Open-Time Email Recommendations in BlueConic let you deliver dynamic, individualized product recommendations, content recommendations, and banner call-to-actions in email. BlueConic determines what to display at the moment a recipient opens the email—using up-to-date profile data, segmentation, and decisioning logic.
Use this connection to:
Send personalized product or content recommendations
Deliver dynamic banner Dialogues in email
Apply Next Best Action logic directly within email
Run A/B tests or model-based optimization
Use your own recommendation model
Recommendations update when the recipient opens the email—even if clicks, views, or profile changes occurred after the email was sent.
Before you begin
Before setting up open-time email personalization:
Use a Product Collector or Content Collector to gather items.
Ensure the recipient’s email address (or another unique identifier) exists in both BlueConic and your email service provider (ESP), and matches a known BlueConic profile.
Confirm your ESP supports dynamic HTML snippets.
If you plan to use Dialogues in email, create a Banner Dialogue in advance. Open-time email supports Banner Dialogues only.
Create open-time email recommendations
Follow these steps to configure dynamic product or content recommendations.
1. Create the connection
You can compose a set of up to 10 personalized, dynamic recommendations. Use the HTML code snippet you send to customers via your ESP (email service provider).
In the BlueConic navigation bar, click Connections.
Click Add Connection.
Search for Open-Time Email Recommendations.
Open the connection.
Enter the name and metadata for this connection.
Click Save.
2. Choose a Content or Product Collector
In the left panel, click Create Open-Time Email Recommendations.
Choose a Product Collector or Content Collector.
Select recommendation algorithms and filter rules.
Choose the number of items (up to 10) and click the recommendation algorithm names (Breaking news, etc.) to select recommendation algorithms.
(Optional) Select Configure fallback items.
Click Save.
Note: Recommendations are based on items collected by the selected collector. Fallback items fill empty positions if other algorithms or filters do not return enough results.
Bring your own recommendation model
You can also select a custom recommendation model in this step.
This feature allows you to plug in your own proprietary recommendation logic and scoring models. BlueConic retrieves results from your model at open time and renders them in the email.
Use this capability to:
Apply internal AI or data models
Customize ranking and scoring logic
Align recommendation logic with business-specific goals
Expand personalization beyond standard algorithms
3. Design and preview your recommendations
1. Set the visual properties for the recommendation block, including:
Dimensions (WxH)
Format
Quality
2. Next to Template, click select other to choose a template (or design a custom template) that creates the image and title for each recommended item. Your email service provider (ESP) controls the overall email message design.
3. Use the Preview section to review how the recommendation block renders.
4. Match your customers' identifiers between BlueConic and your ESP
Enter matching identifiers between your ESP (via an expression) and BlueConic (via the BlueConic profile identifier or another unique identifier).
To match BlueConic profiles to email recipients, enter the ESP expression for your email platform using the table below.
Note: You can match customers using any unique identifier, a profile property marked as 'unique identifier' such as customer ID, for example. The unique ID must be present in both BlueConic and the ESP, and your ESP must be able to personalize the email based on this unique ID.
5. Copy the recommendation code to send in your email message
Copy the entire block of HTML code below and paste it into your email message.
Paste it into your ESP email template.
Note: If the "utm_" or "bc_" parameter is included in an open-time email recommendation URL, that parameter will also be included in its tracking URL, allowing you to better track visits to that landing page—and any subsequent pages—and evaluate the effect of the recommendation. (This feature currently works for recommendations managed via the BlueConic REST API, JavaScript API, and the Export - Generate recommendations data processor.)
Common ESP expressions
Identify your ESP expression in the table below, then apply it in Step 4 to link BlueConic profiles.
Email service provider (ESP) | ESP expression | Link to learn more |
Acoustic |
| |
Active Campaign | %EMAIL% | |
Campaign Monitor |
| |
Constant Contact |
| |
dotdigital |
| |
Higher Logic** |
| |
Hubspot |
| |
iContact |
| |
Klaviyo |
| |
Listrak |
| Listrak (see page 149 of PDF) |
Mad Mimi |
| |
Mailchimp |
| |
Mailigen |
| |
Marketo** |
| |
Omeda** |
| |
Oracle Responsys** |
| |
PostUp |
| |
Sailthru |
| |
Salesforce Marketing Cloud |
|
Note: For these marked email platforms, the email field name may be different.
