Web content

The web content you create in CloudPages comprises landing pages, microsites, preference centers, and Google Ads. The following descriptions outline each type of content you can create in more detail:

• Landing page: Technically, you could consider any web page to be a landing page as long as users can land on it somehow, such as by clicking a link in an email, by typing a URL from a flier, or by a web search. Usually, though, marketers think of a landing page as being a web page with a special objective that stands apart from the rest of your corporate website. For example, a landing page might contain information about an event or have special content for users who found it through social media.
• Microsite: If you create multiple related landing pages, you can connect them using a microsite. A microsite helps users by adding an easy-to-use navigation menu. A microsite can also help you by improving how high landing pages rank in search results and by aggregating analytics for all related landing pages for you to view in one place.
• Preference center: A preference center is a form that you link to in your email marketing messages. Subscribers who follow the link see their personal preference center, where they can choose the kinds of messages to which they want to subscribe. Marketing Cloud automatically sets up a preference center for each subscriber, but you can customize it using CloudPages. For more information about preference centers, see Chapter 5.
• Google Ads: If you purchase display ads with Google, your ad appears near the top of the screen when someone searches for a keyword. For example, if your business sells handmade pottery, you could arrange for a photo of one of your pieces to appear when a person searches for pottery. You can use CloudPages to assemble the content of the ad that appears in Google.

When you publish the microsites and landing pages that you create in CloudPages, the system assigns each page a URL. By default, the URL is a Marketing Cloud URL, but you can set up your account to use your company's domain in the landing page URLs.

If you plan to include links to the landing pages in the emails, SMS, or other messages you send to individual subscribers, you can also set up your account to use personalized URLs, or PURLs. A PURL (pronounced “pearl”) includes a variable that the system replaces with a value specific to the particular subscriber so that when the subscriber clicks the link, the system knows whose particular content to populate in the page.

For example, you could use PURLs to include a link to a landing page with information about the subscriber's number of points in your rewards system. When the subscriber clicked the link, the system would go to a version of the landing page with the rewards information of that specific subscriber.

If the subscriber forwards an email containing a PURL, the recipient of the forwarded message can click the link and see the subscriber's personalized information. To protect your subscribers from accidentally breaching their own security when they forward your emails, always be careful not to include data that is too sensitive in your landing pages.

Setting up the system to use your company's private domain or PURLs requires advanced setup. Contact Marketing Cloud support for help.

As an example, Figure 15-1 shows a landing page created in CloudPages. The landing page contains a form where site visitors can enter to win a drawing.

Social content

You can create Facebook tabs, Facebook ads, Twitter posts, and LinkedIn blog entries in CloudPages. This is only one way that you can use Marketing Cloud for social media marketing, though. Read about the Social Studio app in Chapter 13.

The following list describes the kinds of social content you can create in CloudPages:

• Facebook tab: Your company's Facebook page has space for content that you publish in Facebook, such as your wall posts and photos, and space for content that you create in other applications. That third-party application content you create appears in a Facebook tab. Users on your company's Facebook page see the tab listed in the navigation near the top of the screen and can click it to see special information you've created there. Figure 15-2 illustrates a custom Facebook tab containing CloudPages content.
• Facebook ad: Even if a Facebook user isn't visiting your company's Facebook page, you can make your corporate presence felt, whatever the user is doing in Facebook. When you place Facebook ads, Facebook users see them in a sidebar alongside their wall.
• Twitter posts and LinkedIn blogs: You can create the content that appears in a tweet you post on Twitter or a blog you post on LinkedIn by using CloudPages. Using CloudPages for this kind of content helps you keep all your social content creation centralized in Marketing Cloud.

Figure 15-2 shows an example of CloudPages social content in a Facebook tab.

Mobile content

In addition to a corporate website and a social media presence, many companies have a mobile app that customers can install on their mobile phones or other devices. The Marketing Cloud MobilePush app integrates with your mobile app to send messages to app users. You use CloudPages to assemble the messages that you send with MobilePush. See Chapter 12 for details about MobilePush.

Figure 15-3 shows what a MobilePush message might look like.

Creating a collection

Use the following steps to create a collection:

1. From the home screen in CloudPages, click the Create Collection button.

   The Create Collection window appears.

2. Enter a name for the collection.
3. (Optional) Enter a description.
4. Click Save and the collection appears in the list.

Adding content to a collection

Use the following steps to create a collection:

1. From the Collection section of the home screen in CloudPages, locate the collection to which you want to add content.

2. Pause your mouse pointer on the collection and click the Edit Content button that appears there.

   The system opens the collection canvas.

3. Click the Create button on the right side of the screen and choose one of the following options:
   • Landing Page
   • Code Resource
   • Microsite
   • MobilePush Page
   • Facebook Tab
4. Add content as described in the following sections.

Microsite

When you create a microsite, you design a site map that organizes landing pages. CloudPages uses the page hierarchy that you set up as the basis for a navigation menu that website visitors can use to move around the site. You can also control the look and feel of the site navigation here. Figure 15-5 shows what the microsites editor looks like.

Use the following steps to add a microsite to your collection:

1. In the Create a Microsite window that appeared when you chose Microsite, enter the name and description of your landing page.
2. If you want to require that only visitors with secure connections visit this site, select the HTTPS Connections Only check box.

3. Click Create.

   An editor workspace appears.

4. Click the Add Page button in the left panel.

   The Add New Page window appears.

5. Type the name of the landing page, and then click Create.

   A card appears on the workspace to represent the landing page.

6. Pause your mouse pointer on the card and click the Add Content button that appears.

   The Create Content window appears.

7. Select the method you want to use to create landing page content.

   Valid values follow:

   • Create New Content, Design View: Launch the Content Builder editor.
   • Create New Content, Code View: Open an editor window where you can type or paste HTML and other web programming code.
   • Start from Existing Content: Open a copy of a landing page that you created previously. Choose from the list of landing pages that appears.
8. Click Next.

9. Create or edit the landing pages in the microsite.

   For complete information on using Content Editor, see Chapter 7.

10. Click the Back to the microsite name link at the top left to return to the microsite editor.

11. Repeat Steps 6 through 10 to add the remaining landing pages to the microsite.

    Each landing page you add to the microsite appears as a box in the left panel. Drag the boxes to change the order of the pages in the microsite navigation. To make a page a child of another page, position the child just under the parent and then drag it to the right.

12. To preview and edit the site navigation, click the Edit Navigation link.

    The Navigation Editor appears and you can change the visuals aspects of the navigation bar, such as the background color, the font of the menu items, and whether arrows appear next to menu names to indicate that the user can click the name.

13. Make your changes and then click Done.

Unpublishing content

If you decide to take down content that you've already published, either because there's a problem with it or just because it's outlived its usefulness, you can unpublish it.

The Unpublish button can be a little tricky to find. On the Page Details page, look for an Unpublish button right next to the Published status. Figure 15-7 shows where you can find the Unpublish button.

If you created content with a deadline, consider replacing the page rather than unpublishing it. For example, if you created a content entry form that had to be completed by a certain time, you can schedule a new version of the page to publish at the time of the deadline. The new version of the page can thank the readers for their interest, inform the readers that the contest has ended, and suggest other pages that they might find interesting.