In this blog post, we’ll explore what MMS is, the key differences between MMS and SMS (short message service), and how implementing MMS can increase engagement between brands and their audiences.

What is MMS?

MMS is a way for brands to send visual messages to their customers on their mobile devices. This includes multimedia content such as images, audio files, and video clips alongside text messages. Ever sent or received a picture message on your phone? That’s MMS in action. MMS takes text messaging to a whole new level, providing rich and interactive content that goes beyond the traditional 160-character text limit.

By integrating MMS into their communication strategies, brands can create more colorful and engaging messages that capture their customers’ attention. Dotdigital offers MMS capabilities for audiences in the United States and Canada, providing brands with customers in these regions with a powerful new tool to stand out from the competition and generate an impressive return on investment (ROI). 

What is the difference between MMS and SMS?

It’s important to understand the differences between MMS and SMS to choose the right marketing tool to reach your target audience. Here are the key distinctions between the two:

Content type and flexibility

SMS only allows you to send text messages up to a certain character limit. On the other hand, MMS allows you to share a variety of multimedia content with text messages, including files of up to 750KB in formats such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF, making it more visually appealing. By incorporating multimedia content, MMS can increase your engagement levels.

Message size and character limit

A single SMS message can only accommodate 160 characters (including spaces). If your message exceeds this limit, you’ll need to send multiple messages, which will increase the cost of your campaign. MMS provides a much larger message length of 1600 characters (10x greater than SMS), enabling you to send detailed and engaging messages at a fraction of the cost.

So with Dotdigital MMS, you have the flexibility to include high-quality multimedia files while still enjoying the benefits of increased message length. This combination of rich media and additional text enables brands to create captivating, informative, and persuasive messages designed to drive customer action.

Cost and carrier compatibility

While SMS messages are generally cheaper due to low data requirements and widespread carrier support, MMS messages may incur additional costs for end-users and brands due to larger file sizes and increased data usage. However, the visual appeal and potential for higher engagement and conversion with MMS can directly offset the added cost, making it a valuable investment.

What are the benefits of MMS?

MMS is an essential part of any mobile marketing strategy, providing businesses with a range of benefits. Some of its key advantages include:

Enhanced engagement

MMS messages have been proven to have a more engaging impact on recipients compared to plain text messages. This is because MMS messages can include rich multimedia content such as images, videos, and GIFs, making the recipient’s experience more memorable and immersive. As a result, recipients are more likely to take the desired action. 

One example of the effectiveness of MMS messaging is TractOptics, a US-based customer, who utilized MMS during its Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. TractOptics saw an impressive 17:1 ROI (return on investment) after utilizing MMS messaging. This highlights the potential benefits of using MMS messaging to enhance engagement and improve the chances of achieving a higher ROI for businesses.

Greater flexibility and versatility

MMS provides a broad range of options to create visually appealing content that caters to diverse marketing applications and industries. Whether you want to send promotional offers, event invitations, or product launches, MMS offers you the creative freedom to design messages that resonate with your target audience.

Higher conversion rates

MMS messages have the potential to drive higher conversion rates than traditional text messages by optimizing messaging with persuasive multimedia content. With visually appealing content and enhanced engagement, you can encourage recipients to take the desired action, whether that’s making a purchase or signing up for notifications.

Improved brand perception

MMS marketing can be a game changer if you’re looking to improve your brand recognition. Using multimedia content in mobile messages can help differentiate your brand from competitors who rely solely on plain text messages. By including visually appealing and engaging content, you can make a stronger impression on your audience and foster better relationships with them.

Repeated exposure to your brand visuals and logo through MMS messages is essential for building brand recognition. Studies show that 91% of customers are more likely to purchase from brands that they recognize and trust. This is especially true in mobile communications, as messages that include your brand visuals or identifiers are considered more trustworthy and authentic by recipients.

Elevated customer experience

In today’s fast-paced digital world, customers have high expectations for personalized and visually appealing experiences. Using MMS, you can create more engaging and interactive experiences that can help you connect better with your customers. By incorporating multimedia content like images, GIFs, and videos into your messages, you can encourage your customers to take action and build deeper relationships with them. 

For instance, if you run a travel agency, you can send an MMS that features a beautiful image of a beach sunset to your customers, inspiring them to plan their next beach holiday. Similarly, if you provide event management services, you can send a GIF of their favorite artist performing live in town to promote your event management services. The possibilities to get creative and engage with your customers through MMS are virtually limitless.

How MMS can be used to increase customer engagement

There’s a wide variety of opportunities when it comes to using MMS to increase customer engagement. The ability to include visually engaging content allows you to create more exciting promotions and offers by sharing eye-catching visuals when advertising sales, discounts, and other special offers. The same can be optimized when launching new products by utilizing images or GIFS to showcase the new product and generate excitement amongst your shoppers. 

Event invitations can be given a new lease of life by creating and sharing visually appealing invitations to a concert, webinar, or workshop to drive audience attendance. MMS can also be used to boost customer support by providing visual instructions, demonstrations, and more which can be used to troubleshoot and enhance customer satisfaction levels.

MMS messages can be highly personalized to individual customers based on their preferences, behaviors, and much more. The introduction of incorporating liquid (a templating language to create highly personalized content) to SMS and MMS for Dotdigital means you’re able to incorporate multiple personalized fields.

This can be seamlessly previewed as each customer so you can be confident that your recipient will receive a message highly targeted to them directly. WinstonAI can also be used to help you set the tone for your MMS messages. 

Getting started with MMS

For now, MMS with Dotdigital is available to businesses with customers in the United States and Canada. To enable MMS in your Dotdigital account, contact your Customer Success Manager, who will guide you through the setup process. Once MMS has been activated in your account, you’ll see the SMS section in your left-hand navigation now reads SMS/MMS. 

If you’re not a Dotdigital customer yet, you can request a demo of the platform.

Conclusion

MMS is a powerful marketing tool that enables you to enhance your mobile communication strategies by providing visually appealing and engaging content. By incorporating multimedia content alongside text messages, MMS can increase engagement levels, improve brand perception, and drive higher conversion rates. With Dotdigital’s MMS capabilities, brands can harness the power of MMS to reach their audiences effectively and generate an impressive return on investment.

In this blog you’ll find the details of the brand new Dotdigital Academy, created exclusively for our customers so you can get the most from the platform and enhance your own marketing knowledge. We also have exciting updates to SMS and MMS – two channels that are often overlooked, but consistently drive high engagement and generate strong ROI for our customers. This update gives you the support to capitalize on the growing success of these channels, even if you’re new to them.

Plus, we’re giving you the inside scoop on tons of new functionality within the platform designed to make your life easier, alongside some really exciting new integrations. Let’s get into it.

Introducing the Dotdigital Academy

Marketers are expected to ‘wear many hats’, and with a multitude of channels, new trends, new regulations, it can be hard to keep up sometimes, let alone set aside time for personal development. Make time for yourself and sharpen your marketing skills with on-demand Dotdigital training videos.

We’re excited to share that we’ve taken our educational content to the next level and the new Dotdigital Academy is now live. The Dotdigital Academy allows you to take courses on your own time; it’s on-demand learning, covering the topics you care about the most. You can access the Academy directly here.

The Academy is a great way for you to ensure you’re getting the most from Dotdigital. Plus, the Academy is a fantastic resource for any new starters in your team, and hey, taking training courses is always a good thing to shout about on LinkedIn and to your boss come review time.

This is just the beginning of the Dotdigital Academy, we will be adding new courses and certifications all the time, so watch this space. And don’t forget to let your CSM know what you want to see more of.

Enhanced SMS and MMS capability is now live

In our last release, we announced updates to the SMS and MMS functionality were being launched in a beta preview. The customers who joined the preview saw great results and also provided us with some valuable feedback which we’ve actioned. As a result, we’re excited to launch these changes into general availability today.

Stronger SMS personalization

SMS is a fantastic channel for brands and frequently delivers high ROI. Our customer London Lash saw an impressive ROI of 700% within just 6 months of launching the channel. In this release, we’re taking SMS further by launching advanced personalization powered by Liquid script.

Liquid is a flexible and dynamic markup language, allowing you to create highly personalized and targeted SMS content. You can preview your SMS campaigns as a specific customer to see the campaign complete with personalization just as the customer would, to ensure you’re sending with confidence. Thanks to customer feedback from the preview, Liquid scripts now have syntax highlighting and line numbers to make the Liquid code much more readable.

Now including access to Insight data, this update expands the existing SMS personalization utilizing contact data fields, such as customer names, to advanced personalization created with intricate data, such as order and booking details.

