FAQ - SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud Campaign Management and Segmentation

[JanMatthes]

1. Overall Questions
2. Segmentation and Target Groups
3. Marketing Content (Mail, SMS, Landing Pages)
4. Marketing Automation, Trigger-based / Event-driven Marketing
5. Campaign Execution
6. Permission Marketing & Subscription Management
7. Campaign Analytics

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1. Overall Questions

What is Campaign Managment (aka Acquisition) in SAP S/4HANA Marketing Cloud or Hybris Marketing? Here you find an overview with a couple of videos.

Where can I get a training and where to find documentation? Here you find information about training and here is the documentation

What is the difference between SAP Hybris Marketing and traditional marketing software? Here you get more information on the differences between in-memory and traditional marketing softwar...

What is the difference between SAP Hybris Marketing private cloud/on premise and SAP S/4HANA marketing cloud in public cloud? The SAP S/4HANA marketing cloud uses the same code line as our SAP Hybris Marketing on-Premise offering and is simply another deployment model. It is a subset that is preconfigured with standard customization has standard segmentation profiles and also capabilities to change or develop own code.

How can we extend in the S/4HANA Marketing Cloud or develop custom extensions?
For sure you can also adapt the standard scope of S/4HANA Marketing Cloud and extend e.g. by creating own data objects, uploading own data sources or extending standard with field extension.
We provide Fiori-based customizing apps which replace the well-known SPRO in SAP GUI. Here is an expamle.

We also have besides the extensiblity apps in S/4 special BADIs (which are not SAP GUI). Here is an example how this works with developing own campaign channels based on HCI.

Here is a good document which desribes how ABAP can be coded in the cloud:
https://blogs.sap.com/2016/03/18/s4hana-extensibility-concept-details-restricted-abap/

How does SAP Hybris Marketing Campaign Management differentiate against SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales (aka C4C) marketing capabilities? SAP Hybris Marketing is SAP’s strategic, omni-channel marketing solution. It is able to handle B2C, B2B2C, and B2B marketing, whereas SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales (aka Cloud for Customer) is mainly intended for sales-oriented B2B marketing. If you compare all of the capabilities SAP Hybris Marketing offers around segmentation, dynamic content, CMS/E-Commerce-Integration, Landing Pages, Campaign Automation, Trigger-based Marketing and Analytics, it is fair to say that SAP Hybris Marketing is the most powerful and complete solution for end-to-end marketing.

How is contact data from various channels and sources being stored and what is the "golden record" in the interaction contact? The so-called "interaction contact" in S/4HANA Marketing Cloud represents consumers, contacts or corporate accounts. Each interaction contact owns one golden record. The golden record covers the most valuable master data for each contact (e.g. mail address, user names, cookies) coming from various sources (e.g. webshop, contact forms, websites). These data sources are illustrated as facets that are assigned to the contact. For instance, a consumer might own a SAP Hybris Commerce facet, a Website facet and a Facebook facet as part of a business-to-consumer (B2C) scenario. More details on what the golden record is and how it allows managing contact data from different sou.... Here you find more technical details on the golden record and interaction contact.

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2. Segmentation and Target Groups

Is it possible to segment contacts by interaction time, product type, role, and other information? Segmentation supports a wide range of contact or interaction attributes and powerful comparison expressions for numbers, dates, text, geo-locations and more. Here you get a quick overview on what is available. So, segmentation by contact attributes, interaction time, product type, role, buyer, and seller are possible. You can also segment by scores (such as buying probability), geo-location (for example, 50 km around London), date (all customers who had an interaction within the last 10 days, for instance) and time (by extending our standard segmentation profile, you can filter for contacts with interactions within, say, the last 15 minutes). More examples of filter options include: contact field contains, contained in file, contact did not receive a specific email last month, contact clicked through on a specific email, contact hit a specific landing page, and contact submitted a specific form.

Can I do high-volume segmentation with SAP Hybris Marketing? Segmentation with millions of contacts and their interactions is possible and supported. Of course performance is depending on the complexity of data structures, the sizing, the HANA views and the load on the system. For performance related tips & tricks please refer to this document or SAP Note 2075429.

