Linked content allows you to personalize your messages with rich and contextual data that is available outside of the CleverTap platform. It helps you send messages with send-time personalization.

For example, you deliver food across different geographies, and you want to personalize offers to each user based on the weather of their location. The location can come from CleverTap personalization, and the weather information can come from a third-party API that provides the current weather. If you want to add more information, you can opt for any source, such as third-party tools and in-house software, to include in your message.

In a user scenario, you could have three users: one in New York, where it is snowing; one in San Francisco, where it is cloudy; and one in Miami, where it is sunny. You can add conditions in your messages to deliver messages according to the weather and location where the message will be something, such as:

• New York user - Since this user is probably staying in a cold region, you can send an offer to order piping hot food.
• San Francisco user - Since it is the weekend, this user may go out in the evening, so you send an offer for a dinner reservation at a nearby restaurant.
• Miami user - Since it is always sunny, you send an offer for a nearby barbeque restaurant.

This send-time personalization can help you to cater to end-user requirements at send time and bump your open rates significantly.

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Note

You can create Linked Content using Liquid Tags. For more information, refer to Liquid Tags before you begin.

You can use Linked Content with the following engagement channels:

• Email
• Mobile Push
• SMS
• Webhooks
• WhatsApp

Create Linked Content

You can get the data for send-time personalization from different APIs. API names are nicknames that you can assign to the provider APIs. You can call these anywhere in your message so that you do not have to mention the entire API name. For example, if the API fetches the weather information for a particular city. You can shorten the API endpoint URL http://api.example.com/weather-management/city-weather to just Weather as the API name. You can also personalize the API endpoint URL.

To. create API names:

1. Select Settings > Setup > Linked Content. The Linked Content page displays.
2. Click the + Linked Content button to call a new API. To edit the linked content, click the ellipsis menu, then click the edit icon.
3. Enter a name for the API.

4. Enter all the relevant details, such as the access key and query parameters.

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Tip

The API parameters are available with the API provider. Refer to their website or contact their support for API details.

5. Click the Test Linked Content link.
6. Enter the required details to test the API. If the input is correct, you will see a success message. The test response appears in the JSON response box. The following is an example response for the API name you entered:

"request": {
    "type": "City",
    "query": "New York, United States of America",
    "language": "en",
    "unit": "m"
  },
  "location": {
    "name": "New York",
    "country": "United States of America",
    "region": "New York",
    "lat": "40.714",
    "lon": "-74.006",
    "timezone_id": "America/New_York",
    "localtime": "2020-04-22 12:44",
    "localtime_epoch": 1587559440,
    "utc_offset": "-4.0"
  },
  "current": {
    "observation_time": "04:44 PM",
    "temperature": 7,
    "weather_code": 113,
    "weather_icons": [
      "http://cdn.worldweatheronline.com/images/wsymbols01_png_64/wsymbol_0001_sunny.png"
    ],
    "weather_descriptions": [
      "Sunny"
    ],
    "wind_speed": 17,
    "wind_degree": 280,
    "wind_dir": "W",
    "pressure": 1012,
    "precip": 0,
    "humidity": 28,
    "cloudcover": 0,
    "feelslike": 4,
    "uv_index": 6,
    "visibility": 16,
    "is_day": "yes"
  }
}

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Note

The response format is always JSON.

7. You can choose to add each API object manually or click Auto-fill Objects with the API response. All the objects are listed with their label names. If required, you can change the label names here. These labels are available at the time of campaign creation.

8. Click Test and save changes to save all the API changes.

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Encoding Error

If you encounter encoding errors in your API response due to non-English characters, add the charset=utf-8 parameter to your endpoint.

Personalize Linked Content URL

You can dynamically generate URLs that contain parameters based on the user's preferences or interactions. For example, if there is an API that fetches information for a particular city. Instead of setting up multiple Linked Content endpoint URLs to fetch weather updates from different locations, we can set up a single endpoint URL by personalizing the endpoint URL. In this case, the endpoint URL will be as follows: https://api.example.com/weather-management?location-name={{locname}}&location-weather={{locweather}}

The endpoint URL consists of the following parameters:

• Path Parameter: These parameters help specify variable parts of the URL path, allowing APIs to target specific resources or actions dynamically based on the values provided within the URL path itself. Path parameter, when present in the endpoint URL, becomes a mandatory parameter. So, you can include the path parameter as shown in the following image:

• Query Parameters: Query parameters are key-value pairs appended to the end of a URL that provides additional information to an API endpoint. They are used to modify the behavior or content returned by the server. Query parameters are separated from the base URL by a question mark (?), and multiple parameters are separated by an ampersand (&). If we refer to the following image, the query parameters will be: articletopic and user.

In the above image, only the values are personalized in the query parameters. You can even personalize the keys in the query parameters. For example, a user is accessing a movie recommendation API, and the API allows for personalized queries based on the user's preferences and location. In this case, the endpoint URL can be https://movie-recommendation-api.com/recommendations?{{genrename}}={{genre}}&{{location}}={{place}}. So, the keys and values change based on user input or data stored in a user profile, allowing the API to deliver personalized recommendations tailored to the individual's genre preference and location.

Map APIs

The APIs must be mapped to the campaign from the What section. After the APIs are mapped, you can use them in the email body using liquid tags. The sample scenario below shows how to create an email campaign using liquid tags and linked content.