SMS and WinstonAI

Also as of today, the WinstonAI features you know and love for email are also available for SMS. When creating an SMS campaign, you now have the option to have WinstonAI perform a spelling and grammar check, add emojis, rewrite your copy in a different tone, and shorten or lengthen your copy. These tools save time, and are super useful to you if you’re new to writing for SMS. Plus, remember our one-click email to SMS feature is great for executing a cross-channel strategy with minimal work.

MMS success

We’ve also launched MMS for the United States and Canada. SMS is already super successful at engaging customers, and MMS takes this to the next level.

During our beta preview Dotdigital customer, ScentAir, said “While SMS generally performs well for us, we observed even better results with MMS”. The brand’s Black Friday MMS campaigns saw an incredible ROI of $28 for every $1 spent. The numbers speak for themselves.

If you’ve not yet got SMS and MMS enabled in your account yet, reach out to your Customer Success Manager today.

Updated features to improve your day-to-day

These updates focus on a variety of key improvements to the Dotdigital platform. Combining our customer feedback with the results of our annual Hack Week, these changes will speed up your workflow and give you more time and headspace to dedicate to your other tasks.

New product recommendation category

Introducing a new product recommendation category, ‘bought together’. This category surfaces products bought together by other shoppers. It is similar to our existing ‘also bought’ option, the key difference is that ‘bought together’ means bought at the same time – meaning it’s a much better option to include when upselling an existing basket, vs. encouraging a further purchase another time.

Easily retarget contacts across multiple platforms

A cross-channel experience is crucial for customer engagement in today’s world. We talk about that all the time. In this update, we’ve made it even easier to include a variety of channels in your programs. You can now easily add Facebook Messenger, push notifications, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads into your programs straight from the program builder.

Ensure you’re utilizing your customer data to drive targeted campaigns across the entire customer journey. Let paid social support your efforts and keep your brand front of mind as your customers move around the web. One example of this is taking your abandoned cart or browse data from Dotdigital using the program extension, to create a new audience on Facebook. Then you can create highly targeted and relevant Facebook ads that are more likely to convert, and your budget is spent more effectively.

You’ll now find a channels item in the automations menu in the sidebar linking straight to the default program extensions. We’ve also added a dedicated program extensions reporting page so you can see what’s working easily.

Some of our packages can benefit from this update right away, otherwise, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to find out the options available to you.

An update to campaign tags and segment creation

Campaign tags are a powerful way to label, organize, and report on your campaigns. In this update, we’ve made it super easy for you to use these tags to create a segment. Say you want to target any contacts who’ve clicked a campaign with the tag of ‘events’ you can now do this in one-click in the segment builder.

Checkbox form field update

Previously, checkbox answers from surveys and forms couldn’t be saved as data fields due to the multiple-choice element conflicting with data fields only holding one value at a time. Now you can map checkbox data from surveys and forms easily thanks to a change to allow these values to map to multiple data fields. This allows you to easily segment and personalize based on a customer’s answers to your surveys and forms.

You can also now save survey and form responses as Insight data. This is more useful when the data is transient and may change, whereas data fields are still best for any data that won’t change. Form responses being saved as Insight data happens automatically and you don’t need to do any manual mapping.

Easily change your settings

You’ll now find a search bar on the settings page in Dotdigital. Simple, but time-saving, this new update makes it easier than ever to find what you’re looking for.

Improving the Developer experience

New API updates give Developers clearer error information, show multiple errors in one response, and provide the ability to create or update contacts and set channel statuses in just one call. All of this is to save your Developers time and make their experience run a lot smoother.

New integrations to Dotdigital

Shopline integration

We are very excited to announce our new integration with Asia’s largest ecommerce platform, Shopline. Shopline is an all-in-one commerce solution that helps brands sell, market, and operate their online and offline business more efficiently. Our integration with Shopline will sync all product, customer, and order data into Dotdigital so marketers can use it to deliver personalized cross-channel marketing experiences.

Six new verified integrations

We also have six new, verified integrations. We work hard with our tech partners to ensure the quality is high and that the integrations work seamlessly with the Dotdigital platform and make sense for our customers. In this update we are introducing new verified integrations with ViralSweep, Preezie, Crowdin, Personizely, CartSave, and Searchspring.

Fresh Relevance updates

At Fresh Relevance, now a Dotdigital company, there are some exciting new updates that improve the user experience. Based on customer feedback, key product information is now available at a top level, search functionality is improved, and there’s a new and enhanced product variant view allowing you to search and view analytics much easier.

The Fresh Relevance site editor has also improved, all focused on useability. The team has added the ability to search and filter by page type so configuration is much easier, especially for those of you with high amounts of blocks. As well as this, now when you want to update a live block, you can copy a version to draft so that you can edit it offline before putting it live, without needing to turn your current set-up off.

There are also updates to the testing of countdown clocks and exciting new coupon smart blocks. To see more of what the Fresh Relevance team is working on, visit the blog for the latest news.

Watch the new release webinar

In this blog, we’ll explore the top five platform changes that have made the most significant impact on marketers like yourself across the globe. We’ll also discuss how they provide you with the tools to elevate and enhance your marketing in 2024 and beyond.

1. Revolutionizing marketing with WinstonAI

WinstonAI, Dotdigital’s cutting-edge marketing intelligence engine, has been a game-changer for marketers in 2023. We launched it in May and have been adding new functionality throughout the year. WinstonAI provides you with usable AI-driven insights, letting you make data-driven decisions and optimize your campaigns in seconds.

By integrating generative AI into Dotdigital, we’ve made it accessible in your day-to-day work by providing you with personalized inspiration when creating email and SMS campaigns, that will save you a whole heap of time and keep you focused.

It offers tips on improving email tone, identifying areas that need more detail, and highlights opportunities to make your campaigns even more engaging. WinstonAI can even help you create better subject lines and increase open rates, by providing three alternative suggestions based on data from your most recent 25 email sends to figure out what’s most appealing to your audience.

WinstonAI also includes grammar and spell check, streamlining the campaign creation process. This feature, built into the campaign builder, scans content across email, SMS, surveys, and pages and forms, identifying errors and offering suggestions. By reducing time spent proofing campaigns, you can focus on being more creative and strategic.

Another innovative feature of WinstonAI is the one-click email to SMS conversion which helps you adhere to the 160-character limit for SMS. It analyzes text and provides a shortened version of your email campaign. This allows you to easily convert content to SMS, aligning the copy and keeping the core message front and center. This cross-channel approach is essential for driving engagement and delivering seamless experiences.

The latest release in November included the ability to ask WinstonAI to rewrite messages based on tone, shortening or expanding text, rephrasing, and including emojis. This helps you tailor your message and tone to your audience, ultimately improving campaign performance.

WinstonAI is seamlessly integrated into the Dotdigital platform making it an indispensable tool for busy marketers as we move swiftly into 2024.

2. Streamlining data management with unified contact data

In today’s data-filled world, marketers are always on the lookout for ways to bring everything together to better understand their customers and deliver the most personalized experience possible. That’s why we rolled out unified contact data in September this year, which helps you combine all your customer data into one spot so you can create more joined up and relevant experiences for your customers.

Unified contact data makes life easier by bringing all data together into a single record, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view of each customer. With all your contact data in one place, you’ll save time and effort, waving goodbye to manual data syncs or juggling multiple variations of customer data.

With a complete view of customer data, you can create seamless cross-channel experiences, engaging customers on their preferred channels and ensuring a consistent brand presence throughout their journey.

Let’s dive into some key use cases of unified contact data:

• Engage with your customers on their preferred channel: unified contact data helps you pinpoint your customers’ preferred channel (whether this is email, SMS, or another channel), so you can reach out to them in the most effective way possible.
• Ensure your customers get a tailored experience: with unified contact data, you can ensure automations you create in the program builder cater to your customer’s preferences, which could be email, SMS, or a combination of both.
• Create segments that include both email and SMS engagement data: unified contact data allows you to create segments that take into account both email and SMS engagement data, giving you a more accurate picture of your customers’ behavior.

As your business grows and evolves, your customer data sources will grow with it. Unified contact data ensures that Dotdigital remains a future-proof platform, capable of adapting to the changing needs of you and your organization. By providing a single source of truth for contact data, we’ve enabled you to build deeper connections with your audience and deliver campaigns that resonate on a personal level.

3. Expanding communication channels with SMS and MMS

With its high engagement rates, SMS is an indispensable part of a successful cross-channel marketing strategy.

