E-mail templates with Json

Working on a project for my employer. They are searching for a solution to connect JSON to a email template.

For now, I look for a solution where the system who has the JSON, loads the JSON script on a server. Then, we connect that server with a marketing automation system, for example Marketo. We like to create an email template which loads the JSON.

The developer we found, says it is not possible and it will not work in gmail, outlook or any other client. For what I know, it is possible to create a email template with JSON right? Just to be sure, because when it is possible, our problem is not the system, but the developer.

Like to hear your thoughts on this subject. Suggestions are welcome.

Solution

So, this can be done, but you're going to need to do some custom development.

Marketo's API includes a request campaign endpoint for triggering Smart Campaigns, including those which send emails. As part of the request campaign payload, you can send {{my.token}} values for the campaign.

If you can set up some middleware between your JSON output that renders the HTML for your email, you can push that rendered HTML as a token in the campaign request, allowing for on-demand email creation based on your JSON content.

There are two caveats with this approach:

You will have to dynamically send the email using Request Campaign. That means if you need to send unique content to multiple folks, you'll be using one API call per email.
Due to the nature of Request Campaign triggers, you will not be able to batch and send using Marketo's controls; however, this should be straightforward to set up on the API side.