Forward to Friend - Distribution list

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Hi Forum,

Working on a marketing project where our marketing dept. sends email to the target audience. To get wider coverage, they have also included 'Forward to Friend' feature inside the marketing email. Marketing team is anticipating that target contact will forward this email to the distribution list and not to the individual contact. My questions are:

1. Will Forward to Friend feature honour distribution list by sending emails to all those contacts inside it ?

2. If yes, then will all those contacts behaviour (open email, clicks) will be captured in the Dynamics as a named contact (assuming their email matches with data base contact emails otherwise captured as Anonymous contacts).

Due to the compliance reason, distribution list's contacts cannot be targeted directly and that's why going through a main contact as 'Gate keeper' and then this gate keeper contact will forward it to the distribution list.

If somebody can shed some lights on this subject then will be greatly appreciated as there is not much documentation covering this scenario in MS website.

Thank you for time.

H. Desai

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Nya 29,064 on at

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Hi H. Desai,

1. Will Forward to Fried feature honour distribution list by sending emails to all those contacts inside it ?

The recipients of the forwarded email can be found in the insights tab of the email. However, they will not be generated as contacts since the forward form needs email only and creating contacts needs Last Name at least.

2. If yes, then will all those contacts behaviour (open email, clicks) will be captured in the Dynamics as a named contact (assuming their email matches with data base contact emails otherwise captured as Anonymous contacts).

Only the interaction data of this email sent via Marketing to contacts present in the environment will be recorded.

Subsequent forwarding recipients are anonymous, cannot be converted to contacts, and interactions are not recorded.

For example, the original email was sent to a contact called "FF1 L" via Marketing app.

"FF1 L" forwarded to other 6 emails without names of recipients. These email addresses may belong to existing contacts, but will not be used for correspondence, but simply as targets for forwarding.

One of the recipient forwarded the email after receiving it.

Only the interactions of "FF1 L" will be recorded.

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Hi Nya,

Thanks for your prompt and detailed reply.

Regarding image 1, when records shows up in Insight, can we then export it so that we can then import it again as proper contact record. ( as 'Email address used' is captured and we can use some excel formulas to extract last name out of the email).

Also continuing on this scenario, if we place web site tracking script generated from Dynamics on our actual Website and one of the 6 contacts from above example, lands on the website through link in the marketing email, will those contacts shows up in Insight as a visitor. (preferably Named visitor if email address is matched?)

Basically, process flow is :

1. I send marketing email to FF1 L who is a contact in database (your example contact)

2. FF1 L opens an email and click on the link in the email, therefore ends up on our Website. (Where dynamics website tracking code has been placed)

3. FF1 L forward this email to distribution list containing 6 people. (Contact C1 to C6)

4. All 6 contacts open the email and click on the link. ( I believe they are now in Dynamics Insight as per your image 1)

5. All 6 contacts are also on our Website due to the above action.

My question is , will these 6 contacts be tracked in Dynamics as individual and not under FF1 L as mentioned by you in image 2.

If not forwarded email, then will Website tracking script gives us 'Who' visited our website based on the above process flow ?

Again, thank you for your time to looking into it.

Regards,

H.Desai

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Nya 29,064 on at

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Hi H.Desai,

I can basically understand your scenario.

It is indeed possible to create contacts by importing them, as long as you make sure that you get the First Name and Last Name from the email address, you can fill in the Contact Template with this information and import it.

Here is the steps of import:

Download a template for data import - Power Platform | Microsoft Docs

However, I have tested that even if the recipient of a forwarded email has the same email address as an existing contact, the recipient's interactions for that email will not be recorded or counted under that contact.

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Hi Nya,

Thank you for your reply and testing out the behaviour of the Forward to Friend process. Much appreciated.

Would you please also confirm about step 5 of my previous reply (about track those contacts through Website tracking script). Theory is, if we can't track them through Forward to Friend then divert them on the website and track it from there? Will this give me 6 different contacts insight from the above example?

Thank you,

H.Desai

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Nya 29,064 on at

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Hi H.Desai,

Please refer to the following documentation:

Track online behavior (Dynamics 365 Marketing) | Microsoft Docs

As the forwarded recipients have been imported as contacts, if you subsequently send them web sites or other links that will be tracked via Marketing Email, these actions will be recorded in their interactions by name.

If the links are not shared through Marketing, but they are obtained and manipulated from other sources, they will be tracked as anonymous, which means there is no sign in process.

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Thank you Nya for your help and follow ups.

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