On top of our already extensive SMS offering, this year, we’ve added even more functionality that will help you get even more out of engaging with your customers on SMS. We’ve added advanced revenue attribution for SMS, which will give you valuable insights into campaign performance by tracking both direct and assisted campaign revenue. This comprehensive understanding of each customer’s journey and individual campaign impact is crucial for optimizing campaigns and planning future marketing efforts.

We’ve also added the ability to capture SMS opt in during the checkout process to allow you to capitalize on mobile shopping habits. By offering your customers the option to provide their mobile numbers during checkout, you can acquire more opted-in contacts to send them tailored mobile offers, discounts, and keep customers informed throughout the entire purchase process. This leads to higher customer satisfaction and stronger brand loyalty.

In addition, we’ve introduced advanced personalization which allows you to create highly targeted and personalized SMS content using liquid, a flexible and dynamic markup language. This results in better engagement, improved conversion rates, and a more seamless customer experience.

For North American audiences, we’ve introduced MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). MMS enables you to send visual messages, such as images and gifs, to your customers and is proven to enhance mobile engagement and conversions by 41%.

The importance of SMS and MMS in marketing can‘t be overstated. As mobile devices continue to dominate the way consumers shop, marketers must embrace these channels to stay connected with their customers and deliver personalized and engaging messages.

Dotdigital’s latest functionalities and improvements in SMS and MMS offer you the tools you need to elevate your marketing strategies and drive success well into the future.

4. Enhancing customer experiences through UI, UX, and API improvements

Throughout 2023, we introduced significant visual enhancements to the Dotdigital platform aimed at saving you time and making your life easier. These improvements were driven by your feedback and designed to streamline the platform, making it more efficient and user-friendly.

Our updated navigation offers you a more seamless experience, with all channels now consolidated under one campaign section and a new audience area for managing contacts, segments, personas, and more. The analytics section has been revamped for easier access to reporting, while the new connect area caters to all your data requirements.

Additionally, campaign management tools have been improved to simplify day-to-day tasks, such as campaign replies, sign-off processes, and campaign tags management. These changes enable you to save time and focus on creating engaging campaigns.

One of our customers’ favorite features we’ve introduced is the campaign heat maps, which provides a visual representation of email engagement. By using a traffic light system to indicate click rates, you can optimize your email content placement to maximize engagement. This valuable insight helps you to refine your emails and drive better future results.

The acquisition of Fresh Relevance in September further enhanced the platform’s capabilities, and to support our joint customers, we developed the ability to switch between accounts seamlessly. This integration streamlines the user experience and promotes efficient workflows.

These enhancements to our platform are important for you to adapt to the ever-changing marketing landscape. By providing a more efficient, user-friendly platform, we’re empowering you to create more effective campaigns and drive better results, both now and in the future.

5. Strengthening integrations and partnerships

Having data together in one place is one of the most important priorities for marketers. When all your data is in one spot, it can be easily combined to create powerful and actionable insights that you wouldn’t have had if your data were siloed. That’s why, this year we’ve continued to add more integrations into our platform to let you connect as easily as possible, so you can have far more ‘aha’ moments.

In September, we introduced our new Connect area so you can easily manage your data and integrations in one convenient location, ensuring you’re set up for success. The Connect area houses all of your data including insight and commerce data and lets you connect digital marketing channels, and a vast array of integrations, including both self-serve and verified partner-built ones.

Over the past year, we’ve added more than 30 in-house integrations including eStar, Marketplacer, Commercetools, Gorgias, and Netsuite Oracle, bringing the total number of integrations to over 150.

This year, we also introduced the ability to create more engaging and personalized campaigns through the use of branded dynamic app blocks. These new blocks are available as drag and drop in EasyEditor and allow you to easily incorporate third-party content into your emails and landing pages without any coding required.

This not only helps you get more out of their existing martech stack but also reduces unsubscribe rates from your customers, as they’ll receive more relevant and personalized content.

These top 5 release elements from 2023 are just the tip of the iceberg of what was released to Dotdigital customers in February, May, September, and November. These advancements empower you to elevate your marketing strategies and achieve better results in 2024 and beyond.

To make the most of these innovations and enhance your marketing efforts, log in to your Dotdigital account and explore the new features today. Alternatively, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager to see how you can enhance your marketing in 2024 and beyond.

If you’re not a Dotdigital customer yet, you can discover how Dotdigital’s cutting-edge marketing technology can transform your business. Request a demo and experience the power of Dotdigital’s platform for yourself.

Become your own editor with WinstonAI

WinstonAI has been a hit with our customers since its launch. It is built into the Dotdigital platform to streamline the day-to-day tasks that come with cross-channel marketing and to lend a helping hand to busy marketers.

Our latest release builds on the existing features of WinstonAI to give you all of the tools you need to edit your copy – all from within the campaign builder.

New WinstonAI writing assistance

What is it?

WinstonAI now has new generative AI capability and can rewrite messages in a different tone, shorten or expand text, rephrase, and include emojis in text.

Why it’s important

Getting the tone and message right for your audience is crucial for campaign performance. WinstonAI is here to save you time and support you in this.

WinstonAI can change the tone of your message to friendly, professional, witty, heartfelt, empathetic, educational, funny, casual, urgent, or optimistic. If you want something to be rephrased you can ask WinstonAI to reword, improve readability, simplify, or summarize. You can also ask WinstonAI to expand or shorten your copy and to add relevant emojis.

What else is new?

New iconography has been added throughout the Dotdigital platform to show you where WinstonAI powers insights and actions. Wherever you see the sparkle icon, WinstonAI is available.

Add more touchpoints with MMS for North America

What is MMS?

MMS lets brands send visual messages to their customers via the same channel SMS uses. It boosts engagement and allows you to bring more color to what were previously simple SMS messages.

Why it’s important

Launching MMS capabilities for the United States and Canada gives any brand with customers in this region a new way to engage those customers, stand out from the crowd, and generate ROI. SMS is already super successful at engaging customers in this region, MMS takes this to the next level.

How it works

Dotdigital customers can now send multimedia content such as images and gifs to their customers in the US and Canada by using MMS. If you want to send MMS messages, speak to your Customer Success Manager who will be able to support you in getting set up. Once MMS has been activated in your account, you’ll see the SMS section in your lefthand navigation now reads SMS/MMS.

Engage with precision thanks to advanced personalization for SMS

What is advanced personalization for SMS?

Advanced personalization for SMS gives you all the benefits of Liquid, a flexible and dynamic markup language, to create highly personalized and targeted SMS content. Now including access to Insight data, this update expands the existing SMS personalization with contact data fields, such as customer names, to personalization with more intricate data, such as order and booking details.

Why it’s important

Great customer experiences stem from personalization. Advanced personalization for SMS gives you the ability to deliver uniquely tailored experiences to your customers, leading to better engagement, stronger brand loyalty, and improved conversion rates.

One example is abandoned cart recovery; you can now include a unique shopping cart link in your SMS campaign, directing online shoppers straight back to their abandoned cart. This both removes barriers to conversion and improves the overall customer experience.

How it works

The new advanced personalization editor makes it possible to include insight data using liquid markup. It allows for the creation of detailed SMS content to create powerful messages that are highly personalized to the recipient.

Other key updates

A seamless login experience for Fresh Relevance

Dotdigital acquired Fresh Relevance in September. Now, our joint customers can seamlessly switch between the Dotdigital and Fresh Relevance platforms without having to log in each time.

Dotdigital forms WordPress plug-in

An updated WordPress plug-in gives Dotdigital customers more options to integrate with their Content Management System (CMS). Dotdigital users can now integrate a Dotdigital form on any WordPress page. WooCommerce merchants can use this to implement beautifully designed data capture forms and popovers on their stores.

Improved UX login

You can now choose to disable the 90-day password rotation requirements on your account to give you better control over password rotation practices. This can be switched on or off down to child account level.

Enhanced UTM link tracking

Track links from specific campaigns more easily with improved UTM link tracking capability built into the campaign builder. This gives you more precision and flexibility in your reporting – something especially useful for specific seasonal campaigns.

Product block search

We’ve made some changes to the product recommendation rule side-panel so it’s easier for you to find the category or specific product type to display in your content.
Now, products can be filtered by a variety of ways to make them easier to find.

Not only can you filter by product attributes, but you can also search and select from your own categories, which have been synchronized from your store. This allows you to include or exclude particular products with ease and precision.

Dotdigital app homepage updates

We’ve made amends to the Dotdigital homepage to provide a better experience. You can now preview, test, and send emails and SMS campaigns quickly and easily directly from the Dotdigital homepage.

