What’s new in Dynamics 365 Marketing?

The May 2020 Update for Dynamics 365 Marketing was recently released. With this release come new features, performance upgrades, and bug fixes. If you have been watching Dynamics 365 updates closely, you’ll know there have been regular, monthly updates over the last 6 months. The May release marks the final point in the Dynamics 365 Marketing 2020 release wave 1 plan. All features mentioned in release wave 1 plan are now generally available to all Dynamics 365 Marketing implementations.

So what are the new features you should be aware of? Let us go through them.

Forms & Pages updates

New marketing form capture experience

Using form capturing capabilities, Dynamics 365 Marketing users can relay form submissions created on external websites directly into Dynamics 365 Marketing. The new form capture wizard walks the user through each step of the form capture process including detecting the page, checking for tracking scripts, mapping form fields, and more. The wizard combines the steps of placing a JavaScript code into a website page with the rest of the form capture experience. Learn more about the new wizard here.

Cascading form fields

Parent/child form fields are now available for use in marketing forms. Cascading fields provide additional customization ability than previously possible.

Background images

Section elements used in email messages, marketing forms, and marketing pages can now include background images providing additional styling customization options.

Email marketing updates

Test send dynamic email messages

Within Marketing Messages, you can now test send emails that have dynamic data (contextual content) and have that data show up in the test send.

Test send draft email messages

Previously, an email message had to be in live status in order to test send. Now, you can test send when the email message is in draft status as well.

New email templates

More modern, accessible email templates are available in the templates gallery.

Email spam checker

The new spam check feature uses artificial intelligence to analyze content in the marketing message to see how likely the message is to be flagged by content-based spam filters. Note: The Spam Check feature must be enabled by an administrator.

Customer journeys

Email message expiration dates

Email messages in customer journeys now include an option for an expiration date and time. This options has been requested for scenarios such as limited time offers, holiday promotions, or event reminders. When an expiration date is hit, the customer journey skips the email send and takes note of it in the insights tab of the Journey.

Automated scheduling

The Automate Scheduler tile applies artificial intelligence to identify days and times when a contact is most likely to open an email. When placed in front of an email message tile in a Customer Journey, the scheduler tile will check against contact data to determine when the best time to send the email is and execute the send. Note: this feature must be enabled by an administrator.