Building Better Content with Cortex

Every email marketer wants to send the best emails, right? Of course you do. Here's the good news: you don't need to spend hours or days developing new content from scratch - with Cortex only a few minutes every few weeks is necessary.

This article will teach you how to use insights from Cortex to improve your content over time, turning your great content into the best content.

The process is simple: 

1. Take your best template in a stage
2. Clone that template
3. Change one thing
4. Activate the new template version
5. Cortex automatically tests the two templates against each other

It's that easy!

Let's learn a little more about the two steps: picking a variable and reviewing performance.

Picking a Variable

To gain valuable insights, pick one thing to change at a time. If the content being tested is too different, it will be impossible to determine what made one template better than another. This is why small changes over time can be more valuable than starting from scratch with all-new content.

What you want to do is pick one element to focus on at a time: hero image, call to action language, and the number of product recs are all great places to start. Clone a copy of your template for each version of your variable (if you have three hero images to test, have three templates).

Whenever possible, copy subject lines across templates within a stage, so that subject line and template performance can be evaluated independently.

Reviewing Performance

Once your templates are running in Cortex, the best performing content will rise to the top and get the most sends to your audience. Once this winner is identified, you can use this knowledge to improve your other templates. Turn off the losing templates, and use this winning content as the base for your next test on a different part of the template. As each test finishes, you'll be one step closer to the best content possible!

It's important to note, what works best in one stage may not work in another! Users in New To Your Brand may be looking for something different than a user receiving Follow Up messaging after their third purchase. It can also be good to revisit an already-tested variable if you have new ideas!

Here are some variables you may want to test:

• Hero Images
  • Hero Image vs Product Rec as hero image
  • Testing different model photos
  • Testing product photos vs modeled photos
  • Testing product photos vs "lifestyle" photos
  • Group shots with models vs individual shots
  • Size of Hero Image or First Product Rec
• Number of Product Recs Per Row
• Number of Product Rec Rows
• Call To Action language
• CTA Button Color
• CTA Button Size
• Pre-Header Text (Preview Text)
• Greeting Language
• Gifs vs Static Images
• Educational Content vs Product Recs
• Template Layout
• Template Background Color