How can I design and populate my own SAP HANA database table and upload the data to the S/4HANA Marketing Cloud? With S/4HANA Marketing Cloud you are able to import own SAP HANA Views for segmentation by using the SAP Fiori App “Add Custom View”. Here you find a description on how to design your own HANA database in SAP HANA Cloud platform (HCP)


What is the difference between dynamic and live target groups? There are two main differences:

1. The live target group is only used for filtering within campaign automation e.g. in trigger-based campaigns or to route the contacts within the automation flow.


2. Live target groups do not persist a member list. So any time you open it, it retrieves all contacts matching the criteria you defined during segmentation.

Dynamic and static target groups store the members and the dynamic ones store also the “versions” of the member lists which is can be created after each refresh.

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3. Marketing Content (Mail, SMS, Landing Pages)

Can SAP Hybris Marketing send personalized and responsive e-mails? Yes, this is possible. Here you get an overview on what is possible in terms of sending personalized mails. One approach to this process could be to design and test a responsive mail template in an external HTML Editor like Dreamweaver, upload the design into an SAP Hybris Marketing e-mail template, and use this as the basis for all mailings. With the separation of the template and e-mail, the e-mail author does not need to bother with design or responsiveness anymore. You can also design and test responsive mails directly in SAP Hybris Marketing. A test button in the E-Mail/Template Editor allows you to enter and test personalization attributes so that you can test the design and the personalization logic.

Is it possible to upload HTML content from external mail editors? Yes, this is possible. Many customers design and develop the basic responsive HTML and CSS code in 3rd party editors and also do the device specific responsivenss testing outside of SAP Hybris Marketing and just upload the result. Afterwards the marketing experts can according to their right change, add or delete blocks and of course add content, personalization and condition logic. Here is a sample HTML and CSS.

Is it possible to personalize e-mails with data from another person, such as a sales rep? Yes, this is possible. The simple approach is to store the names, e-mail addresses, and other information about the sales reps as part of the account team. Then, you can use a personalization attribute in the e-mails for dynamic text like, “Kind regards, Lucy” or “Kind regards, Bill”. Additionally, you might want to have an attribute that contains a URL to a picture of the sales rep. You can use this attribute to dynamically embed picture in the e-mail.

Is it possible to send emails on behalf of another person? You can setup multiple sender profiles for which you can manage the sender name and reply-to-address of each profile. The author of the e-mail can then choose one of the profiles as the sender.

Is it possible to use product-specific context information from a web shop (such as a product picture, text, or URL), without Conversion, as a personalization in a mailing? Yes, here you find a video how this works. We can store product-specific context information coming from a web shop as an “interaction record” in SAP Hybris Marketing and use this as a personalization attribute in an e-mailing. This can be used even if you do not use Conversion as the source for the interaction.

Are landing pages supported with SAP Hybris Marketing? Yes, here you get an overview and here is a video. You can design and deploy contact form and subscription landing pages that allow customers to capture and enrich contact data from the various websites and shops and use the interactions as trigger for campaigns. We also offer powerful self-services that enable contacts to manage their personal data, newsletter subscriptions, and marketing permissions. Read this blog if you want to learn more on the options and technical steps to deploy a landing page...

How does tracking of interactions in mails and in general work? Do I need additional software for this? No, this is for sure part of standard functionality. Here you can find a blog on how tracking works

Can I upload clickstream data from webshop/website and use this to trigger mails? Yes, it is possible to capture browse and click events on a website or shop to e.g. send data about contact behavior from SAP Hybris Commerce to SAP Hybris Marketing. Here you can find a blog how mail and web tracking work and good document which explains how this works with Hybris Commerce webshop. The same approach would work also for other shops or web tracking solutions. After the data arrives in Hybris Marketing you can use it to send mails using a trigger-based campaign.

How can contacts access a personalized mail in the web browser?
Here you find a blog.

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4. Marketing Automation, Trigger-based / Event-driven Marketing

Does SAP Hybris Marketing support event-based or  trigger-based marketing? Yes, we support triggering campaigns through any interaction. Additionally, you can use periodic campaigns with dynamic target groups e.g. for birthday mailings. Here you can find more details.

