To sync Dynamic Content to the subject line of a text message:

1. Choose to create a new or edit an existing HTML message. This will take you to the Edit Message page.
2. Click Make Subject Dynamic.
3. Choose the conditional. For the first block, by default, you can only choose if.
4. Choose the operator. The available operators are:
   • In List
   • In Segment
   • Field Is Blank
   • Field Is Equal To
   • Field Is Not Equal To
   • Field Is Greater Than
   • Field Is Less Than
5. Choose a value. The values that you can choose from depend on the operator you choose in the previous step.
6. Click OR to add an additional value.
7. Add the Content that will be displayed if the Dynamic Content conditions are met.
8. Optional) If you wish to add nested conditionals to a Dynamic Content block, click Logic. You can add 2 nested conditionals per Dynamic Content block. To add additional Dynamic Content blocks, click Add Block.
9. Click Insert Dynamic Subject.
10. Make sure the Sync HTML and Text Subjects checkbox is checked.
11. Click the Text Version tab.
12. Click Re-generate from HTML version. You will see the Dynamic Code that represents the Dynamic Content you added in the subject line of the HTML version of your message now displayed in the subject line of the text version of your message.

If you are a comfortable with using Dynamic Code, you can always add Dynamic Code directly to the subject line of your plain text messages. For everyone else, you can use the steps above to add Dynamic Content to the subject line in the text version of your messages. If have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below.

John Gunther
Technical Writer/eLearning Specialist at Bronto
Editor of Brontoversity

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2. Adding Dynamic Subject Lines For quite some time, Bronto users have had the...
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Last fall, Alex explained how to Clear Contacts From Lists in v3 of the API. You now have the same ability in v4 API using the clearLists function. All you need to do is specify the list id returned from the addLists or readLists function. After you call clearLists, all your contacts will be removed from the list, however, they will remain in Bronto.

Here is a sample SOAP message that would clear two lists.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:v4="http://api.bronto.com/v4">
   <soapenv:Header>
      <v4:sessionHeader>
         <sessionId>b058d5e0-7cb4-4578-b16f-a4c049079207</sessionId>
      </v4:sessionHeader>
   </soapenv:Header>
   <soapenv:Body>
      <v4:clearLists>
         <list>
            <id>0bbb03ec0000000000000000000000038e93</id>
         </list>
         <list>
            <id>0bbb03ec00000000000000000000000390d0</id>
        </list>
      </v4:clearLists>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

This PHP script would create a SOAP message like this.

<?php
/**
 * This example will clear two lists of all contacts on those lists.
 * You must edit the code to refer to the list id you wish to clear.
 */

$client = new SoapClient('https://api.bronto.com/v4?wsdl', array('trace' => 1, 'features' => SOAP_SINGLE_ELEMENT_ARRAYS));
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'en_US');

try {
        $token = "#####API TOKEN###########";

        print "logging in<br>";
        $sessionId = $client->login(array('apiToken' => $token))->return;

        $session_header = new SoapHeader("http://api.bronto.com/v4",
                           'sessionHeader', array('sessionId' => $sessionId));
        $client->__setSoapHeaders(array($session_header));

        $ids = array(array('id' => '0bbb03ec0000000000000000000000038e93'),
                   array('id' => '0bbb03ec00000000000000000000000390d0'));

        $res = $client->clearLists($ids)->return;

        if ($res->errors) {
                print "There was a problem clearing your lists:<br>";
                print $res->results[$res->errors[0]]->errorString . "<br>";
        } else {
                print "Lists have been cleared<br>";
        }
} catch (Exception $e) {
        print "uncaught exception\n";
        print_r($e);
}
?>

Now you are able to quickly and easily clear your lists without having to find everyone on the list. We do suggest you exercise caution when using this function, as there is no rewind button. I hope you find this new functionality useful. Let us know if you have any questions.

Andrew Kanes
Support Engineer at Bronto

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The correct format for the Success tag in Bronto is %%!success%%. Easy enough, right? Now, let’s say you are creating a Manage Preferences Webform (located under Content->Webforms.