“New in store” product recommendations

Our latest ‘new in store’ product recommendation option helps your customers see what’s new in your store instantly. Ideal for busy sale periods when stock levels across older products may be low.

Join our webinar

In other exciting news, we are thrilled to announce the acquisition of our long-term partner, Fresh Relevance. With this move, we are able to provide you with the best CXDP experience, empowering you to consistently deliver customer experiences that go beyond expectations. Read more about it here.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started.

Save time and do more with WinstonAI

WinstonAI, Dotdigital’s marketing intelligence engine, has continued to grow and evolve. From send time optimization and product recommendations, to generative AI assistance, WinstonAI is on hand to make your work life easier. And with this release we’re adding even more features to our generative AI capabilities, helping you streamline your campaign creation process.

Grammar and spell check

What is it?

Built into the campaign builder, WinstonAI will scan your campaign content and provide a spelling and grammar check across email, SMS, surveys, and pages and forms. This will let you know of any errors found and offer suggestions, leaving you in control to adopt as you see fit.

WinstonAI is powered by GPT and our partnership with Microsoft ensures that all data is always secure.

Why is it important?

WinstonAI grammar and spell check allows you to save time, so you can focus on the more creative and important elements of your campaign.

• Reduce time spent proofing campaigns
• Streamline sign-off processes
• Communicate with confidence
• Reduce typos and grammar errors
• Keep standards high and maintain brand reputation
• Spend more time focusing on creative and strategic elements of your campaign

How to get started

Our grammar and spell checker, powered by WinstonAI is now available within the campaign builder. To note, if you don’t want to utilize WinstonAI, there is a toggle option to disable WinstonAI suggestions, so you always have complete control.

SMS in one-click

What is it?

This new WinstonAI feature enables you to easily convert email campaigns into SMS messages with just one click. WinstonAI will do all of the hard work for you and suggest an SMS campaign with copy that is aligned with the message of your email campaign.

Why is it important?

A cross-channel approach is key, and SMS adds a lot of value to your marketing mix. With incredible engagement rates, 60% of SMS are read within 1-5 minutes, and the ability to cut through the noise of a busy inbox, SMS campaigns should be a part of your marketing strategy.

This new feature means you can focus on the message first, and the channel second. Creating SMS has never been this easy, allowing you to increase your reach in no time at all

• Save time and drive far more engagement with just one click
• Deliver cross-channel experiences in seconds
• Focus on creating your message first, and channel second

How to get started

When you’ve finished writing your email in our campaign builder, simply click on the WinstonAI icon and select “convert to SMS”. You’ll then find the suggested SMS campaign in the SMS editor and all that’s left to do is hit send. If you’re not sending SMS yet, start by setting up a free trial in your account.

Shorten SMS

What is it?

Ever written the perfect SMS campaign only to realise that you’ve gone over the character limit? WinstonAI can now analyze your text and provide a shortened version that is suitable for mobile messaging while retaining the essentials of your original content.

Why is it important?

Adhering to the 160-character count limit for SMS texts is crucial to avoid sending multiple consecutive messages and impacting your billing. The WinstonAI shorten SMS feature simplifies the task of condensing lengthy messages, without losing their core meaning. You will also receive the character count of the shortened message.

How to get started

You’ll find the WinstonAI Shorten SMS tool in the SMS campaign editor. Simply click on the WinstonAI icon and select “shorten message” to receive your alternative text.

Elevate your strategy with enhanced SMS

SMS is a great tool to have in your cross-channel strategy. It lands in the palm of your customers’ hand and gets the message across in rapid time. This release we’re launching a host of improvements to your SMS experience. This includes making SMS campaign creation easier, offering improved SMS number capture, and delivering detailed new reporting.

Advanced revenue attribution for SMS

What is it?

Get more insight into campaign performance with our new advanced revenue attribution for SMS. By tracking both direct and assisted campaign revenue, you can now easily identify how different touchpoints are performing throughout the customer journey. This is already available for email and now we’ve added the capability to SMS to ensure you can effectively report on campaign performance across both channels.

Why is it important?

Customer journeys are anything but linear and each touchpoint deserves recognition. ROI is a crucial metric for any business so reliable, detailed reporting is key. A comprehensive understanding of the marketing journey and every individual campaign’s impact is invaluable for managing budgets, future campaign planning, and campaign optimization.

How to get started

Find out more about our revenue attribution models in the help center. To benefit from assisted revenue attribution you must be on a CXDP or Amplify package.

Commerce SMS capture

What is it?

Consumers are shopping on mobile devices more than ever before, so we’re making it easier for our ecommerce partners to maximize every conversion opportunity. Merchants using Magento, Shopware, Shopify, or WooCommerce can now capture SMS numbers as part of the check-out process. Shopify merchants are also able to offer an SMS-only checkout to their customers.

Why is it important?

Embrace the mobile shopping trend by integrating SMS capture at checkout and letting consumers decide how they want to be contacted, keeping your brand connected to the pulse of the customer.

• Acquire more marketing contacts that are opted-in to receiving SMS.
• SMS checkout allows customers to complete their purchases faster.
• Send tailored mobile offers and discounts via SMS.
• Send order updates directly via text messages keeping shoppers informed throughout the whole purchase process, leading to higher satisfaction.

How to get started

You must be a merchant using either Shopify, Magento, Shopware, or WooCommerce and SMS. Head to the help center and search for your ecommerce platform to find out more.

Think bigger with extensive integrations

Our integrations allow you to bring your whole customer journey together and share data every step of the way to better inform your marketing strategy. We know how important fast, accurate data flows are, so we made our API even better.

New integrations area in Dotdigital

What is it?

In our new integrations area you will find a comprehensive directory of all of Dotdigital’s tech integrations, including Dotdigital-built, verified partner and app extensions such as Facebook and Google ads. The integrations area is categorized and has search and filtering functionality, plus each integration will have a profile with a description along with instructions on how to install.

Why is it important?

A core part of our offering as a CXDP is our ability to connect with your entire marketing stack. You can now easily find the integrations you need to create a seamless customer experience that delivers conversions and improves ROI.

• One centralized database for improved visibility and connectivity.
• Have the confidence that the integration you’re reviewing is either Dotdigital built or verified, making choosing new tech easier.
• Discover the steps needed to self-install, or how to get in touch with our partners.

How to get started

You can visit the new integrations area from your Dotdigital account. Not a customer? You can also check out our integrations in the partner directory here.

API V3 and improved rate limits

What is it?

Our all-new API offers a top-of-class CXDP experience. Whether you’re wanting to push data into Dotdigital or send it back to other systems, this new API is changing the game. We’ve also enabled higher rate limits for our existing APIs.

Built with the latest RESTful technology, with service versioning embedded from the start, our family of APIs allow you to:

• Integrate quickly with any other system
• Make up to 6,000 calls per minute so data will always be up to date
• Read data in 30ms – that’s five times faster than you can blink

Why is it important?

These new services are the first of a new batch that will be focused on ensuring our customers and partners can integrate even more seamlessly with Dotdigital. This enables you to freely exchange data which in turn drives incredible customer journeys using our communications and automation capabilities.

• Our CXDP allows high-speed data access without burdensome rate limits.
• Sync insight data as you can now retrieve all modified records since your last call.
• Contacts can be identified using any identifier for improved visibility.
• Consolidate many API calls into one by optionally including other contact related data when getting your contact details.

How to get started

Visit the Dotdigital Developer hub for all information relating to our APIs.

The new Dotdigital is now available to all customers

We’ve spent the last few years re-building Dotdigital from the ground up to be able to offer you the functionality of a powerful data platform, paired with our customer experience and marketing automation tools. In short, Dotdigital is now a CXDP.

What is it?

We’ve kept all the things you already love about Dotdigital, and amplified them. Built on our core values of sustainability, privacy, and security, we are continuing to grow the platform to support your business in even more areas.

Dotdigital’s data platform functionality combines email and SMS data to create a unified, single source of truth for your contacts. Unified contacts allows you to bring your data into one place, enabling you to build a deeper connection with your audience.

Why is it important?

Unified contacts, gives you more insights than ever before – all in one place. You now have more ways to identify customers, so you can match up associated data with identifiers including (email, mobile number, and unique contact ID).

A joined-up customer data platform allows you to create an engaging, cohesive customer journey. In today’s market, going beyond the expected is key for brands who want to stand out, be memorable, and offer an exceptional experience.

• Engage with your customers on their preferred channels for optimal engagement and an improved customer experience.
• Deliver a seamless cross-channel experience with multiple touchpoints across the customer journey.
• Gain a 360° view of your contacts to better understand them enabling you to market directly to their interests.
• Deliver campaigns that engage at scale with hyper-personalization techniques and tools that appeal to your audience.

