Tips for New Cortex Marketers

Cortex is a powerful marketing system that will work as hard as you allow it to. Its models are constantly analyzing your customers' shopping behavior, site actions, and email interaction to build a library of actionable data–don't leave its revenue generating power unused! Here's a few tips that will help you get the most benefit from Cortex.

Get those stages running!

Cortex features 17 stages to target customers with different messaging, if these stages aren't active then Cortex can't perform as designed. When launching, prepare for the four essential stages: New To Your Brand, Cart Abandon, Browse Abandon, and Follow Up. Talk with your CSM to identify the best opportunities after these essential stages are activated.

• Get the first four stages turned on as quickly as possible!
• Aim for 12 active stages within 6 months of launch
• Use the pre-built templates to activate more stages with less effort!

Fill stages with content

Cortex is designed as an experiment friendly self-correcting platform—finding the best templates and subject lines has never been easier! Cortex is always watching open and click-through rates to ensure that the most effective messaging is getting the most sends. Content or subject lines that are noticeably under-performing will be cut out of sends entirely. 

What does that mean for you? Experimentation has never been easier or safer, and you'll save the time spent struggling to choose "which sounds better." The more content you drop into Cortex the more likely you are to find the message that stands above the rest. Cortex self-corrects over time, so that you don’t have to worry about manually creating and maintaining an A/B or multivariate test. This gives you the freedom to experiment with subject and call-to-action lines to find what really resonates with your brand's audience. 

The ReSci Team recommends:

• At least 2 active templates per stage
• At least 3 subject lines per stage/template
• Mixing static and dynamic content inside template designs
• Being bold! Cortex will optimize from your content, giving the best templates and subject lines the most sends.

Narrow your language with Smart Segments

Customers respond best when they feel personally addressed. Smart Segments allow you to filter customers by almost any attribute and speak to them specifically. You can target customers by location, number of purchases, expected lifetime value, on-site behavior, email behavior, and more; the possibilities are nearly limitless.

• Check your demographics and target the largest and highest-converting groups first
• Use balance in your targeting, if one segment targets US customers, another should speak to international buyers
• Keep at least one template per stage "plain" to avoid missing any eligible sends.
• Just send it! Cortex will self-correct and prioritize the "plain" template if a targeted template performs badly