Get External Content Tags Introduction

Using external content can help you streamline your campaign deployment process. You can use the get tags to interface a Content Management System with the platform. In many cases, the connection is almost completely automated.

For a highly reliable and automated way of sending to users from externally controlled content:

Create a Template to grab the content using one of the tags.
Schedule a publishing event in the Calendar.
Activate Workflow Approval in List properties.

This process deploys a campaign at the scheduled times. When each campaign starts, the content is grabbed into the template and an approval message is sent. Once the message is approved, the campaign is deployed to all contacts.

The Get tags allow you to grab the content hosted on an external web page and insert the content into your Template or Article. This content can be used in the body or subject line of your message.

NOTE: Get commands will fail if using a URL that requires a redirect.

SmartGet

SmartGet is designed to pull external content from a specified URL into a template when a campaign is published. The content is only grabbed at run-time, and not on a per-message basis. Even if there are 100 contacts on the list, only one instance of the content is generated.

Some practical uses of SmartGet include:

embedding a common header or footer into every message
embedding common opt-out content into every message
embedding content, current news or information from an external Content Management System

SmartGet can be nested up to eight levels. The content that is retrieved using these commands can also contain additional tags to pull external content.

WebGet

WebGet is an extension of the SmartGet, added in version 11.7, allowing you to pull external data from a page requiring a User-Agent string. The content is only grabbed at run-time, and not on a per-message basis. Even if there are 100 contacts on the list, only one instance of the content is generated.

XSLTGet

XSLTGet is an extension of the SmartGet, allowing you to pull external structured data from an XML page, such as an RSSFeed or API. The content is grabbed at run-time and formatted with an XSLT style defined in an article. Any data elements defined in the XML content can be inserted into your template content. XSLTGet supports the same commands as SmartGet.