How can SAP Hybris Loyalty on YaaS and other external systems (SAP and non-SAP) that our clients use benefit from this? Our interaction service interfaces are intended for use by external systems. Front end systems like SAP Hybris Loyalty on YaaS, SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales, SAP CRM, or any non-SAP system can create interactions in SAP Hybris Marketing such as, “New registration to Loyalty”, “points redeemed”, "product registered," or “visited event.” These interactions can trigger the campaigns.

Is it possible to triggger actions with a campaign which are not outbound but only internal e.g. create a task for a sales rep? Yes, users such as sales reps, who use a CRM system, can be involved with an internal action in the campaign which e.g. creates a task, appointment or lead. This can be achieved with our SAP CRM or SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales (aka Cloud for Customer) integration.You can also use the existing interfaces to connect any other 3rd party system using our campaign action framework which is currently on-premise only.

Can SAP Hybris Marketing use the SAP Cloud for Customer or SAP CRM product warranty or install base information as triggers for campaigns? Yes, using the standard interaction interfaces, you can integrate any system that manages product registrations as a source for starting trigger-based campaigns which then send out e.g. a mail to the contact.

Can I integrate custom campaign channels or develop my own campaign actions?
Yes, this is possible. Depending on the type of marketing action you want to use in an external system and your deployment model you can use one of the following options:

• Open Channel: Design customer-specific campaign automation actions to e.g. automate e.g. printing of personalized brochures, provide a list of contacts which shall get a personal information on a website.


• External Campaign Execution: Hand-over unique contact identifier (e.g. cookie) to an external campaign platform from a target group using HCI or use  the standard integration to SAP XM for display ads.


• Campaign Action Framework: Build in an onpremise depolyment any custom-specific campaign action e.g. Twitter, own ESP

Do I need Conversion or SAP HANA Event Stream Processor (ESP) to track website events or interaction records? Do I need Conversion to trigger e.g. an abandon shopping cart interaction? No, not necessarily. You can create interaction records directly using the SAP Hybris Marketing standard interfaces. ESP / Conversion are recommended if you need additional functionality for retargeting, you can use Conversion. If you need more complex logic to translate many, very granular technical events on your website or E-Shop into business-relevant events, you can use ESP, which represents events as interaction records in SAP Hybris Marketing. In our standard Abandon Shopping Cart scenario, we use Conversion and ESP to trigger actions in SAP Hybris Marketing.

Can I send out a mailing to contacts who filled out a web form or had a successful web shop checkout within the last few minutes? Yes, this is possible. With trigger-based campaigns, you can even listen almost real-time to the registration event and send out mails directly.

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5. Campaign Execution

Where can I find documentation for setting up e-mail execution? Here you find the most important documents:

• Installation and Configuration Guide 1608 (Chapter 14.2.2 Setting up Amazon Email Service Provider)


• How to get started with the SAP mail sending services (SAP Intelligent Notification 365)


• FAQ for SAP mail sending services


• How to setup SAP Mobile Services as mail provider


• How to configure Amazon SES


• Amazon SES Documentation

What are the options regarding the e-mail sending infrastructure and ESPs (E-Mail Service Providers)? Besides using our own ESP (aka SAP Mobile Services) we also support Amazon SES as an out-of-the-box ESP. To use Amazon SES, Amazon customers must negotiate and sign a separate contract with Amazon directly (Price Calculator). Here you find a great document on how to configure Amazon SES. This document explains what other options you have for integrating own ESPs.

Can I use two ESPs in parallel in the same system?
Yes, you can use Amazon and SAP Intelligent Notification 365 (aka SAP Mobile Services) together in the same system.

What are the options SAP Hybris Marketing has for e-mail reputation management, white-listing, and such, to ensure that mails are not blocked as spam? The reputation management is done by Amazon SES or SAP Intelligent Notification 365 (aka SAP Mobile Services). They ensure that other providers accept e-mails and also set minimum standards for e-mail content in the contract with their customers. Technical work-arounds to ensure better delivery like throttling or IP address warming do not need to be done by our customers anymore because Amazon ensures best delivery with their service. You can find more details on the Amazon SES page.

