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Movable Ink

Movable Ink is a cloud-based software platform that offers digital marketers a way to create compelling and unique visual experiences that move customers. The Movable Ink platform provides valuable customization options that can easily be inserted into your campaigns.

Expand our creative capabilities by leveraging Movable Ink’s Intelligent Creative features like polling, countdown timer, and scratch-off. The Movable Ink and Braze integration powers a more well-rounded approach to dynamic data-driven messages, providing users with real-time elements about the things that matter.

Prerequisites

Requirement Description
Movable Ink account A Movable Ink account is required to take advantage of this partnership.
Data source You will need to connect a data source to Movable Ink. This can be done through CSV, website import, or API. Make sure that you pass data with a unifying identifier between Braze and Movable Ink (for example, external_id).

Use cases

  • Personalized monthly or end-of-year recaps.
  • Dynamically personalize images for email, push, or rich notifications based on last known behavior.
    For Example:
    • Using a rich push message to dynamically create a schedule of events by pulling data from API.
    • Using the Countdown Timer feature to notify users when a big sale is approaching (for example, Black Friday, Valentine’s Day, Holiday Deals, etc.)
    • Use the Scratch Off feature as a fun and interactive way to disburse Promo Codes.

Supported Movable Ink capabilities

Intelligent Creative has many offerings that Braze users can take advantage of. The following list shows what capabilities are supported.

Movable Ink Capability Feature Rich Push Notification In-App Messaging / Content Cards / Email Details
Creative Optimizer Display A/B Contents  
  Optimize ✔* * Must Use Branch’s Deeplinking solution
Targeting Rules Date ✔* * Supported but not recommended because push notifications are cached upon receipt and do not refresh
  Day of Week ✔* * Supported but not recommended because push notifications are cached upon receipt and do not refresh
  Time of Day ✔* * Supported but not recommended because push notifications are cached upon receipt and do not refresh
Stories/Behavior Activity   ✔* ✔* * The unique user identifier used for Braze must be linked to your ESP’s identifier
Deep Linking within the app   ✔* ✔* * To provide a streamlined experience for your customers, either use established deep linking solution via Branch, or a validated solution with Movable Ink’s Client Experience team.
Apps Countdown Timer ✔* * Supported but not recommended because push notifications are cached upon receipt and do not refresh
  Polling ✔* * After voting, will leave the app to be a mobile landing page
  Scratch Off ✔* ✔* * On click, will leave the app for the Scratch Off experience
  Video ✔* ✔* * Animated GIFs only,
For Android, Braze requires GIF support in implementation

Integration

Step 1: Create a data source for Movable Ink

Customers will need to create a data source that can either be a CSV, website import, or API integration.

Different data source options that will appear: CSV Upload, Website, or API Integration.

  • CSV Data Source: Each row must have at least one segment column and one content column. After your CSV has been uploaded, select which columns should be used to target the content. Example CSV File

The fields that will show up when selecting "CSV" as your data source.

  • Website Data Source: Each row must have at least one segment column and one content column. After your CSV has been uploaded, select which columns should be used to target the content.
    • Within this process, you’ll need to map:
      • Which fields will be used as Segments
      • Which fields you want as data fields that can be dynamically personalized in the creative (ex: user attributes or custom attributes like first name, last name, city, etc.)

The fields that will show up when selecting "Website" as your data source.

  • API Integrations: Use your company’s API to power content directly from an API response.

The fields that will show up when selecting "API Integration" as your data source

Step 2: Create a campaign on the Movable Ink platform

From the Movable Ink home screen, create a campaign. You can select from email from HTML, email from image, or a block that can be used in any channel, including push, in-app message, and Content Cards (suggested). We also suggest taking a look at the various content options available through blocks.

An image of what the Movable Ink platform looks like when creating a new Movable Ink campaign.

Movable Ink has an easy editor for you to drag and drop elements like text, image, etc. If you have populated your data source, you can dynamically generate an image using the data properties. In addition, you can also create fallbacks within this flow for users if the campaign is sent and a user doesn’t fit within the personalization criteria.

