An overview of Oracle Responsys for API Developers

To understand how to best use the Oracle Responsys API, it's useful to understand the parts of Oracle Responsys that impact application developers. This topic provides an overview of the basic concepts and features.

Overview

Oracle Responsys is a cloud-based system for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) digital marketing. A company can use Responsys to send marketing messages to their customers. Messages can be promotional, such as sales advertisements, coupons, and newsletters. Messages can also be transactional. For example, a company may send a reminder to a customer who left items in a shopping cart on the company's web site.

Companies can use Responsys with other software products and platforms. For example, a company can get information about their customers from their customer loyalty system and use it in Responsys. Or a company can use Responsys with other platforms to reach customers through social media campaigns and display ads.

Learn more by watching these videos:

Responsys Overview – Email Marketing

Responsys Cross-channel Orchestration

Responsys has many features for implementing a company’s marketing strategy.  We will not cover all features in this section, but we will cover the parts that you can affect through the Responsys API.

Campaigns

The Campaigns feature lets Marketers create and run marketing campaigns that are highly personalized. Campaigns can range from high-volume promotional campaigns to transactional campaigns sent to a small audience, such as a password change confirmation triggered by the API.

Responsys users can create Email, mobile app (Push and In-app Message), and mobile (SMS and MMS) campaigns.  These methods of sending a digital message are known as “channels” in Responsys. Responsys “Campaign Workbooks” provide the user interface for setting all of the campaign properties: message content, audience, data sources, and launch settings. Campaign Workbooks also have specialized settings for each channel.  For example, users can specify the mobile app trigger for an In-app Message campaign.  For an SMS campaign, users can configure valid responses from recipients.

Programs

The Programs feature lets Marketers create marketing programs, which orchestrate one or more campaigns into a full customer interaction. For example, a customer purchasing airline tickets may receive several messages at different times: a confirmation email at purchase, an SMS or email check-in reminder 24 hours prior to the departure date, and another check-in reminder 24 hours prior to the return date. The Responsys “Program canvas” enables users to create and test the various stages of a marketing program.

Data management

Data management features help Marketers create and manage all of the campaign data sources. Campaign data includes information about your company’s customers, customer device data, campaign-specific data, 3rd party system data, and external target data.

Other Responsys components that impact client applications using the API

The following parts of Responsys are not accessible through the Responsys API, but several of them indirectly impact your applications that use the Responsys API:

  • Connect: Connect for data integration makes it easy to integrate Oracle Responsys with your enterprise or marketing information systems. Users with the Data Director role can set up jobs in Connect that can automatically import and export data. Learn more about Connect from the Responsys online help, which is accessible if you have a Responsys login. From the Responsys online help Contents pane, choose Overview Topics | List and Data Management | Understanding Connect.
  • Account Management: In Responsys, an account corresponds to an organization that uses Responsys. Depending on its size, a company may have one or more Responsys accounts. The Account Management feature enables the Responsys Account Administrator to perform administrative functions for a company’s account, such as configuring default settings, managing system users and roles, and the like. Several settings affect API functionality and mobile app integration with Responsys.
  • Audience Designer: Audience Designer is a drag-and-drop tool for creating a campaign audience. Marketers drag simple filters and operators onto a canvas to create a targeted audience for a campaign or a program. The Responsys API does not directly support Audience Designer. However, Audience Designer may use data stored in Responsys through the APIs.
  • Forms: Forms enable you to collect data via web forms. The Responsys API does not directly support Forms. However, Forms can use media assets stored in the Content Library. You can manage Content Library assets through the Responsys APIs.
  • Interactive Dashboards: Interactive Dashboards provide interactive visual dashboards that help Marketers explore analytics data. Depending on which features are enabled for the Responsys account, Marketers can view performance and deliverability metrics for Email, SMS & MMS, and Mobile App (both Push and In-app Message) campaigns. Marketers can also view multi-channel reports and Profile List trends and health. The Responsys API does not directly support Interactive Dashboards. However, these reports may impact your application development, depending on how the report data is used. For example, reporting data may impact when Marketers want campaign launches to be scheduled. Campaign launches can be scheduled through the Responsys API.
  • Collaborative Processes: Collaboration Processes for marketing process management help Marketers plan, coordinate, and monitor marketing projects and resources. Collaboration Processes result in greater marketing efficiency and improved collaboration among geographically distributed marketing teams. The Responsys API does not directly support Collaboration Processes. However, a campaign’s status in a collaboration process may affect when it can be launched. Campaign launches can be scheduled through the Responsys API.

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