How to get started

We’ve done all the work, unified contacts is now a part of your Dotdigital account from today.

Other key updates

New look and feel: homepage and better UI

You’ll notice a new, refreshed homepage now featuring key performance metrics and personalized recommendations to help you identify key opportunities and effectively manage your to-do list. We’ve also upgraded our navigation and redesigned the SMS editor, making the platform easier and more intuitive to use.

A Dotdigital PWA

We’ve developed our own progressive web app (PWA) for the Dotdigital platform. This app makes it easier for you to access the Dotdigital platform. Simply pin the new app to your task bar at the bottom of your screen for instant, easy access. Head to the help center to find out more.

Shopware multi-store support

Shopware merchants can now connect multiple storefronts to one Dotdigital account in order to communicate with customers more effectively. Having a multi-store setup connected to one back end store can save time and admin work, this is especially valuable for ecommerce merchants that serve multiple countries.

App blocks for partners

The new partner app blocks enable to partners to build their own blocks for customers to use in the EasyEditor. This gives you more control and flexibility over what layouts you use in your campaigns. Plus, automatically matching campaign style functionality saves you time by removing the need to manually adjust the style via the code.

SMS regulations for Singapore

In order to send SMS in Singapore, marketing providers need to be able to block incorrectly formatted sender IDs, as these are considered a risk for illegitimate messages. Our latest update supports this change – get in touch with your Customer Success representative to enable the change in your account.

At Dotdigital we know it’s hard to keep up with the sending rules and regulations of different countries. We keep on top of it for you so that you can continue to send SMS in 220+ countries across the globe confidently.

Improved login experience

We’re increasing the login inactivity window from 2 hours to 3 days. So you can go away for a long lunch or even a long weekend, without being logged out of the platform.

Join the webinar

Utilizing back in stock notifications

In the fast-paced world of ecommerce, staying ahead of customer needs and expectations can make all the difference in boosting sales and customer satisfaction. Let’s explore some examples of back in stock notifications that demonstrate their value to your ecommerce store:

1. Seasonal products: Seasonal products often face high demand and nothing disappoints a customer more than finding their favorite holiday items out of stock. Back in stock notifications allow a customer to act quickly when the item is available again, making sure it arrives just in time for any special occasion.
2. Limited editions: Offering limited edition products is an excellent way to showcase your brand’s creativity and create a sense of urgency in the market. By having back in stock notifications in place, customers are less likely to miss out and limited runs can maximize their exposure.
3. Pre-orders and product restocks: Anticipation for new launches and restocks can lead to a high volume of inquiries. Back in stock notifications will keep your customers informed about restocks and save time replying to inquiries.
4. Analyzing product demand: Back in stock notifications also provide valuable insights into the demand for specific items, allowing you to optimize your inventory management strategy.
5. Promoting slow fashion and sustainability: By analyzing product demand data from back in stock notifications, you can adopt a more sustainable approach to product development. By understanding which items are most sought after, you can create products that stand the test of time and reduce waste and overproduction. Ultimately this will contribute to your brand’s long-term profitability and positive impact on the environment. 

Why Back in stock notifications are important

Back in stock notifications are not merely a convenience for your customers; they play a crucial role in fostering a positive shopping experience. Here are some reasons why implementing these notifications in your ecommerce store is vital for your business success:

Minimize customer frustration

An out-of-stock item can be frustrating for your customers. By providing a proactive, automated way for them to receive notifications when the product is available, you help manage their expectations and avoid disappointment.

Create excitement with your customers

Studies show the brain releases more dopamine in anticipation of a reward than when receiving a reward. This means that subscribing to a notification and waiting for the product to be restocked is arguably more exciting than going and buying that same product from your competitor.

Retain customer interest

Customers won’t always remember to check your site for the return of an out-of-stock item. Back in stock notifications help you retain customer interest and capitalize on buyer intent. A well-timed alert will create urgency and increase your chances of an immediate purchase.

Decrease churn and increase loyalty

By using back in Stock notifications, you can demonstrate to your customers that you value their satisfaction. With this feature, customers can quickly return to the purchase funnel and avoid missing out on their desired products when they become available again. This fosters customer loyalty and shows them that you are committed to providing exceptional service throughout their entire journey. Ultimately, this can increase their customer lifetime value.

High-quality experiences like these not only keep customers coming back to purchase from your store but also contribute to a higher average spending and long-term engagement, ultimately resulting in a more profitable relationship with your customers.

Get started with Back in stock today

Implementing back in stock notifications in your ecommerce store will have numerous benefits, including minimizing customer churn, improving inventory analysis, and enhancing overall customer experience. 

Dotdigital offers back in stock notifications for BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and Shopify, with more integrations arriving later soon. Don’t hesitate and start taking advantage of this valuable feature today. Get in touch with our team to kickstart your journey and give your customers a shopping experience they’ll love!

Predictive insights, AI-powered campaign support, and unified customer data all give you next-level tools to deliver successful marketing that stands out and lands with impact.

Let’s explore the new features now available from our May release.

Get early access to the new Dotdigital

Welcome to the new Dotdigital. We’ve upgraded our platform architecture and UI to ensure Dotdigital is everything you need now, and in the future. Taking on board customer feedback, the new version of our platform reflects changes in the marketing landscape, and in the ways you want to work. A customer experience and data platform built by marketers, for marketers.

A better user experience

We’ve updated various areas of the Dotdigital user interface to perfectly align with the working methods of the future marketer. We’ve incorporated your comments and suggestions to make it easier than ever for you to utilize all elements of the platform to the fullest, and save time thanks to our new, streamlined navigation.

Changes include:

• All channels now under one campaigns section.
• New and improved audience section to manage contacts, segments, personas, and more.
• Easy to discover analytics and reporting with the new analytics section.
• A new connect area for all your data requirements.

Plus, we’ve also made improvements to our campaign management tools to make the day-to-day management of your campaigns run smoother.

Updated campaign features:

• Simpler campaign replies. Campaign replies are now easier to manage in the Dotdigital platform.
• Improved sign-off process. You can now select multiple team members to have sign-off powers within the platform, reducing backlog and improving usability for large teams.
• Better campaign tags management. Campaign tags can be used to filter and customize performance reports in Dotdigital. A new dedicated area makes it much easier to see and manage all existing and new tags.
• Easier organization. You can now filter your campaign reports by date and even see how transactional campaigns performed during a specific time.
• Effortless product search. We’ve also made some improvements to make it quicker and simpler to find the products you want to include in campaigns.

Get a stronger, unified picture of your customers

Our new unified contact data technology allows you to link all customer data back to one single customer record. You now have more ways to identify contacts, and we’ll continue to expand the sources available to you, including our improved API and our ever-growing list of integrations.

Unified contact data allows you to get the full picture, and gives Dotdigital’s analytics tools more data to analyze when creating recommendations for you. Unified contact data is a big part of what powers a CXDP to enable you to elevate your customer experience.

Why unified contact data is important

• All your data in one place. All of your contact data will be kept together as a single source of truth.
• A clearer, 360 degree view. Unified contact data strengthens the insights you have on a customer, no matter where that data originates.
• Improved campaigns. Seamlessly create data-led campaigns in Dotdigital, providing highly relevant and personalized experiences for your customers.
• Save time. Benefit from all of your customer data from different software applications and multiple variations of customer accounts automatically syncing to Dotdigital.
• A future-proof platform. Unified contact data ensures Dotdigital grows with you as your business and tech stack grows.

How unified contact data works

Unified contact data allows you to unify your customer data from various marketing channels and different software that makes up your customer journey, under one roof. This gives you the full picture of your customers’ journey and experience so you can react with relevant and timely communications across multiple channels.

Unified contact data is now in a Public preview, so you can self-enroll straight away to unify your contact data if you wish to. All of our customers who took part in the limited early-preview love it, so we’re confident you’re going to as well.

An improved API

Our improved API helps you better unify your data by making it easier to connect your systems. Greater efficiency and speed means you can enjoy high speed access to data and easily put in and get out the data you need. There’s also more guidance to help you build your integration and troubleshoot any issues issues, faster than ever before. Our improved API is ready to integrate with your marketing stack now, and in the future too. Flexible infrastructure means that our platform is built to grow with you, and support you in that growth too.

Some highlights include:

• RESTful API with JSON payloads.
• Higher than ever call rates.
• High performance real-time data access, with bespoke content selection criteria.
• High throughput bulk data import mechanisms.
• Support for service versioning to ensure you automatically access the best version of the service without backward comparability issues.
• Unified security across all our APIs.

