When testing triggered messages via a catch-all email address, you may find that emails look the same, even when they’re meant to reflect different customer actions. This is typically due to how non-transactional Email Service Providers (ESPs) handle batching and data rendering. The article explains what causes this and why it doesn’t affect live sends to individual customers.
This behavior typically occurs with non-transactional Email Service Providers (ESPs) such as SendGrid, used by default for Fresh Relevance, or Mailchimp. These ESPs batch and send emails differently than transactional ESPs, which use APIs to send messages immediately. This distinction affects how cart data is handled and rendered in emails.
How emails are constructed
When an account is set up to send triggers to a catch-all address, the system constructs emails as it would for individual customers, including the products in their cart. The cart contents are integrated into the email in one of two ways:
Uploaded to a field:
The contents are uploaded to a field in the Email Service Provider (ESP) system.Pulled from a URL
The contents are pulled from a URL during the sending process and built into the email.
Timing and batching
Although emails are triggered in real-time, most messaging providers do not send them out immediately. Instead, they batch up the requests and send them after a short delay. This batching process can lead to issues when using a catch-all address for all emails:
Cart updates
The cart might have been updated multiple times since the first email was triggered.
Identical HTML
As a result, the same cart HTML is used when constructing the emails, either from the field or the URL.
Impact on customer emails
This does not affect live sending to individual customers. When sending to customers, their information is merged based on their own separate email addresses, ensuring personalized content.