A personalization field is a placeholder that gets automatically populated with a stored value, such as first name, last name, and phone number.

Caching is the storing of data so that future requests for those data can be more quickly serviced.

In Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional), you can cache the values (that are stored in your integration database) for your selected personalization fields and easily have them inserted in your mailings.

Personalization in your mailings

In Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional), you can add a "personal touch" to your mailings by using personalization fields to tailor the message to each recipient.

You can also simplify your message customization by caching — in Thrive Marketing Professional — the values from the personalization fields that are in your integration database. Then, you can:

• Verify that the personalization field that is in the integration database has the correct value before using it for a personalization,
• Determine if any subscribers are missing data in their integration database profile from within Thrive Marketing Professional,
• Determine which integration database personalization fields are available in Thrive Marketing Professional, and
• Research and troubleshoot without having to navigate back and forth between Thrive Marketing Professional and your integration database.

NOTE: Integration-based personalization fields are sometimes referred to as remote personalization fields.

Personalization caching in Thrive Marketing Professional

When Thrive Marketing Professional caches personalization fields, it stores information from the integration database; that database's personalization fields display in your Thrive Marketing Professional account as table columns.

When you send a mailing and use personalization, Thrive Marketing Professional follows the tiered-approach logic that is detailed below.

TIP: Review the examples to see how a mailing is affected by personalization.

• Fields that are cached: the cached values are used in the mailing.
• Fields that are not cached: the associated field in the integration database is queried and the current value (if there is one) is retrieved and used in the mailing.
• Any remaining personalization fields that are used in the mailing but which are blank (i.e., do not have a value) will use the field's default value — if one has been provided.

NOTE: If a default value has not been provided, the personalization placeholder displays as a blank space, as in "Hello, ."

Personalization examples

The following examples illustrate the possible message outputs when a mailing is populated with the personalization field, <first_name>.

Assume a mailing with the text:

"Hello, <first_name>. Welcome to the club! We're glad that you joined us, <first_name>, and we hope that you make lots of connections."

The message could display as:

• Personalization (either cached or retrieved) value inserted: "Hello, Charlie. Welcome to the club! We're glad that you joined us, Charlie, and we hope that you make lots of connections."
• No personalization value; default value (Friend) inserted: "Hello, Friend. Welcome to the club! We're glad that you joined us, Friend, and we hope that you make lots of connections."
• No personalization value; default value had not been provided: "Hello, . Welcome to the club! We're glad that you joined us, , and we hope that you make lots of connections."

Higher Logic recommends providing a default value for your personalization fields!

Available integrations

To get started with personalization caching:

1. Review the list of integrations, below
2. Enable personalization caching
3. Select attributes for personalization caching
4. Refresh your personalization cache

Personalization caching is available for the following integrations.

TIP: Click a link to access the integration-specific Higher Logic knowledge base article.

• Aptify Personalization and Cached Personalizations
• Association Anywhere Personalizations and Cached Personalizations
• iMIS Personalizations
• MemberNation, see Salesforce Cached Personalizations
• MemberSuite Cached Personalizations
• netFORUM Enterprise Cached Personalizations
• netFORUM Enterprise (2011 & 2013) Cached Personalizations
• netFORUM Pro Cached Personalizations
• Personify360 (refer to the Personalizations section)
• Nimble AMS, see Salesforce Cached Personalizations
• Salesforce Cached Personalizations

Personalization-query exceptions

The following integrations use cached values only; they do not query the integration database for personalization values.

• Higher Logic Thrive Platform Connection
• netFORUM Pro

Enable personalization caching

Personalization caching is not a default setting; it has to be enabled.

To enable personalization caching:

1. Navigate to Admin > System Settings.
2. Scroll to the Personalization Cache section and check the Allow fields to be cached box.

3. Click Update at the bottom of the page.

Select attributes for caching

After personalization caching has been enabled, you must select which integration database personalization fields (called attributes) you want to be cached.

NOTE: Some integrations link their personalization fields directly to target groups, while others use a common list.

To choose attributes for caching:

1. Navigate to Admin > Setup > Bridge Configuration.
2. Click List of Personalization Attributes.
3. Click the plus (+) icon to open a list of personalizations.
4. Check the Caches Data checkbox for the attributes that you want to cache.

NOTE: The limit is 20 attributes for caching; you'll receive an error if you try to select more.

5. Click Save Changes & Refresh Cache to finish.

Refresh your personalization cache

Cached personalization fields are synchronized (i.e., refreshed) weekly, but you can also manually sync them as described below.

To sync and refresh cached personalization fields:

1. Navigate to Admin > Setup > Bridge Configuration.
2. Scroll to the Personalization Cache section and click Refresh Personalization Cache.

New subscribers

When users create a new subscriber during an integration sync, Thrive Marketing Professional checks the personalization-cache settings to populate any related fields. This affects all of the integrations that are listed in this article.

The syncing of cached personalization fields does not always coincide with target group syncs. If any new subscribers sync during a Thrive Marketing Professional mailing-send process, they'll have default/blank values until the new subscriber data is retrieved from the integration database via the target group sync.

If you use an integration with a master target group, subscribers that have their personalization data synced become part of that master target group and are added to the mailing target group and the master target group.