What role does the ESP play with respect to tracking opens or clicks in e-mails? Tracking e-mail clicks and opens is a core capability of SAP Hybris Marketing and is independent from the e-mail service provider (ESP), meaning Amazon SES does not track clicks. The feedback we get from the ESP is typically related to the sending of e-mails, such as “Has the e-mail been sent and delivered?” or “Did it hard- or soft-bounce?”

How can I control the time to send a specific email or an email from a specific campaign? You can send e-mails at a specified time using the following methods:

• Within a campaign, set a fixed day and time for execution, or set up periodic execution to send e-mails hourly, daily, or at other intervals,


• Set the sending time for follow-ups immediately after a trigger, or delayed, with a day and time.


• Furthermore you can use a score to calculate the best sending time for each contact (Send Time Optimization STO) by tracking open and click time. Here you can read more on how this works and how you can also determine the channel affinity.

Is it possible to limit the communications sent to a customer? Can this be limited by timeframe and, specifically, for all channels? Yes, this is possible by either using the communication categories to limit the number of mails per contact and timeframe or by using building blocks in segmentation which filter out contacts which had an interaction on a certain channel withing a certain timeframe. Besides these basic limits per channel, we also support advanced concepts that allow you to analyze, on-the-fly, if and how often a contact opens the e-mail...

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6. Permission Marketing & Subscription Management

How does SAP Hybris Marketing manage marketing permissions, opt-in/opt-out, and subscriptions? We support a powerful, general marketing opt-in/opt-out methodology that can be country-specific (for example, the EU requires explicit opt-in permission, while the US requires contacts to explicitly opt out). Furthermore, we can manage subscriptions for, as examples, multiple newsletters and double opt-in. Both can be used, using standard interfaces to read, write, and update. Before sending out a mailing, SAP Hybris Marketing checks the marketing permissions and excludes customers according to the country-specific legislation. Here you can find more details and a video on how this works.

Where does SAP Hybris Marketing store information about a contact’s subscriptions? For managing the marketing subscriptions by contact, we introduced the so-called “communication category.” A customer can have as many communication categories as he wants and can use them to manage his contacts’ requests to subscribe.

Is it possible to define dynmaic rules in order to suppress certain contacts from being contacted? Yes, this is possible with our global suppression rules app. Here you can find more details and a video on how this works.

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7. Campaign Analytics

What does SAP Hybris Marketing provide with respect to analytics? SAP Hybris Marketing is based on SAP HANA. That’s why you can analyze the planning and the success of marketing activities directly in SAP Hybris Marketing.



Technically, we do this using extensible Hana Calculation Views and any kind of BusinessObjects Tool (such as SAP Lumira, SAP BusinessObjects Cloud) for building reports. In addition, you can analyze your marketing activities using the built-in reports for campaign or customer journey.

Which campaign success key figures are being tracked out-of-the-box? Click rates, open rates, and bounce rates, per contact, or by URL, mailing, or campaign, are only some of the standard key figures we provide. These key figures can be analyzed using the built-in campaign reports. Additionally, campaign execution is monitored out of the box. You find details on the analytical content in the business content document which is part of our documentation. Here are exmaples you find in the documentation:

• Number of Delivered Mes­sages: Number of recipients where an email has been sent suc­cessfully to the email provider minus the bounces.


• Number of Bounces: Number of recipients where a hard or soft bounce came back after the email has been sent out.


• Number of Unopened Mes­sages: Number of unopened emails. This is determined by a pixel-
  file in the email. In case the email has been opened this pixel will be loaded and the server registers the opening. With this indicator you can see for each contacted per­son whether the email has been opened or not.


• Number of Unique Clicks: Number of recipients who clicked a link.


• ....

Do I need a separate data warehouse or BI system to do marketing or campaign analytics? No, this is not needed because SAP Hybris Marketing runs on SAP HANA, we can provide powerful analytics out-of-the-box on the same system that performs the campaign execution. If you already have a BI system, you can use the existing integration technologies (such as data services) to connect SAP Hybris Marketing to your BI.

Is it possible to use SAP BusinessObjects Cloud for design and consumption of reports and dashboards? Yes, this is possible with SAP Hybris Marketing on premise. This document gives an overview on how to connect and here you can find a sample dashboard for sentiment analysis.