Email naming conventions

Why use naming conventions?

Naming conventions can keep your Marketing Cloud account organized and allow you to quickly filter and identify your marketing assets and analytics.

Where should I use naming conventions?

Naming conventions should be used when naming any email communication. This should be thought out prior to developing content or starting a campaign. It is recommended that you pick a naming convention, document it and stick to it. Creating rules for your team from the start is critical. If you don’t have a documented process like this already, then now is a great time to establish one.

Getting started

Naming convention ideas:

• Keyword examples 
  • Email name 
  • Email # 
  • Campaign name 
  • Cadence 
  • Unit name 
• Communication type examples (optional) 
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Campaigns
  • Product
  • Journey
• Audience examples (optional)
  • Students
  • Alumni
  • Parents
  • Staff
  • Faculty
• Date example (optional)
  • Yearmonthday

Recommended naming string

This string can be used to quickly get started with a standardized naming convention for your unit.

• Single send, ad hoc emails:
  • keyword_communicationtype_audience_date
    • Example: insider_newsletter_alumni_210204
• Campaign and journey emails:
  • keyword_communicationtype_communicationnumber_audience_date
    • Example: thrive_journey_email3_staff_210204

Google Analytics

Google Analytics pulls in dimensions via the Urchin Tracking Module string set up in your business unit. Source/medium and landing pages are passed over by default, and any custom dimensions that are set up in the string. The Web Analytics Connector is a custom UTM string that allows for you to not only pull reporting on your emails and email campaigns, but also allows you to view which website or landing page activity your subscriber is visiting. Due to privacy laws, email addresses and other personally identifiable information are not passed over through the WAC into GA.

Using a standard naming convention is critical for having success using the WAC. When all emails are named in the same manner, you’ll be able to identify trends and patterns in your GA data about your email subscribers’ behavior on your web properties. 

Tips to remember

• Keep the naming standard consistent for the same type of email. For example, if you use “Newsletter” in the name, then use the same format every time, no space, no underscore. It’s better to NOT add additional words like “HubNewsletter” unless you want to separate “HubNewsletter” from “Newsletter.”
• Some naming conventions can be long; be sure to put the most important information at the beginning so your string does not cut off when searching in your analytics.
• For the communication type field, it is recommended that you only choose one. This makes pulling reports easier and more accurate.
• Reporting is case sensitive; be sure to keep capitalization consistent. For example, one easy way to do this is by keeping your string all lowercase.
• Underscores are used to separate different functions or names. For example, if you want to keep each category (communication type, keyword, etc.) together, you could separate them by underscores. 
• When creating your naming convention, ask yourself what you are trying to capture after the email is sent.