How to use item IDs to incorporate Product Feed data in your email campaigns?

The Product Feed app delivers the most up-to-date information about your products, enabling you to incorporate this data into your emails effectively. You can utilize this app within your email campaigns to include the latest product information through two methods:

• Using Item IDs: An item ID is a unique identifier for a product. By providing an item ID, Email Campaigns can retrieve the latest product data from the Product Feed, enriching the emails with accurate product information.

• Using Segments: This method involves incorporating product data based on predefined segments in the Product Feed app, allowing for tailored product recommendations and personalized email content. More information can be found in this article.

In this article, we'll guide you on how to incorporate Product Feed data into your email campaign using item IDs.

Step 1 - Create a Property

Begin by creating a property that contains the item IDs of the products you wish to include in your email. It’s crucial that the property's name ends with the term "products," such as "Recommended Products" or "Abandoned Products." This naming convention is used to identify properties that include item IDs, ensuring they are enriched via the Product Feed. The value for this property should be an array of item IDs, for example, ["2", "3", "4", "5"].

• For Newsletter Campaigns: Ensure there is a profile property ending with "Products" that contains the item IDs.

• For Triggered Campaigns: Create a merge tag within the Email Campaigns app that ends with "Products" and contains the item IDs.

Both approaches ensure that the item IDs are correctly identified and enriched via the Product Feed for your email campaigns.

Step 2 - Add Merge Tags to Your Email

During the beta phase, merge tags need to be added manually to your email campaign. The merge tag includes the property name, the index of the product in the array, and the column name from the Product Feed. Here’s how to construct your merge tags:

• Property Name: The name of the property defined in Step 1.

• Index: The position of the product in the array, starting from 1.

• Column Name: The name of the column in the Product Feed, as shown in brackets in the Product Feed app.

The format and an example for the "Recommended Products" field can be found below:
Format: {{ Recipient.PropertyName.Index.ColumnName }}
Example: {{ Recipient.Recommended Products.1.name }}

Step 3 - Add Conditional Rows to Your Email

A new default merge tag has been introduced, which represents the number of item IDs found in the array. This feature allows you to dynamically display a certain number of rows with products, ensuring that only the rows that can be filled with product data are shown in the email.

Format: {{ Recipient.PropertyName.Count }}
Example: {{ Recipient.Recommended Products.Count }}

To implement this, create a row for each product and add a condition to ensure that the row is displayed only when there is product data available. Since only strings were previously allowed, you’ll need to add a custom condition. Below is an example for the first row, and you can increase the number in the condition as you add more rows. This indicates that the array should contain at least one product for the row to be shown.

Before: {%if "{{ Recipient.Recommended Products.Count }}" >= 1 %}
After: {%endif%}

More information on how to add conditional rows to your email can be found in this article.

Step 4 - Send a Test Email

Now that you've added the property, merge tags, and conditions, it's essential to test your setup. You can easily send yourself a test email by clicking on the three dots in the email editor. Here are some specific steps to follow for each type of campaign:

• For Newsletter Campaigns: Make sure that a recipient list is connected and that the product property is populated for the recipients on the list. This ensures the email will display the correct product information.

• For Triggered Campaigns: When sending a test email, ensure that you include an array with item IDs. This will allow you to verify that the email correctly pulls in and displays product data.

By performing these tests, you can confirm that your email campaign is correctly configured to show the desired product information dynamically.

Note that if there are any item IDs included that cannot be found in the Product Feed, those items will be skipped. For example, a property with five item IDs, where one is invalid, will result in only four items being displayed. This ensures that only valid, up-to-date product data is shown in your emails.