1. Create an Email Campaign.
2. Select the New email with rich media template.
3. From the What section, click icon. The Personalization Setup window displays.

4. Select your APIs from the list under the Linked Content tab.

5. Map the API parameters to the user and event properties, or add custom parameters. Here, we map the query parameter that fetches weather information based on the user location with the help of the profile property Location. This means that each user is sent an offer based on their location.

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Mapping Custom Fields

You can also use liquid tags for personalization when mapping customer properties for an External Trigger Campaign. You can access this feature only if you have External Trigger enabled for your account.

6. Click Apply to save the mapping.

We are now ready to start writing Linked Content.

Use Labels

You can write linked content with labels. There are two types of labels that you can use in your linked content.

• Custom Labels - These are labels you can create yourself. For example, a password or authorization key.
• System Labels - These are default labels you can use to analyze API responses.

Custom Labels

The API response will provide you with a set of object labels. However, if you want additional personalization, you can create custom labels during the creation and editing of APIs. These will not be part of the API response.

System Labels

These are CleverTap labels that are available by default. You can use them to gauge the health of your API and check whether the responses are received correctly.

Arrays in API

The response from an API may have arrays with nested JSON.

"restaurants_info": [
    { 
        "id": "16769241",
        "name": "Junior's Restaurant",
        "user_rating": {
            "aggregate_rating": "4.7",
            "rating_text": "Excellent",
            "votes": "538"
     }      
    },
  
    {
        "id": "16763460",
        "name": "Cookshop",
        "user_rating": {
           "aggregate_rating": "4.6",
           "rating_text": "Excellent",
           "votes": "252"
        }
    }
]

You can create conditions based on this array. For example, the response above has an array called restaurants. This array contains items under it such as id, name, rating. Notice the object user_rating. It is a nested object that contains an aggregate rating of the restaurant, rating text from an actual user, number of votes, and so on. You can use the array in the following manner:

{% for restaurant in Linked.RestaurantAPI.restaurants_info limit:5%} 
{{restaurant.name}}  {{restaurant.user_rating.rating_text}}
{% endfor %}

The output will be something similar to the following text:

Marta has a rating  Excellent
PN Wood Fired Pizza  Excellent
PQR Very Good
&pizza   Good
Leonelli Focacceria e Pasticceria Good

Create Message

After you have created and saved the APIs, use the linked content in your campaigns. It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with Liquid Tags before you start writing Linked Content.
The syntax for writing linked content is Linked.APIName.label. In our previous user scenario, we had three users, one in New York, where it was snowing, one in San Francisco, where it was cloudy, and one in Miami, where it was sunny. You can add conditions in your messages to deliver messages according to the weather and zip code. So, you can plan the following message:

• New York user - Since this user is probably staying in, you send an offer for ordering piping hot food.
• San Francisco user - Since it is the weekend, this user may go out in the evening, so you send an offer for a dinner reservation at a nearby restaurant.
• Miami user - Since it is always sunny, you send an offer for a nearby barbecue restaurant.

The following is what a written personalized linked content for your users may look like:

Hi {{ Profile.name | default:"there!" }},

{% if Linked.cityBasedWeather.temp > 30 %}
It is a bright sunny day in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}. How about a barbeque today?


{% elsif Linked.cityBasedWeather.temp < 10 %}
It is indeed cold today in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}!! Time for some hot pizza!
{% else %}
It has  been a while in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}. Order something exotic!
{% endif %}

If you want to add a list of the top 5 restaurants in this message, you can add the following in the main message:

{% for restaurant in Linked.RestaurantAPI.restaurants_info limit:5%} 
{{restaurant.name}}  {{restaurant.user_rating.rating_text}}
{% endfor %}

The final message before you send out the email may look like the following:

Hi {{ Profile.name | default:"there!" }},

{% if Linked.cityBasedWeather.temp > 30 %}
It is a bright sunny day in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}. How about a barbeque today?

Use the coupon code (BARBQ).
These are the top 5 restaurants near you:
{% for restaurant in Linked.RestaurantAPI.restaurants_info limit:5%} 
{{restaurant.name}}  {{restaurant.user_rating.rating_text}}
{% endfor %}


{% elsif Linked.cityBasedWeather.temp < 10 %}
It is indeed cold today in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}!! 
Time for some hot pizza!
                                         
Use the coupon code (PIZZA). These are the top 5 restaurants near you:
{% for restaurant in Linked.RestaurantAPI.restaurants_info limit:5%} 
{{restaurant.name}}  {{restaurant.user_rating.rating_text}}
{% endfor %}
                                          
{% else %}
                                          
It has  been a while in {{ Profile.location | default:"your city" }}. 
Order something exotic!
                                          
Use the coupon code (EXOTIC).These are the top 5 restaurants near you:           {% for restaurant in Linked.RestaurantAPI.restaurants_info limit:5%} 
{{restaurant.name}}  {{restaurant.user_rating.rating_text}}
{% endfor %}
                                          
{% endif %}

Add some personalizations from our editor, then send out the email. For additional information on how to personalize your email, refer to Create an Email Campaign.

FAQs

Q. Do you retry if the linked content API fails to give a successful payload?

A. We do not retry if the linked content API fails to give a successful payload.

How much time do you wait to fetch the API response?

A. We wait Five seconds to fetch the API response.