1. Click Form Settings.
2. In the Message To User section, you will see a text box called Success Message. In this text box, you can add a message that will be displayed via the %%!success%% special tag. This special tag can be added to the page that is displayed after the contact submits the Webform. You will choose which page is displayed after the Webform is submitted in the Webforms Settings section.



3. From the previous step, we chose to send contacts to the “Default Thank You” Webform after the Manage Preferences Webform was submitted. On the Default Thank You Webform, we can add the %%!success%% special tag to display the text we added in the Success Message text box from the previous step.



4. After a contact submits the Manage Preferences Webform, they are taken to the “Default Thank You” Webform, which displays the text referenced via the %%!success%% special tag.

That’s all there is to it. Adding Success Tags is a quick and easy way to customize your Webforms and add in the content your contacts need to see when they submit your Webforms. Drop us a comment and tell us how you are using Success Tags to customize your Webforms.

Rob Slade
Client Services Specialist

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When you add Social Sharing links to your message using the WYSIWYG editor, you will be asked to specify a Title and a Summary. Each social media outlet handles the display of the Title and Summary differently, and sometimes doesn’t use them at all. Below is a screenshot displaying how each social media outlet displays the Summary and Title when a contact clicks a social sharing link from your message.

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

MySpace

Digg

Obviously for this post, I have used a generic Title and Summary. When you create your Social Sharing links, you’ll want to come up with a creative Title and Summary that best applies to the Social Sharing links you are adding. If you have any additional questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

John Gunther
Technical Writer/eLearning Specialist at Bronto
Editor of Brontoversity

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Teaching Your Contacts How To Add You To Their Address Book

The links below provide you with information that you can use to teach your contacts how they can add you to their email address book. Doing this will help ensure that the messages you send make it to your contacts inbox, and in some cases, ensure they always load the images in your messages.

* Gmail
* Yahoo Mail Classic
* MSN Hotmail
* Mozilla Thunderbird
* Microsoft Outlook 2010
* AOL
* Comcast

If the provider is not listed here, your subscriber may need to contact their email provider or ISP to find out how to add you to their email address book.

As always, if you have any questions about adding contacts to your address book or email deliverability in general, feel free to post in the comments or to open a case from the Support link within your account.

Brad Gurley
Support Associate at Bronto

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So, what is a Bulletproof button anyway?

A Bulletproof button is a button or navigation bar in your HTML email that looks the same regardless of whether the contact has enabled images or not. They are great for calls to action that can be seen even if the contact doesn’t enable images in their inbox. Instead of being made up of one or more images like a traditional graphical button, bulletproof buttons are built from pure HTML. You may not have the same graphic flair available to you, but that is a small tradeoff for the greatly enhanced readability.

Below is an example of each kind of button. The button on the left is actually a bullet proof button. If you highlight it, you’ll notice that you can actually select the text on it. The button on the right is a regular old graphic button, which, if images were not available, would be totally invisible! Not much use, huh?

Bulletproof!

So how can I make a bulletproof button?

Making these buttons used to be a bit of a chore. You would have to manually write the HTML code involved. The code for the button above looks like this:

 Bulletproof!

Luckily, the folks over at Email Transit have whipped up a Bulletproof Button Generator that they have been kind enough to share with the internet. You can find the generator at http://emailtransmit.com/bulletproof

That’s all there is to it. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below.

Lucas Weber
Bronto Client Services

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We are implementing this in an effort to make sure your information is only accessible by your username. When you request a password reset, the application will ask you the security question that you chose, and you will need to respond with the correct answer that you previously supplied. Make sure to be careful, though, as the answer that you supply is case sensitive.

If you are sharing a username with another user, you may want to consider stopping this practice. We strongly recommend that each username have only 1 user responsible for it. If you need more users, please contact your account manager. If you have any questions regarding the security question, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Frank Chapman
Bronto Client Services

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As is standard, we have included create, read, update, and delete functions for logins. We have also made an effort to make the objects that are accessible through the API very closely mirror their web application counterparts. In other words, creating a contact, message, account, login, etc through the API should feel very similar to creating one in the application.