How to get started

You can start using the new Dotdigital today! Just head to this article in our help center for more information.

The power of generative AI at your fingertips

At Dotdigital, we’ve long utilized AI technology to offer you sophisticated insights, find engagement and revenue opportunities, and provide concrete actions for you to implement. Our latest release continues to build on this by giving you helpful tips and tricks on how to improve your campaign you when you’re putting together email content, or writing your next subject line.

Powered by WinstonAI

WinstonAI encompasses all sorts of known and new smart technology in the platform. Today we’re focusing on his generative AI capabilities. To do this, WinstonAI draws on Microsoft Azure’s generative AI technology (GPT-3.5) to offer suggestions and inspiration on how to take your campaign content to the next level. Working also with Microsoft provides us with the security and enterprise promise of Azure, so you can be sure that you are adopting AI responsibly.

What is generative AI?

Generative AI is a form of machine learning that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, and even audio, by analyzing huge amounts of previous data. Recent breakthroughs in the technology mean that the power of generative AI is now accessible to marketers in their day-to-day work, and we’ve incorporated this into the Dotdigital platform.

Why generative AI in marketing is important

• Get inspiration. WinstonAI appears when you create an email campaign and provides relevant and personalized inspiration based on analyzing pools of data.
• Stay focused and save time. You will receive AI-powered suggestions just when you need them most. WinstonAI is easily made part of your existing processes.
• Better content, more engagements. WinstonAI gives tips on how to improve the tone of your email, points out where your audience might need additional detail, and highlights opportunities that will make your campaign even more successful.
• Subject line support. WinstonAI will provide three subject line alternatives to the one you’re working on. These recommendations are based on data from your 25 most recent email sends, to ensure the advice is tailored to your brand and campaign style.

Predictive analytics

Know your customers’ next move before they do with predictive analytics. AI analyzes your customer data to create intelligence-driven predictions, so you don’t need to rely on guesswork.

Predictive analytics let you know what engagement and revenue opportunities are on the horizon and allows you to be proactive in converting that customer. This makes it easy to act at just the right moment to increase sales and put effective, long-term retention strategies in place.

Why predictive analytics are important

• Stronger campaigns. Improve customer targeting with intelligent insights powered by data.
• Improve CX. Provide an enhanced customer experience with expert personalization and just-in-time targeting.
• Save time. Let the tech do the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on other campaign elements.
• Be one step ahead. Get exclusive intel to create proactive targeting strategies that will keep you ahead of the game.
• Insights you can trust. Have more confidence in your campaigns, inspired by concrete data analysis.

How predictive analytics works

Our predictive analytics focus on:

• Churn probability: (e.g. This customer is 40% likely to churn).
• Predicted next purchase date: (e.g. This customer’s next purchase date is predicted to be June 3).
• Predicted customer lifetime value: (e.g. This customer’s predicted CLV is $360).
• Predicted total future orders: (e.g. This customer is predicted to have three future orders in total).

The data will be available in:

• Single customer view as dynamic metrics.
• You can also create segments that use predictive metrics to decipher which customers to include.

How you can use predictive analytics

• Prevent shopper churn. Easily identify which customers are at risk of leaving your brand. Be proactive and target these customers with a powerful win-back campaign.
• Hit targets faster. Segment contacts based on predicted next purchase date and create campaigns with urgent messaging to encourage sales, such as time sensitive discount codes and free shipping for a limited time only.
• Encourage loyalty. Target customers that are likely to shop elsewhere by creating a segment based on whether they have missed their predicted purchase date. Make these customers feel valued and revive their interest before they go to another brand.
• Drive profitability. Identify and reward your future high-value customers with predicted customer lifetime value. Nurturing these customers early on can help ensure long-term success.

To get started with predictive analytics, sign up to our exclusive early access preview here.

What else is coming in this release?

New campaign heat maps

New campaign heat maps provide a clear, visual map of where contacts are engaging with your emails. Heat maps use a traffic light system to visually highlight where the most clicks take place, with red meaning most clicked, and green meaning least clicked.

This allows you to re-structure your emails to ensure key content is in the most prominent positions.

New Shopify and WooCommerce metafields

We now sync metafields (also called custom fields) as part of our out-of-the-box integrations for Shopify and WooCommerce. Merchants will be able to utilize the extra data they store against their customers and orders to create even more personalized experiences.

Metafields will be synchronized automatically and can be used to to create segments, power hyper-personalized dynamic content, and be deciding factors in automations and more.

New Gorgias integration

Gorgias is a customer service platform built specifically built for ecommerce brands. It allows support reps to communicate with customers across multiple channels, including live chat, SMS, social media, email, phone and more.

This integration will allow you to

• Get more insight into your customers, enabling you to personalize the messaging, content, channel and timing of your communications.
• Exclude contacts based on ticket status.
• Automatically enroll contacts into a program when their ticket is closed.

Back-in-stock notifications

As part of this release we launched back-in-stock notifications for all Big Commerce and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) merchants using Dotdigital. Shopify merchants have been using and loving this feature for a few years. Our easy-to-use configurator means you can create on-brand notifications in no time at all and start generating more revenue in the background straight away.

Once a customer has signed up to back-in-stock notifications from your site, you can send them a triggered email as soon as the item is available to purchase. Back-in-stock email automations are a simple yet effective solution to recovering otherwise lost revenue. Not only do you save that initial sale, but also reduce the chances they will shop from a competitor (there and then, but also in the future).

Over to you

Now it’s over to you to get started with these new features, and of course reach out to your Customer Success Manager or head to our help center if you need any more information.

We’re also running a host of webinars to support this new release, sign up below.

Our latest release enables you to create hyper-personalized experiences, optimize your martech stack utilization, and increase business stability through economic uncertainty.

Let’s dive into this release…

More value in every experience

Say hello to new branded dynamic app blocks from Dotdigital tech partners that allow you to hyper-personalize content and create more engaging campaigns in minutes. Simply drag and drop third-party partner content into your emails and landing pages in the EasyEditor with no coding required. Get more our of your existing martech stack, all while reducing unsubscribe rates from customers.

Why is this important?

Customers of today are looking for better experiences from the brands they decide to spend their money with. They’re firmly after quality over quantity and need no excuse to take their business elsewhere if they feel they’re not seeing value from a brand. Personalized, relevant, and real-time are some of the many elements which can influence their overall experience. We’re happy to announce the first selection of extension partners, with more to follow soon.

How it works:

• Display your Yotpo product reviews in emails. User-generated content (UGC) such as recent reviews, or specific product reviews can increase trust and drive purchases.
• Share promotions and unique coupon codes from Uniqodo. Reward your most loyal customers and incentivize new ones by adding coupon codes to your email campaigns including welcome journeys, win-back programs, abandoned cart, and much more.
• Showcase your happy shopper stories from REVIEWS.io. Display recent 5-star service and product reviews within your email campaigns to drive more conversions.
• Pull through dynamic content with Fresh Relevance. Use Fresh Relevance SmartBlocks to send real-time personalized content such as countdown timers, weather reports, or product recommendations.
• Incorporate your latest 5-star reviews with Trustpilot. Keep your brand experience consistent while showcasing your latest positive reviews, by seamlessly adding customized review blocks to emails and landing pages.

You can see which Dotdigital partners have app blocks available for you to use in our new partner directory. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager, or Business Development representative if you have any questions about a certain partner.

Building a cost-efficient data hub

Reviewing and optimizing existing marketing tech stack spend is high on every marketers to-do list this year. Existing technology needs to work better together and benefit all team members. This release, we’re bringing in more integrations to help you get the most of your martech stack, and optimize any third-party spend. These tech integrations will help benefit everyone within your marketing team.

We’re bringing new integrations from eStar, Marketplacer, Commertools, and Netsuite Oracle to help you bring all your data together in one cost-effective data hub.

Why is this important?

These integrations, along with Dotdigital’s suite of existing commerce tools will help boost your marketing function. Incorporating more shopper behavior data into your marketing enables you to better target and engage with your audiences, ultimately driving more conversions and revenue to your business.

What new integrations are launching?

We’ve got two integrations ready for you to get started with today, and two more are available in a preview which you can sign-up for through your Customer Success Manager.

