Implementing in email

Collecting feedback and preferences in email channels is critical because it's a primary customer touchpoint for many customers and getting interactions in this channel wrong can reduce overall customer engagement and lifetime value.

Pulse Insights has a different approach than most email surveys. We recommend collecting feedback, contextually, in emails that you are already sending to get feedback on what is in your users' heads as they interact with that email. Often times that means Pulse Insights collects information via short question just above the footer of the email.

Key Differences with Web implementations

Implementing in Pulse Insights in emails channels has some notable differences from implementing on web. While, generally speaking, the email channel has more limited capabilities, the insights and data that stem from it are still incremental and impactful to your business.

This table refers to surveys in standard HTML emails. Pulse Insights also supports Dynamic Email, which has expanded capabilities, but not all ESPs and email clients support it.

Web Channel	Email Channel
Surveys are dynamically decisioned on each pageview for each user by Pulse Insights	Surveys are decisioned at send-time at the Email Service Provider in collaboration with your email team
Survey formatting is controlled by Pulse Insights and configured in Console	Survey formatting is controlled by your email team and configured by your email team
Implementation is via JavaScript code snippet placed on your website	Implementation is via links (one per answer) from Console that are then used in your HTML email
Surveys support multiple question types, branching, and free text capture in the same pageview.	In the email itself, single-choice questions are supported. Clicking a response opens a web experience to your website that contains any Thank You messages or follow-up questions.

How It Works

Creation

• Each answer of the first question of the survey is a dedicated link from Pulse Insights.

• The links are coded specifically for your email service provider to insert any desired macro or personalization tags to, say, pass a User ID.

• You will also need the tag on the landing page to enable on-site follow up questions and Thank You messaging.

• Your email team inserts the survey links into the email or template applying the appropriate html/formatting.

• Pulse Insights can be part of the proof send process to validate user experience and data.

User Experience

• Typically, the survey or preference capture is below the primary body content but above the footer.

• When a user clicks any survey link, Pulse Insights records the response and any associated data like User ID. There isn't a need for the user to answer again on the subsequent page like in some other email survey platforms.

• Pulse Insights redirects the user to a relevant page on your website, to further engage with the content and your brand.

• On that webpage, Pulse Insights can display follow-up questions, a thank you message, or utilize any other capabilities that exist in the web channel such as Next Best Action.

Data & Integrations

• If you have any integrations to your Data Lake, CDP, CRM, or ESP they will occur per the specs of the integration.

Anatomy of a Pulse Insights link

Example of a custom link

• Each survey link:

  • Tracks the user’s response

  • Records the Client Key and other Context Data (optional)

  • Redirects the user to the landing page and displays the appropriate follow up question or Thank You message on the page.

Please let your CSM know the domain of landing page so they can properly configure the link and whitelist the domain.

Email Survey FAQs

What contextual data should we pass via the links?

Most commonly you'll want to pass a user identifier so that you can know who answered and follow-up if necessary. This also can enable integrating the data at a user level throughout your organization - e.g., inserting the feedback or preference into a CRM, CDP, or back in the ESP.

See other common contextual data to consider passing to Pulse Insights.

How do we pass user ID via the survey links?

It is passed to Pulse Insights via merge tags (also known as a macros, tokens, or personalization tags, depending on the ESP). The syntax differs by email service provider and often have a form like

{{user_id}}

or

%%user_id%%