and other changeable information.

To get started, right-click the list of personalisation blocks and select New.

Label your block and work through the settings to ensure it’s formatted the way you want.

• The label is the name that appears in the list of blocks
• Check Visible in the customisation menus to make your custom block accessible in the delivery template builder
• You can also define unique content for text and HTML versions by selecting The content of the personalisation block depends upon the format

Now you can dive into the JavaScript, HTML, or text content that determines what a user sees. When you’re done, click Save and head to your delivery templates to use the block in situ.

Best practice tips for personalisation blocks

• Be careful with code

The biggest advantage of personalisation blocks is also the most crucial consideration.

They’re powerful.

Because they’re often used to simplify content management across multiple delivery templates, it can be easy to lose track and make changes that don’t apply globally. 

Keep a list of everywhere you use a personalisation block. Every automation, web app, seasonal email and automated response. That way, you’ll know to whom the changes apply.

• Test, test, and test again

Before launching a delivery or web application, run several tests to spot errors in your personalisation block. You’re testing for things like:

• Appearance on different devices/operating systems
• Style
• Spacing
• Formatting errors
• Broken links
• Large images

Preview the email using test accounts to see how the content reacts in every scenario.

• Consider all possibilities

When building a personalisation block that draws on unique criteria, account for anomalies and human error. 

For example, a user may have (accidentally or intentionally) entered irrelevant information in fields like company name, city, or profession. It’s worth doing a bit of housekeeping in the Adobe Campaign database before using a personalisation block. 

• Be friendly, not too friendly

Displaying relevant content based on recipient behaviour is an excellent use of dynamic content in Adobe Campaign.

Just remember to respect the user’s privacy (and, it goes without saying, comply with GDPR). If they think you know too much about them, it might spook them into unsubscribing.  

• Get professional help

Like skiing, chess, and coding, personalisation blocks are easy to learn but hard to master.

TAP CXM’s Adobe Campaign specialists are full bottle on personalisation blocks. We can help you define use cases, create custom blocks, and build delivery templates and web apps that deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Our approach is to upskill Adobe Campaign users to become independent. We’re always here to help with tricky code or troubleshooting, but you’re in the driver’s seat.