How to survive as a developer for Salesforce Marketing Cloud
When AMPscript is inserted into either an email or a CloudPage it usually clutters up the preview window with code. To avoid this, wrap your code in something that will not render:
<div style="display:none">
%%[
// your code here
]%%
</div>
Why not something that does not render out of the box, like <script>...</script> or <style>...</style>? SFMC will remove all <script> tags out of emails without a prompt. Otherwise, they could actually be seen as helpful as they lead to some kind of code highlighting even for AMPscript. However, both might also lead to bad reformatting schemes being applied, potentially breaking your code.
Why? Non-developers will just get distracted by the code
Why? Showing lots of code during a demo in the preview window distracts from the actual email content and might cost you time explaining this again and again.
Why? Not seeing the Code shrinks the content block to its minimum height, making selecting the right block easier as scrolling occurs less often.
When creating links that include variables there are multiple approaches but some will lead to tracking being disabled.
<!-- good -->
%%[
SET @myParam = "bar"
SET @url = CONCAT("https://mydomain.com/somePath?foo=", @myParam)
]%%
<a href="%%=RedirectTo(@url)=%%">demo link</a>
<!-- bad -->
%%[
SET @myParam = "bar"
SET @url = CONCAT('<a href="', "https://mydomain.com/somePath?foo=", @myParam, '">demo link</a>')
]%%
%%=v(@url)=%%
Now, if your link includes parameters, make sure you properly URL-encode the values, otherwise it will fail:
This method gets one field from the specified data extension; where-filter is case-insensitive.
Docs Lookup
Set @dataExtension = 'name of data extension'
Set @returnedField = 'City'
Set @whereCol = 'PostalCode'
Set @whereValue = '12345'
/* get field value from the row according to the filter */
Set @fieldValue = Lookup(@dataExtension, @returnedField, @whereCol, @whereValue)
This method gets all fields from the specified data extension; where-filter is case-insensitive.
Docs LookupRows
Set @dataExtension = 'name of data extension'
Set @whereCol = 'some-column'
Set @whereValue = 'something'
Set @rows = LookupRows(@dataExtension, @whereCol, @whereValue)
/* check if @rowCount has at least one row; Row() will fail if it does not */
for @i = 1 to RowCount(@rows) do
/* select first row */
Set @row = Row(@rows, @i)
/* get field values from the row */
Set @name = Field(@row,'Firstname')
Set @email = Field(@row,'EmailAddress')
next @i
This method gets all fields from the specified data extension; where-filter is case-sensitive.
Docs LookupRowsCS
Set @dataExtension = 'name of data extension'
Set @whereCol = 'some-column'
Set @whereValue = 'soMething'
Set @rows = LookupRowsCS(@dataExtension, @whereCol, @whereValue)
/* check if @rowCount has at least one row; Row() will fail if it does not */
for @i = 1 to RowCount(@rows) do
/* select first row */
Set @row = Row(@rows, @i)
/* get field values from the row */
Set @name = Field(@row,'Firstname')
Set @email = Field(@row,'EmailAddress')
next @i
This method gets all fields from the specified data extension; where-filter is case-insensitive.
Docs LookupOrderedRows
Set @dataExtension = 'name of data extension'
Set @maxReturnedRows = 2000
Set @orderBy = 'MyField ASC' /* 'fieldname ASC' or 'fieldname DESC' */
Set @whereCol = 'some-column'
Set @whereValue = 'soMething'
Set @rows = LookupOrderedRows(@dataExtension, @maxReturnedRows, @orderBy, @whereCol, @whereValue)
/* check if @rowCount has at least one row; Row() will fail if it does not */
for @i = 1 to RowCount(@rows) do
/* select first row */
Set @row = Row(@rows, @i)
/* get field values from the row */
Set @name = Field(@row,'Firstname')
Set @email = Field(@row,'EmailAddress')
next @i
This method gets all fields from the specified data extension; where-filter is case-sensitive.
Docs LookupOrderedRowsCS
Set @dataExtension = 'name of data extension'
Set @maxReturnedRows = 2000
Set @orderBy = 'MyField ASC' /* 'fieldname ASC' or 'fieldname DESC' */
Set @whereCol = 'some-column'
Set @whereValue = 'soMething'
Set @rows = LookupOrderedRowsCS(@dataExtension, @maxReturnedRows, @orderBy, @whereCol, @whereValue)
/* check if @rowCount has at least one row; Row() will fail if it does not */
for @i = 1 to RowCount(@rows) do
/* select first row */
Set @row = Row(@rows, @i)
/* get field values from the row */
Set @name = Field(@row,'Firstname')
Set @email = Field(@row,'EmailAddress')
next @i