Marketing & Communications

June 25, 2026

Recipe: Boost Engagement with Dynamic Calls to Action

# Recipes for success

# Marketing

Makes: A high-impact email where the most important content changes to match each customer’s unique booking history

Using dynamic content, you can create a more relevant and engaging experience without building multiple versions of the same campaign. Rather than showing every customer the same featured content, you can personalise the most prominent area of your email based on what you know about their behaviour.

For example, a customer who regularly attends family events could see a family-focused image and CTA (call to action), while a regular theatre attender sees a promotion for an upcoming drama production. The rest of the email can remain exactly the same.

What you need

Spektrix Auto Tags synced to Dotdigital Data Fields

Dotdigital Dynamic Content

Different hero images, headlines, or CTAs for each audience segment

A Dotdigital email campaign

Time required

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

What will this help me achieve?

Improve campaign performance: the more relevant your calls to action, the more likely it is a customer will engage with your email.

Increase relevance without increasing workload: one email campaign can deliver multiple personalised experiences.

Make better use of customer data: turn attendance history and preferences into meaningful messaging.

Create a foundation for further personalisation: the same audience insights can be used to tailor email subject lines.

Concepts we’ll be using

Dynamic Content: Use customer data to show different subject line variations to different audiences from a single campaign.

Auto tags: Tags applied automatically to customer records based on their purchasing behaviour.

Dotdigital Data Fields: Store synced audience information so it can be used to personalise your campaigns.

Prep

Step 1: Identify Your Audience Segments

Decide which customer groups should see different featured content. Create one or more auto tags in your Dotdigital sync tag group for these groups.

This could be based on:

Genre preferences (Theatre, Music, Dance, Comedy, Family, Opera)

Customer lifecycle stage ( first-time bookers, potential members, members donors)

Attendance frequency

Previous booking behaviour

For example:

Family event attenders

Members

Customers who have booked once

Customers who have never booked

Regular theatre attenders

Focus on groups that are likely to respond to different messages or offers.

Step 2: Create Matching Data Fields in Dotdigital

Sync the Auto Tags by creating a Dotdigital data field for each tag that you want to use for personalisation.

Activate

Create Dynamic Variations

Create or open the the email campaign where you want to try dynamic content.

At the top of your campaign, add a dynamic content block and create variations based on the audience segments you identified.

Each variation can contain different:

Images

Headlines

Supporting copy

Call-to-action buttons

Start with your three most important customer groups and personalise only the content that appears "above the fold", such as the hero image, headline, and primary CTA. Because this is the first content customers see when they open the email, even a small amount of personalisation can significantly increase engagement while keeping the rest of the campaign easy to manage.

Preview and Test

Before sending, preview each variation to ensure customers are seeing the correct content.

Check that:

Every variation displays correctly

Links point to the right destination

A default version exists for customers who don't match any rule

More to explore

Once you’ve sent your email, use the email campaign report to gain insights into the performance of your dynamic content. You can then use the learnings to inform the dynamic content for your next email campaign.

Use Dynamic Content to Tailor Subject Lines: Make your emails more effective by creating a personalised inbox experience without having to building multiple bespoke campaigns.

Group your Email Campaigns for Clearer Reporting: Get a deeper understanding of your email performance and the ways your customers interact by tagging and categorising your campaigns.