Content Creation and Delivery24% of the exam

Personalization strings and AMPscript lookups and conditionals

Read and fix the personalization a specialist meets: personalization strings and their defaults, footer and profile center strings, AMPscript variables with AttributeValue, Empty, Iif and IF/ELSEIF, Lookup argument order and first-match behavior, RedirectTo for tracked links, and when SSJS is the wrong tool.

Official exam objective
Given a customer scenario, create and customize an email message to meet customers' needs.

~6 min read · 7 practice questions ·

What the exam expects

  • Insert personalization strings correctly, including footer address and profile center strings in custom HTML, and give every attribute a default.
  • Read AMPscript that sets variables with AttributeValue, Empty and Iif, and predict which IF, ELSEIF or ELSE branch a subscriber sees.
  • Fix a Lookup call by its argument order, and explain why duplicate rows return an unexpected value.
  • Keep click tracking on links built from data with RedirectTo.
  • Explain why a sending data extension column can override a profile attribute, and when SSJS rather than AMPscript belongs in an email.
  • Key terms: personalization string (a %%attribute%% merge field); AMPscript block (%%[ ... ]%% code that sets variables); inline expression (%%=v(@var)=%% output); Lookup (returns one column's value from a data extension row); RedirectTo (builds a tracked link from data).

Key facts

Unpopulated personalization string
Detail
Appears blank; define a default value
Footer address strings
Detail
member_busname, member_addr, city, state, postalcode, country
Profile center link
Detail
%%profile_center_url%%; default in standard template footers
AttributeValue with no data
Detail
Returns null
Iif result
Detail
First value if true, second if false
If statement
Detail
Must end with EndIf
Lookup argument order
Detail
Data extension, return column, search column, search value
Lookup with several matches
Detail
Returns the first matching value
RedirectTo tracking
Detail
Anchor tag in the email body, function in href
Same-name data extension column
Detail
Overrides the profile attribute
Sources for this section (7)
  • Why does a personalization string need a default value?
  • When would LookupOrderedRows be chosen over Lookup?
  • Which personalization string shows the email as a web page?
  • Why should Core library SSJS stay out of email messages?

The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.

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