Creating the direct mail creating-the-direct-mail
Creating a direct mail delivery is very similar to creating a regular email. The following steps describe the configuration that is specific to this channel. Refer to Creating an email for more information on other options.
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Create a new direct mail delivery. You can create one from the Adobe Campaign home page, in a campaign or in a marketing activity list.
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Choose either the out-of-the-box Direct mail template or one of your own templates. For more information on templates, refer to the Managing templates section.
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Enter the general properties of the delivery.
note note NOTE Both the activity name and its ID appear in the interface, but they are not visible to the message recipients. Make sure that the ID field does not contain any blank space to avoid any discrepencies, for example when integrating with Adobe Analytics. -
Define the audience you wish to include in the extraction file as well as the test and trap profiles. See Defining the direct mail audience.
note note NOTE The audience definition is very similar to defining a regular email audience. See Creating audiences. -
Edit the content of your file: columns to include for each profile, file structure, header and footer. See Defining the direct mail content.
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Click on the Schedule section of the delivery dashboard to define the contact date. For direct mail, the contact date is mandatory. For more information, refer to Scheduling the send.
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If you added test profiles (refer to Adding test and trap profiles), you can test your delivery before preparing the final file. It allows you to create a sample file containing only the test profiles selected.
Click on Test to generate the sample file. Click on Summary, in the top-left corner, then select Proofs. On the left part of the screen, select the proof and click on Download file.
note note NOTE The Export role is required to allow Adobe Campaign to export the file and make it available for download. Please contact your administrator. 
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Once you have defined your delivery content, audience and contact date, click on the Prepare button, on the delivery dashboard.
Typology rules are applied. For example, all unspecified postal addresses are excluded from the target. This is why you need to make sure you have checked the Address specified box in your profiles’ information (see Recommendations). If you have defined a Maximum volume of message in the direct mail properties or at the template level, it will also be applied here.
note note NOTE You can set global cross-channel fatigue rules that will automatically exclude oversollicited profiles from campaigns. See Fatigue rules. -
Click on Explore file to preview the first 100 lines of the file.
The complete file is accessible for local download in the left part of the screen. Downloading the file generates a log entry in the Export audits menu. For more information on export audits, refer to the Auditing exports section.
note note NOTE The Export role is required to allow Adobe Campaign to export the file and make it available for download. Please contact your administrator. If you need to change the delivery content, you only have to click on the Regenerate file button to take the change into account. No need to go through the preparation again.
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To confirm that the file is final, click on Confirm in the delivery dashboard.
You are now ready to send the extraction file to your direct mail provider. For this, you have several options:
- Send it via a regular email, with the file attached
- Send it via Campaign: perform your direct mail within a campaign workflow and add a Transfer file to send the file via FTP for example. See Transfer file.
The provider retrieves the list of erroneous addresses and sends this information to Adobe Campaign which automatically denylists the erroneous addresses. See Return to sender.