• eStar: A popular ecommerce platform used predominantly in Australia and New Zealand. The new Dotdigital for eStar integration will sync subscribers and other contacts, product catalogues, and order data to provide a better all-round customer experience.
• Marketplacer: The global online marketplace platform allows businesses to sell their products on a variety of marketplaces through one single platform. This integration syncs both the order and product data, plus any subscribed contacts into your Dotdigital account.
• Commercetools: This is an ecommerce platform built on modern Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native and headless (MACH) principles. Our integration allows brands to easily import product, customer, and purchase data into their Dotdigital account, and make use of the full lifecycle marketing tools. We’re proud to announce that Dotdigital is a certified ISV partner of Commercetools.
• Netsuite: NetSuite provides ecommerce and point-of-sale (POS) solutions that help businesses move away from siloed online and in-store channels and seamlessly connect all customer touchpoints. With the new Dotdigital for Netsuite integration, you can sync product data, customer, prospect, and lead data, as well as their order behavior to power marketing in Dotdigital.

Creating hybrid experiences

We’ve been used to attending virtual events for the past three years, but now – we’re getting up close and personal again, as live and hybrid events return to our marketing calendars. Our new Cvent integration allows you to bring your event attendees into your marketing lists, so you can communicate with them before, during, and after an event.

Why is this important?

Events have always been a key element of the marketing mix for B2B brands. It offers a space for brands, prospects, and customers to build relationships, face-to-face, or virtually. 95% of marketers globally agree that live, in-person events offer the best opportunity to meet buyers and create real-life connections. 65% of buyers agree that attending an event has enabled them to better understand their product, therefore led to a purchase being completed.

How does it work?

The Cvent integration is a self-serve integration which you can access through the Dotdigital Integration hub and set up in no time at all. Use the integration to sync your event invitees, registrants, and attendees into address lists to contact them before, during, and after your event. It’s also possible to sync event data as an insight data collection.

You can:

• Send reminders ahead of the event to attendees let them know how to get to the venue, find your stand amongst the crowd, or even just to ask them to confirm that they’re still able to attend.
• Update your prospective buyers by SMS throughout an event to let them know what’s happening on your stand, and any keynote speakers you may have ready to meet and greet them.
• Send them a roundup of the event after it’s over, including what you’re offering or any FAQ’s you picked up on the day.
• Let prospective customers know of your next event they might wish to join you at.

Whatever your requirement, this integration from Cvent removes data silos and allows you to effectively and efficiently market your events.

Send engaging Trustpilot review invitations – directly through Dotdigital

User-generated content (UGC) is trusted by 85% of shoppers across the globe, and 89% of all consumers actively check product reviews ahead of making their final decision to purchase. With the latest addition to our integration with Trustpilot, you can now send fully customized review invites through Dotdigital as part of your marketing campaigns. Ask shoppers to review a product or service after it’s been delivered to their doorstep, with personalized and branded emails to get more, and better, reviews to use in your marketing.

How does it work?

You can build and send these emails as you would normally as part of a campaign or one-off send. Create the review invitation in Dotdigital’s drag-and-drop email editor, and set them to be triggered either 7, 14, or 30 days post-purchase, depending on what makes sense in your product lifecycle.

Spotlight on our technology and service partners

We know that finding the right marketing technology, service, or agency partners are key to every marketer’s success. At Dotdigital we’re proud to have a broad ecosystem of trusted integration and service partners across the globe. Make sure you’re set up for success by choosing integrations and service providers that work well with each other and help you achieve your business growth goals.

Head to the Partner Directory to search for an technology or service partner in your region.

What else is coming this release?

That’s not all we have to offer in this release, take a look below to see what else there is to get started with:

• Back in stock for Shopify and BigCommerce: Act on customer intent and let your buyers know when a product they’re interested in is back in stock and ready for them to purchase. With Dotdigital’s easy-to-use configurator you can customize your back in stock button and pop-up to be in line with your store. Push it live in a few clicks and start generating otherwise lost revenue, fast.
• Display tax details in product blocks: For wholesale brands and retail industries selling across both B2B and B2C, and those expected to show tax details due to regional or legal requirements; this is the update for you. Easily customize how tax details and other product details are shown in emails and on landing pages. The update is available on products blocks, last browsed, product recommendations, and the abandoned cart block.
• Automate store-based events with Shopware Flow Builder: Our latest release brings new actions into this integration. You can now set any Shopware Store-based events to trigger a transactional email, update any contact in Dotdigital, or enroll into a Dotdigital program. With over 80 triggers available, the options are limitless.
• Filter reports by campaign tags in Cross-account and Account analytics: The latest update to our analytics allows you to filter dashboards by a campaign tag and is the latest addition to a growing list of available filters to help make it easy to customize your dashboard as needed. Campaign tags could include; ‘Black Friday’, ‘Christmas’, ‘Singles Day’, ‘Sales’ and more to help you benchmark your seasonal or regional campaign performance.
• Goodbye Universal Analytics – Hello Google Analytics 4: Google will soon be sunsetting Universal Analytics for the next generation of Google Analytics – GA4. Dotdigital is ready to support you through this transition and keep your reporting function running as normal. UTM link-tracking will continue to work when GA4 rolls out in July 2023. You’ll be able to implement UTM link-tracking for both email and SMS and view this data in your Google Analytics dashboards. We’re running a training webinar to cover is upcoming change in March. Reserve your place here.

Can I find out more?

We’ve recorded two on-demand webinars where we delve into the details of this release, watch now.

As we began planning this release, we knew it was vital that we understand the challenges you’ll be facing soon. That meant thinking about the economic uncertainty facing marketing teams around the world.  

So, with this release, we bring you advanced features to navigate the rocky road ahead. The threat of a global recession is looming over economies everywhere. As intelligent marketers you need to be able to: 

• Demonstrate the ROI of your marketing efforts 
• Report on successes and optimize where necessary 
• Reach audiences at the right moment to drive conversion 
• Generate new leads efficiently and effectively 
• Adapt to the changing demands of your audience 

Our latest feature update aims to make all this possible and so much more.  

Let’s dive in.  

Multi-touch revenue attribution 

From today, you will be able to gain greater insights into the customer journey and demonstrate the genuine value delivered by your marketing efforts.  

How has Dotdigital’s revenue attribution changed?  

Dotdigital’s previous advanced revenue attribution feature was an inference-based, last-click model. This model attributed the completion of a sale to the final engagement point customers made when purchasing from you.  

How does multi-touch attribution work?  

Our new multi-touch revenue attribution model goes even further by taking into account all touchpoints in your customers’ journey and assigning credit to each. By assigning “assisted revenue” to each email campaign your customer interacted with before a purchase you will get a holistic understanding of the marketing lifecycle and can demonstrate the full value of your efforts. 

Why is multi-touch revenue attribution important?  

Multi-touch revenue attribution gives you an overview of what campaigns have the highest level of influence on each sale you make.  

There is an argument that first- or last-touch is more important. First-touch attributes value to the product, page, offering, or campaign that first attracted your customer. Last-touch focuses on the moment when a customer commits to purchasing from your business. It’s simpler, certainly, but simple isn’t always the best. 

Only focusing on first- or last-touch revenue attribution could result in you planning your marketing spend based on skewed data. Multi-touch attribution gives credit where credit’s due. First- and last-touch attribution doesn’t explain how a customer can land on your website looking at Crockpots but ends up purchasing an Air Fryer. Multi-touch does, and it reveals the value behind every stage of your marketing campaign.  

The insights you’ll gain from using multi-touch attribution will enable you to make more effective and efficient decisions when it comes to the allocation of budgets, plus the planning of your future campaigns. And as a bonus, it allows you to tweak those campaigns already in action.  

How to get started with multi-touch attribution 

Our new multi-touch revenue attribution feature is available to all ecommerce marketers who have access to the ecommerce area of Dotdigital.  

Facebook lead ads  

In our latest update, you can now sync contacts from your Facebook lead ads directly into your Dotdigital account. This means you can now easily add them to nurture and re-engagement campaigns to efficiently grow your marketing lists and engage new audiences.  

How does Dotdigital’s new Facebook ad sync work?  

Dotdigitial’s new integration with Facebook lead ads sync contacts automatically from your Facebook account into your Dotdigital account. Live lead ads on Facebook are linked to an ‘instant form’ which collects customer information such as email, phone number, and custom preferences. Once they’ve clicked on your advert and filled in this form, data is seamlessly synced, so you have everything you need to deliver personalized marketing. 

How will Facebook ads sync improve your marketing?  

With an economic downturn facing consumers all over the world, they’re becoming understandably picky about where and with whom they spend their money. Simultaneously, with budget cuts looming and attention focusing on profits and ROI, you need to rethink your acquisition strategies to make them more cost-efficient.  

