Innovative, engaging and interactive email form blocks are live in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Content Builder since March 2020 Release. The form enables marketers to easily build interactive form that rendering in the customer’s inbox. When the form is submitted, data is written to a Data Extension and the customer is landed on a specifically created CloudPage to see some Thank You content.
Which use cases are supported by an interactive form block?
Almost any that come into your mind. You can either start from scratch, create a review from already prepared template, update subscriber’s profile with progressive profile form, or present some variations of a case or lead form for Salesforce data integration.
What assets are needed to build an interactive email form?
- CloudPage – there is a new type available called Interactive Email Page. If the general Cloud Page is created, you will not see the one in CloudPages Destination drop down list.
- Data Extension – in the second step of a form creation you have selection of your response capture. It could be already existent Data Extension, or the one you let create automatically when the form is created.
- Fallback Content – here it is important to grab your attention: not all email clients support interactive forms. That is why you need to think about your fallback state, that will be displayed in that worse case. This could be a button that links to the form on the CloudPage, for instance. Or, you can also choose to show nothing.
From the technical perspective the form itself is built with the help of AMPscript.
%%[
VAR @CPID, @deExtKey, @encodedDeExtKey, @CPURL, @qsStart, @qsValueStart, @qsValue, @unmappedFields
SET @CPID = “2516”
SET @deExtKey = “018FF1D8-AA54-4163-AE62-C352D946ACEA”
IF (@CPID == “undefined”) AND (@deExtKey == “undefined”) THEN
RaiseError(“Please select a CloudPage and Data Extension and assign all fields to data attributes on the Interactive Email Form Block.”)
ELSEIF (@CPID == “undefined”) THEN
RaiseError(“Please select a CloudPage on the Interactive Email Form Block.”)
ELSEIF (@deExtKey == “undefined”) THEN
RaiseError(“Please select a Data Extension and assign all fields to data attributes on the Interactive Email Form Block.”)
ENDIF
SET @encodedDeExtKey = URLEncode(@deExtKey,1,1)
SET @CPURL = CloudPagesURL(@CPID,’ic_deN’,@encodedDeExtKey)
SET @qsStart = IndexOf(@CPURL,’?’)
SET @qsValueStart = Add(@qsStart, 4)
SET @qsValue = Substring(@CPURL, @qsValueStart)
VAR @linkToClickCode, @link2C, @regexPattern, @trackedClickLink
SET @linkToClickCode = ‘Interactive Email Form Submit‘
SET @link2C = TreatAsContentArea(“submitTrackingClick”, @linkToClickCode)
SET @regexPattern = ‘href=”(.+?)”‘
SET @trackedClickLink = RegExMatch(@link2C, @regexPattern, 1)
]%%
You can recognize @CPID as a CloudPage ID, @deExtKey as a Target Data Extension for the Response Capture, and other technical parameters to raise an error in case unexpected error occur (RaiseError), to link to a CloudPage with encrypted values (@CPURL), etc.
What you can see from the User Interface is simple drag&drop options, that make it easier to select CloudPage response capture, right type of field for the form, design of the elements, etc.
For the input capture you have plenty of options available.
You can also use hidden fields to pass information you already know behind the scenes. These fields could be passed in AMPscript format, for example %%=v(@value)=%%. Don’t forget to define this ‘value’ in the block before the form, for example:
%%[
set @value = AttributeValue(“value”)
]%%
For the rating option, you are limited to present ‘star’ images. But there are available several special workaround options.
First simple option is to use ‘Button Single Choice’ as an input choice. You can then amend the buttons in Design Tab.
The second option is more global. In case you want to add some customizations to your form, you can copy the raw code of the form that is available in the Code View Tab and amend it on a side accordingly. Then paste back to the email as an HTML block. Don’t forget to test the form carefully then!
Need more info?
Check official documentation that covering how to create an interactive email page, form block and having FAQ section.
There is a Trailhead module created especially to explain how interactive email can improve your marketing strategies.
You can also ask me directly writing an email to ekaterina.obolenskaya@trailblazercgl.com or in Twitter.