The quickest way to get a sense for an object and its parameters is to read one or more that have already been created. So check out the readLogins function and give it a try with an empty filter. Here’s an example SOAP request/response generated from soapui:

All of the permissions should look familiar if you have had a chance to edit a user’s permissions in the application. Hence, when you create a login object through the API, you can specify those same permissions. Here is what the SOAP request for the addLogins function looks like.

With these new functions in hand, you will be able to automate the management of your account, whereas previously this was only possible by logging into the Bronto web application.  We hope you find them useful and welcome any feedback.

Alex Durzy
Support Engineer at Bronto

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Creating Content Tags

To create a Content Tag:

1. Go to Content->Content Tags.
2. Click Add Content Tag.
3. Specify a name for the tag in the Name text box. The name you specify will be used to references this block of content via the Content Tag. For example, if you name the Content Tag mycontenttag, you would reference this Content Tag in your message by adding %%@mycontenttag%% to your message.
4. Add the content you wish to display via this Content Tag using the WYSIWYG editor.
5. Click Save.

NOTE: HTML used in Content Tags will appear as is (i.e. unformatted) if the Content Tag is used in a plain text message. In other words, if you add “This word is <strong>BOLD</strong>” in your Content Tag and then add that Content Tag to a plain text message, you will get “This word is <strong>BOLD</strong>” instead of “This word is BOLD“. However, if you add this Content Tag to an HTML message, you will end up with “This word is BOLD“.

Adding Content Tags To Your Message, Header, Or Footer

To add a Content Tag to your message, header, or footer:

1. Create a new, or edit an existing message header, or footer.
2. In the body, header, or footer of your message, add %%@thenameofyourcontenttag%%, replacing
   thenameofyourcontenttag with the name of the Content Tag you want to reference. For a list of all the Content Tags in your account, go to Content->Content Tags.
   
3. When editing a message where Content Tags are being used in the message, header, or footer, click Show Preview. The preview will allow you to see what your message will look like with the content referenced via the Content Tag added to the message, header, or footer.
   

So now you have a convenient way to utilize reusable blocks of content that can make the creation of your messages that much more easy and efficient. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

John Gunther
Technical Writer/eLearning Specialist at Bronto
Editor of Brontoversity

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Placing Field Tags in your messages is a great way to use existing contact data to create more personalized messages. However, sometimes you don’t have certain data for contacts in your account. Without this data, the tags will be replaced with no content. Obviously, this can create problems and be a blemish on an otherwise flawless email.

Tell Me More

Let’s start off with an example. Let’s say at the top of your message you have the following salutation:

Dear %%firstname%%,

When the message is sent, %%firstname%% will get replaced with the value stored for the contact in the firstname field. However, if there is no value in the firstname field for the contact, the salutation will read “Dear ,”. Not only does this look bad, but it ruins the personalized feel of the message and leads your contacts to believe that grammar was a sour point for you in school!

Dynamic Content To The Rescue!

To prevent this little mishap from occurring, you can make use of Dynamic Content. We could remedy the issue in the example above by doing the following:

1. Click Insert Dynamic Content on the WYSIYG editor toolbar.
2. Select the options shown in the screen shot below from the Edit Dynamic Content window.
3. Click Insert Raw Dynamic Code or Insert Re-Editable Dynamic Content.

Basically this works by checking to see if the firstname field is blank. If it is, then the text “Valued Customer” is used. If the firstname field for the contact has a value, then the value is used. For those of you familiar with Dynamic Code, the complete code for the salutation would look something like this:

Dear {dynamic_code}{if $Contact.firstname eq ""}{literal}Valued Customer{/literal}{else}{literal}%%firstname%%{/literal}{/if}{/dynamic_code}

A contact with no value in the firstname field would see “Dear Valued Customer”, whereas a contact with a value in their firstname field would see “Dear John Doe” (where John Doe is the value in the firstname field for the contact).

So now you have an easy way to handle instances when there is no data in Field Tags you use in your messages. Feel free to leave any questions or comments in the comments section below.

John Gunther
Technical Writer/eLearning Specialist at Bronto
Editor of Brontoversity

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2. The Logical Way To Send Email: Dynamic Content We have been blogging a lot in recent weeks about...
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