Our new integration with Facebook lead ads makes it easier for you to pivot and discover new customers and bring them into your marketing audience. With it, you can:  

• Identify potential new customers for your business 
• Collect vital subscriber information for personalized communications  
• Understand the behaviors and interests of your potential clients
• Encourage the download of brochures or whitepapers 
• Get prospects to enroll in your automation programs 

All-in-all, this update will save your team time and money by removing all manual workflows and providing you with the vital information you need to deliver conversion-driving campaigns.  

How to get started with Facebook lead ads 

Good news, our Facebook lead ads integration is ready to go. All you need to do to get started is go into your Dotdigital account and install the integration from the self-serve integration tab, in the “social” section. After this, you can connect your business’ Facebook account to Dotdigital by logging into your brand’s Facebook account and begin syncing data. 

Shopify Hydrogen 

The pressure is on for ecommerce brands to stand out from the crowd and meet customers where they are – on any device. Hydrogen, Shopify’s headless commerce framework, makes this possible. For this release, we’re giving existing Shopify merchants early access to our brand-new Hydrogen integration.  

How does Dotdigital work with headless commerce solutions?  

Headless commerce solutions separate your frontend store from the backend to deliver more agile and consistent experiences for customers. Traditional commerce solutions can connect with third-party integrations but can cause problems to the storefront due to poor architecture or code bloat. This problem is solved with headless commerce which allows data to flow seamlessly from both the front and backend into Dotdigital.  

How to achieve a seamless marketing-to-store handover?  

Dotdigital’s new toolkit for Shopify Hydrogen means you can now craft outstanding customer experiences that range from their first touchpoint to their final purchase and beyond. Simply set up the integration, enable the automatic data flow, and reap the benefit from Dotdigital’s suite of ecommerce features.  

What does early access to Dotdigital’s Hydrogen integration mean for Shopify merchants?  

By giving Shopify merchants access to a live demo Hydrogen storefront, we want to make the transition to headless commerce as smooth as possible for our customers.  

This means, rather than having to start from scratch, you’ll be able to see how we’ve set up programs such as an abandoned cart, web behavior tracking, and live chat in a Hydrogen-powered store. Through this, you’ll be able to set up your store and store-based automations quicker and easier than starting from square one.  

How to get started with the Hydrogen integration 

When we’re Hydrogen-ready be able to find us in the Shopify app store. Our partners and developers can get their hands on the toolkit through GitHub. For more information, check in with your Customer Success Manager or Sales representative.  

Push notifications 

Catching the attention of your customers is not an easy feat. At Dotdigital, we understand this, and that’s why our platform helps you tap into and automate every channel at your fingertips. In this release, we’ve made some important changes to push notifications to ensure they work for you, every time. 

How have we improved push notifications? 

Push notifications aren’t new, but they haven’t always been the most seamless of experiences for many customers. Think of that moment when your favorite fast-food delivery service sends you a discount to be used that very day. You click on the notification but nothing happens. There’s no link to what they told you about.  

So, what have we done about it? We’ve enabled deep linking for your notifications. That means customers who click on your notification will be taken directly to the appropriate page. That 15% discount can finally be claimed and conversions will increase. 

As well as improving deep linking, we’ve enabled the ability for notifications to link directly to a website or landing page if the deep linking function doesn’t give the experience you want. Reporting on all campaigns is essential, no matter the channel, so we’ve ensured you can get full analytics of your push campaigns. By monitoring your push notification interaction rates you can use your performance data to optimize your campaigns. 

How to get started with Push notifications? 

If you’re new to push or want to find out more about how to get started with Dotdigital’s push functionality, you can read all about it in our help center. 

Also coming in this release 

Consolidated analytics 

Account analytics for email and SMS provides you with a bird’s-eye view of your account in one place. This enables you to easily see performance stats across the board. All your KPIs are available at-a-glance, with the ability to deep dive into your results to optimize your marketing for standout results. Previously launched as cross-account analytics our new consolidated analytics is now available for all, to give you better insight into your overall performance. 

As part of this, the previous email-focused dashboard is being replaced with an analytics landing page which will include data for SMS as well as email. 

Tagging and filtering 

When cross-account analytics first launched in May 2022, it gave businesses with multiple child accounts the ability to pull together insights from various accounts. In this update, we have launched the ability to tag and group your accounts with custom tags, giving you the ability to filter and compare campaign performance in a way that matters most to you.  

The new integration enables joint customers to take advantage of reviews in campaigns by creating highly personalized and targeted messaging that boosts engagement. This is done by handing a loudspeaker to brand loyalists and champions, to help them share their love of brands and products with other potential customers. 

“We’ve been long-time partners with Dotdigital, focused on our shared mission to help merchants create unique and personalized customer experiences.

“After seeing a lot of success over the years with the Yotpo-built Loyalty & Referrals integration, it was only a matter of time until we added Reviews & Ratings. We are excited that Dotdigital took the initiative and brought it to life.

“The new synergies allow our shared merchants to seamlessly create a truly connected tech stack that boosts results. And the timing couldn’t be more important.”

Itai Bengal, Director of Product Partnerships, Yotpo

“This latest integration with Yotpo shows our commitment to working closely with our partners to  offer our customers the very best product.

“It takes the original Loyalty & Referrals integration with Yotpo and develops it a step further. Now customers can pull UGC-based reviews into their marketing and support their goals of creating highly personalized marketing content at a time when businesses need to push the boundaries of their customer engagement.”

Steve Shaw, CTO, Dotdigital

How can reviews drive conversions?

So why is user-generated content (UGC), such as reviews, so important to brands? Well – quite simply, reviews are one of the most important elements of a new buyer’s journey. Let’s look at some details:

• 93% of consumers say their purchasing decisions are influenced by online reviews
• 84% say that they trust online reviews as much as they do a personal recommendation from a friend or family member
• 68% are willing to pay more for a product with a higher review rating
• 49% see reviews as an absolute must-have when it comes to purchasing a product

We can see that UGC is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle that brands need to get right, particularly since the introduction of social media. Brands now need to be seen online as well as in traditional advertising spaces. This in turn leads to brands fighting for their share of audience attention, taking place 24/7, 365 days a year.

Trust leads to loyalty, which leads to sales

Yotpo is an organization founded with a mission to provide brands with everything they need to create winning customer experiences from discovery to purchase.

It helps brands enable advocacy by leveraging social proof to increase trust and sales. Once trust has been built and the consumer makes their first purchase, Yotpo powers loyalty programs that can turn customers into longtime brand advocates. In turn, this will increase customer lifetime value (CLV) and – with its latest Subscription product – build a recurring revenue stream for brands.

We all know that customer advocacy and retention are incredibly important, no matter which sector or area your business operates in. You may sell a product that a customer buys once in a lifetime, but their review of that product can help attract new customers and keep the cycle going on and on.

It’s estimated that it takes twice as much work to gain a new customer as it does to retain an existing one. Reviews about your brand or product can help encourage potential customers to buy-in into your brand, products, and services, and become a customer.

Reviews and other UGC are probably the most authentic type of content available to help promote brands. It’s unscripted and a first-hand review directly from a customer – either positive or negative. UGC is the 21st-century word-of-mouth referral and enables customers to directly participate in the growth of their favorite brands, rather than sitting on the sidelines.

How does the Yotpo Reviews and Dotdigital integration work?

The integration between Dotdigital and Yotpo Reviews enables joint customers the ability to create campaigns and automated programs that are based on the review score a consumer left.

By proactively following up on negative reviews, brands can fix issues and reward their shoppers, making them more likely to come back. On the flip side, thanking customers for positive reviews, or segmenting consumers by recent positive reviews, allows them to drive more engagement in social posts and, ultimately purchases.

Combined with the Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals integration, merchants can promote their referrals page to customers, provide a meaningful and cost-effective customer acquisition channel, and reward purchases and reviews with loyalty points, turning consumers into loyal brand advocates.

With out-of-the-box campaigns available, customers are able to get up and running quickly, but also have the option to further develop campaigns based on advanced segmentation based on Yotpo Reviews data. 

Virtual Joais, a Brazil-based jeweler set up a program using Yotpo Reviews and Dotdigital with great success:

“We created a program with two emails in order to analyze our buyer personas. At first, the emails were only directed to people who had recently made a purchase on our website, but the program was not working as expected.

“As soon as we received the email about the Yotpo integration with Dotdigital, we had the idea of adding the segment of people who left a 5-star review on Yotpo and it worked very well. In just a few days we saw much more engagement, had the answers we needed and were able to analyze our Buyer Personas.“

Letícia Lessa, Marketing Analyst, Virtual Joias

To find out more about Yotpo and the Dotdigital integration, you can head to their website to find further resources about how to get set up, and how the integration can work for you and your brand.