Tenon launched as a Marketing Project Management solution built on ServiceNow, offering enterprise companies a way to unify business functions (Marketing included) on one secure platform. But early prospect interest centered not on project management, but on campaign creation and automation. Aligned with ServiceNow’s growing CRM focus, Tenon pivoted to become a marketing automation platform.
Our product team faced a tight deadline to deliver a robust platform with interconnected content types, workflows, and requirements. This story explores how we tackled the complex challenge of building systems for creating and deploying emails, all while maintaining a cohesive product experience.
The problem
Marketers need a flexible and intuitive way to design and send emails immediately, at a scheduled time, or as part of an automated workflow.
Conducting research
Market comparisons
There were already plenty of players in the automation space. As a design team, we:
Explored he unique offerings of each competitor through first-person product tests & reviewing product forums and Reddit threads.
We gained understanding on what each product brought to the table, and where we could set ourselves apart. It was obvious that our unique angle would be the direct access to customer data and activity available within ServiceNow. As a design team, we needed to make that access seamless and valuable to the marketer.
We also identified common patterns used across the majority of platforms. As Designers, it's important to know when to create new & unique experiences, and when to go with a more familiar experience. Knowing that our users have likely used an automation platform in the past, it was important to bring some familiar patterns into our experience, to ease the transition for those users new to Tenon.
Qualitative interviews
We connected with marketers at all levels from team leaders to brand designers, to hear about their current experiences, needs, and wants. We came away with plenty of learnings, but here are the highlights:
Guided or freeform? Marketers felt constrained by a guided email creation flow. One day they may start with designing the email, another they may start with the subject line. We needed to provide them with a flexible, freeform email creation experience that met them where they stood.
Create from anywhere: All marketers are different. Some will duplicate a previous email to start a new one, others will start from a template. We needed to enable all pathways.
The importance of A/B testing: Initially absent in the problem definition for first launch, we came to understand the need for A/B testing capabilities.
Defining the systems
With our problem further defined by the market research and user interviews, we were ready to design. But that doesn't mean we're ready to construct interfaces or specific experiences. First, we need to define how it all works.
Internal resources
Emails are only one piece of the platform. We worked to determine other system component we could leverage to elevate the email building experience. This included:
Email templates: Select a pre-built email template to ensure consistency & reduce build time.
Static & Dynamic audiences: by allowing users to create segmented, dynamic audience lists in Tenon, we could reduce the effort when users select who should receive their email. Say you have a new product launch (maybe an automation solution? 🤔😉) coming soon. Just choose a dynamic list that holds all of your current Product Newsletter Opt-in email addresses.
Brandkits: Assign a pre-built brandkit to your email to load your preferred color palette, font styling, button styling, and more.
Email mapping
Here's where the complexity really shows itself. A user needs different email types for different use cases. Those email types then have different functionalities, statuses, and workflows.
Email types
Standard email:
Standard emails can be set by the user to send immediately, or scheduled to send in the future. They cannot be included in an automated workflow.
In our initial launch, Standard emails would have A/B test functionality. So the user needs to decide what they are testing. The options were:
Subject line: See which subject line one gets more opens from your audience.
Design: Try different email layouts or content to find what drives more clicks.
Send time: Find out when your audience is most likely to engage.
From address: Test how the sender name impacts open rates.
Standard emails have their own unique statuses. Each status help define where the user navigates in Tenon, what functionality is enabled, and what data we provide back to the user. The states were:
Draft: A draft enables full edit capabilities for the design, subject line & preview text, audience, and tracking.
Scheduled: A scheduled email can be duplicated or saved as a template. In order to edit the email, the user must cancel the scheduled send.
Preparing to send: For scheduled sends, the email is locked down an hour before the send time. The email send cannot be cancelled due to email and data processing functions beginning to occur in the background.
Sending: as the email is being sent, the user will now land on the Performance page where they begin to see engagement data.
Sent: the user is navigated to the Performance page, and all data present.
Automated emails:
Automated emails cannot be sent manually to recipients, and it cannot be scheduled. Thus, the functionality and statuses would be different from Standard emails. Those statuses were:
Draft: A draft enables full edit capabilities for the design, subject line & preview text, and tracking.
Published: By publishing an email, the user makes it available to use in an automated workflow. The user can track all the workflows that it is used in, and see the overall email performance.
Notably, the Draft & Publish statuses become the consistent terminology used for Landing Pages, Audiences, and automated SMS.
Rules & limitations
With a focus on data integrity, we wanted to balance what could be removed from Tenon's system, and what was prevented. The systematic rule we implemented was:
A record can be be deleted if it: | A record cannot be be deleted if it: |
|---|---|
Has not been sent to an audience | Has been sent to an audience |
Does not have activity to include in reporting metrics | Has activity that is included in reporting metrics |
Has never been published | Has been or is currently published |
No other, active records will be impacted | Removing the record will negatively impact other, active records. |
Is included in an active send process |
Ideation & feedback loops
The problem was defined, the research was performed, and the systems were sorted. Yet, nothing is set in stone. Through the process of building workflows and refining the interface, our design team put a heavy weight on open collaboration and feedback.
Staff design reviews
Every other week, the Design Team holds an all-hands meeting. All Tenon team members are invited to join as we walk through our current design work. The Design Team gives context around the problems we are attempting to solve, the ways we are currently solving in our designs, and why we did so. The team is encouraged to come with questions, ideas, and unique perspectives. The meeting serves as both a progress update for attendees, and a feedback session for the designers.
Engineering design reviews
On the weeks opposite the Staff Review, we hold a similar meeting with our Engineering team. The same work is presented, but the meeting often focuses on the more technical and architectural aspect. This enables the engineers share their knowledge on how our designs might impact build efforts, load times, and data-fetching strategies.
Follow-up interviews
Re-connecting with the same group from our initial research, the Design Team walks through our solutions and ideas. This is our chance to connect with experience marketers. they know the industry, they know the needs. They help us confirm our direction or call out any blindspots we may have missed.
The Design Team continuously iterates throughout this process, and enables us to reach the finish line together as a Product Team.
The solution
Email builder
Based on the research performed, we designed a flexible single page experience where the marketer can move between designing the email materials, defining the messaging, selecting the audience, and adding tracking information.
Design editor
The marketer can edit all aspects of the design. Spacing, colors, copy, dark and light mode. All changes are autosaved to prevent lost progress.
A/B tests
When performing an A/B test, the marketer must choose one piece of the email to test. This limitation ensures that we can report accurately and the marketer can truly understand what change impacted their engagement the most.
Subject line
From address
Email design
Send time
Email performance
Sent email
A Standard email with no A/B test performed. On the performance page, marketers can understand the delivery and engagement rates, and see which recipients engaged the most with the email. When a recipient engages with an email, the activity is recorded as passed to their ServiceNow record to help Sales and Customer Success teams take action.
Sent A/B test: subject line
A Standard email testing two different subject lines. After the A & B emails are sent to the defined percentage of the audience, the winner is determined and sent to the remaining audience. Marketers can see the overall delivery of the entire test, or easily compare the performance of the A & B versions.
The A/B test Performance page changes slightly depending on the test, bringing the tested area to the forefront.
Published email
An Automated email published and ready to be used in automated workflows. The marketer can understand how their automated email is performing and which workflows (referred to as Journeys) the email is currently included in.