Create Open-Time Email Dialogues
Use this goal to deliver banner Dialogues in email at open time. Before adding the goal in the connection, create at least one Banner Dialogue:
Select Dialogues from the navigation.
Via the search, select the Banner Dialogue type.
In the Where tab, select Email as the channel.
Define one or more virtual positions (for example: Top, Bottom, CTA).
Upload the banner image.
Enter the redirect URL.
(Optional) Restrict the Dialogue to a campaign and configure variants.
When configuring variants, you can:
Create multiple banner variants (for example, different colors, messages, or call-to-actions).
Select a Variants strategy such as Automatic optimization, A/B testing, Rotating, or Model-based optimization.
Variant strategies determine how BlueConic selects which banner to serve at open time. For example, with Rotating enabled, different variants can appear across multiple email opens. With Model-based optimization, BlueConic automatically selects the highest-performing variant based on the configured optimization goal.
1. Select Channel
In the left panel, go to Open-Time Email Dialogues.
Click Add goal.
Select the channel and choose Email.
2. Select campaign
Enter the campaign name to which you want to add this Dialogue.
The campaign field scopes which Dialogues are eligible for this email send. You can also pass the campaign dynamically using parameters in the image and link URLs.
3. Match your customers' identifiers between BlueConic and your ESP
Enter matching identifiers between your ESP (via an expression) and BlueConic (via the BlueConic profile identifier or another unique identifier).
Note: If no matching profile is found in BlueConic, or if the match produces multiple profiles, the Dialogue will not display properly in the email.
4. Copy the recommendation code to send in your email message
Copy the entire block of HTML code and paste it into your email template in your ESP.
When the recipient opens the email, BlueConic determines which Dialogue is the most relevant for the recipient.
5. Preview the Dialogues
Review the preview section to confirm which banner Dialogues are eligible for this channel and campaign.
Testing
Testing your email recommendations
In some ESPs (such as Mailchimp), when you send a test email and preview the message in the browser, recommendations do not appear. The ESP creates a test subscriber for previews, and BlueConic requires an email address or unique identifier that matches an existing BlueConic profile.
Tip: If your product or content collector is empty, there will be no items to view in step 3. Choose a different product or content collector, or allow the collector time to gather items to recommend.
If images or links do not render
If your ESP does not correctly pass the customer identifier (for example, the email address) into the recommendation image or link URLs, images can fail to load or redirect to an error page. You might see an error such as:
[tenant.blueconic.net] is currently unable to handle this request.
Ensure that:
Your ESP template injects the recipient identifier into the recommendation URLs.
The email is sent to a real subscriber whose identifier matches a BlueConic profile.
Testing your tracking parameters
This connection supports adding tracking parameters to <a> hyperlinks in the email snippet.
To test tracking parameters:
Open one of the recommendation images first. The connection expects the image request to occur before the link click.
Locate the <a> tag in the HTML snippet ,which can be found in the href="<link>" attribute.
Modify the extracted link to add tracking query parameters to it, for example: <link>&utm_source=mail&bc_type=marketing
Tracking parameters have keys that start with utm_ or bc_, other parameters will be ignored and stripped from the URL.
Open the modified link in your browser.
It should redirect you to the product/content page and the URL should still have the tracking parameters you added.The link should redirect to the product or content page and retain the supported tracking parameters.
To test parameter filtering:
Add a parameter that does not begin with utm_ or bc_, for example: <link>&test_test=123456
Open the link in your browser.
Note: Some channels strip custom parameters from URLs on page load. In those cases, tracking parameters might not persist.
Activate and Save the connection
After configuring one or more goals, activate the connection so it can serve content at open time.
Activate the goals by checking them.
At the top right of the page, toggle the connection from Off to On.
Click Save.
Next steps
Send your email. The recommendations will update the moment your customer opens the email.