The Movable Ink block editor showing the different customizable elements.

Before finishing your campaign, make sure to preview the dynamic images and test out the query parameters to see what the images will look upon view. When complete, a dynamic URL will generate that can then be inserted into Braze!

For more information on how to use the Movable Ink Platform, visit the Movable Ink support center

Step 3: Obtain Movable Ink content URL

To include Movable Ink content into Braze messages, you must locate the source URL Movable Ink has provided you.

To obtain the source URL, you must have set up the content in the Movable Ink dashboard, and then from there, finish and export your content. On the Finish page, copy the source URL(img src) from the creative tag.

The page that appears once you have completed your Movable Ink campaign, here you find your content URL.

Next, in the Braze Platform, paste the URL in the appropriate field. Appropriate fields for your messaging channel can be found in step 4. Lastly, replace any merge tags (such as &mi_u=%%email%%) with the corresponding Liquid variable (such as &mi_u={{${email_address}}}).

Step 4: Braze experience

  1. In the Braze Platform:
    • Android Push: Paste the URL in the Push Icon Image and Expanded Notification Image fields.


    • iOS Push: Paste URL in Media link field and denote the file format you are using.


    • Web Push: Paste the URL in the Push Icon Image and Large Notification Image fields.


  2. To make sure images are not cached, prepend the URL in the message with empty Liquid tags:
    {% if true %}{% endif %}https://movable-ink-image-url-goes-here
  1. In the Braze platform, paste the URL in the Rich Notification Media field.

  2. Provide a unique URL to help prevent caching. To confirm that Movable Ink’s real-time images work and will not be affected by caching, use Liquid to append a timestamp to the end of the Movable Ink image URL.

To do this, use the following syntax, replacing the image URL as needed:

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{% assign timestamp = "now" | date: "%s" %}
{% assign img = "https://movable-ink-image-url-goes-here" | append:timestamp %}
{{img}}

This template will take the current time (in seconds), append it to the end of the Movable Ink image tab (as a query param), and then output the final result. You can preview it with the Test tab - this will evaluate the code and show a preview.

3. Lastly, re-evaluate segment membership. To do this, enable the Re-evaluate audience membership and liquid at send-time option located on the Target Audiences step of a campaign. If this is option is not available, reach out to your customer success manager or Braze support. This option will instruct Braze SDKs to re-request the campaign providing a unique URL each time an in-app message is triggered.

  1. In the Braze platform, paste the URL in the Rich Notification Media field.

  2. For mobile: Content Cards images on iOS and Android are cached upon receipt and do not refresh.
    • As a workaround, schedule your campaign as a daily, weekly, or monthly recurring message with a corresponding expiration so the Content Card will be re-templated. For example, a Content Card that should refresh once a day should be set as a daily scheduled send with a 1 day expiration.
  3. To ensure that Movable Ink’s real-time images work and will not be affected by caching when the Content Card is re-templated, use Liquid to append a timestamp to the end of the Movable Ink image URL.

To do this, use the following syntax, replacing the image URL as needed:

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{% assign timestamp = "now" | date: "%s" %}
{% assign img = "https://movable-ink-image-url-goes-here" | append:timestamp %}
{{img}}

This template will take the current time (in seconds), append it to the end of the Movable Ink image tab (as a query param), and then output the final result. You can preview it with the Test tab, which will evaluate the code and show a preview.

Troubleshooting

Dynamic images not showing correctly? What channel are you experiencing difficulties with?

  • Push: Make sure that you have empty logic before your Movable Ink image URL:
    {% if true %}{% endif %}https://movable-ink-image-url-goes-here
  • In-app messages and Content Cards: Make sure that the image URL is unique for each impression. This can be done by appending the appropriate Liquid so that each URL is different. See in-app and content card messages instructions.
  • Image not loading: Be sure to replace any “merge tags” with the corresponding Liquid fields in the Braze dashboard. For example: https://mi-msg.com/p/rp/image.png?mi_u=%%email%% with https://mi-msg.com/p/rp/image.png?mi_u={{${email_address}}}.

Having trouble showing GIFs on Android?

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