Send Logging Marketing Cloud Email Sends

Supported Send Types that store 'send time' Data in the Send Log

Marketing Cloud allows for appending Send-Time data to the Send Log record via these Send methods:

• User-Initiated Sends (via Automation Studio)
• Triggered Sends (inc all Journey Builder types)
• A/B Test Sends
• Guided Sends
• Salesforce Sends

Please note that for Guided Sends, User-Initiated and Journey Builder Sends, the option for SendLogging is defaulted to be on and may not be possible to change. For Salesforce and Triggered Sends, the checkbox will be checked but can be turned off if required. For A/B Test Sends, this is not selected by default but we recommend to use Journey Builder and Path Optimiser for A/B Testing.

At send-time, data is written to the SendLog and can be added to in a couple of different ways;

• Fields in the Sending Data Extension match the Field name of the SendLog Data Extension
• AMPScript variable name matches the Field Name of the SendLog Data Extension
• Personalisation Strings match the Field Name of the SendLog Data Extension
• System default Personalisation strings match the Field Name of the SendLog Data Extension (ie %%EmailAddr%%)

Process to Create SendLog Data Extension

Watch this video or use the following steps to configure a Send Logging Data Extensions. 


 

• Within Email Studio, hover over Subscribers and select Data Extensions
• Click Create from the top right and select Standard Data Extension
• Within Creation Method, select Create from Template
• In the pop that appears, highlight SendLog and then OK
• Enter a Name, External Key, and Description for this Data Extension
• Leave the checkbox next to Is Sendable unchecked
• Click Next
• Apply a Data Retention Policy
  • We highly recommend setting up a row-based retention policy
• Create additional fields you would like to record in the Send Logging Data Extension
• Click Create

Notes

• When configuring a Marketing Cloud Send, you must select the Send option 'Enable Send logging to a Data Extension' in order to record the Send-Time data from this particular Send.
• Test sends, Transactional sends and HTS sends are not logged by default and require a specific configuration for the sendlog. Please contact ‌support to enable the same if not done already
• While the information above is specific to Email Sends, it's possible to record Send-Time data of SMS Sends as well. 

SendLog Use Cases

SendLogs are a powerful tool to retrieve data at send-time, store this information and utilise in solutions beyond the send. Examples of storing send-time data for retrieval can be using a Dynamic FromName and FromEmail or exports to data warehouses for reporting. Below are a couple of examples of how to use the SendLog Data Extension beyond just a log of sends to your Subscribers.

Link SendLog to Data Views

Email Send Logging Data Extensions record unique Job and Subscriber information allowing you to query Email Tracking Data Views efficiently. Join the Send Logging Data Extension on the JobID, ListID, BatchID and SubID fields to any of the _Bounce, _Click, _Open and _Sent Data Views.

Joining a Send Logging Data Extension to Data Views provides a view of email tracking that excludes situations where Marketing Cloud does not attempt to send the Email due to List Detective or the Subscriber’s status. This view of email performance is a more accurate representation of customer behavior than comparing tracking information to a Sendable Data Extension record count. This view represents the activity of subscribers sent the Email and does not include Subscribers who are excluded from the audience due to List Detective or inactive Subscriber statuses. 

The following is an example Query that shows the Subscribers who were sent and clicked the Email for a particular Job.

SELECT SubscriberKey, EventDate
FROM _Click AS C
JOIN SendLog AS S
ON S.SubID = C.SubscriberID
AND S.JobID = C.JobID
AND S.ListID = C.ListID
AND S.BatchID = C.BatchID
WHERE S.JobID = xxxxx

Troubleshooting TriggeredSends via ErrorCode Field

Sending API calls Asynchronously allows for Errors to be logged to the SendLog through the ErrorCode field provided within the SendLog Data Extension. While you can call the  deliveryRecords route via the API, you can log errors to the Send Logging Data Extension to further analyze Triggered Sends and how often you're receiving specific Error Codes.

Common errors such as 'Missing Required Fields' (Error Code 19) and 'List Detective Exclusion' (Error Code 24) can be quantified and analyzed to identify the root cause of these errors by querying a Send Logging Data Extension.

Send-time Attribute Information

If you have Attributes/Fields in your Emails containing frequently changing data, adding the Attribute/Field information to the SendLog is an excellent way to review that information when the Email was sent. 

An example of this is a weekly promotion email that utilizes the same sendable Data Extension to send different Emails. You could write content-specific information to the SendLog such as EmailName or subject to help with Subscriber Tracking analysis.

For this example, we will write the Email Name to our SendLog, and you will need to create a field for this on your SendLog Data Extension.

• Within Email Studio, hover over Subscribers
• Select Data Extensions within the menu
• Find your SendLog within your folder structure
• Click into your Data Extension
• Within the Fields panel, select Edit Fields
• Select the Plus icon and fill in the details of your new field
• Save Fields

After adding your new Field, we will use the %%emailname_%% Personalisation String to write the value to a variable that matches the new Field Name on the SendLog.

Within your Email, you would create a small snippet of AMPScript code that creates a variable and sets the variable with the EmailName Personalisation String:

%%[
VAR @EmailName
SET @EmailName = emailname_
]%%

Over a four week period, we will send four different types of Email based on campaigns we have running.

• Week 1 - 10% offer on purchases after signing up
• Week 2 - Information on an upcoming Product due to be released
• Week 3 - Email about a chance to participate in a pilot launch of the new Product
• Week 4 - New Product launch email

Over the four week period we send the Emails to the same Data Extension and Subscribers and an example of a Subscriber on the SendLog Data Extension will look like this:

You can then utilise the DataViews (as mentioned above) to extract tracking analysis for these Emails/sends and look at a higher level how they performed.

Another send-time use case is the use of a Dynamic Sender Profile, review our Knowledge Article Use a Content Block containing AMPScript with Dynamic Sender Profiles for more information.