Dynamic Content in Marketing Cloud Next: Personalisation Points, Decisions, and Targeting Rules

Personalisation in Marketing Cloud Next is more powerful than anything available in Account Engagement — but it uses a completely different model. Where Account Engagement used Handlebars Merge Language (HML) conditional blocks, Marketing Cloud Next uses a three-layer system: Personalisation Points, Personalisation Decisions, and Targeting Rules.

Understanding how these three components work together is the key to building genuinely personalised email content in Marketing Cloud Next.

The Three-Layer Personalisation Model

Layer 1: Personalisation Point

A Personalisation Point is a content slot in an email — a specific component that can show different content for different recipients. You define a Personalisation Point by selecting a content element in the Email Builder and marking it as "personalisable."

Any of the following components can be a Personalisation Point:

• Subject line
• Preheader text
• Text blocks
• Image components
• Button and CTA components
• Banner sections

A Personalisation Point says: "this slot in the email can show different content depending on who is receiving it."

[Screenshot: Personalisation Point configuration in the email editor]

The Email Builder showing a selected image component with the Personalisation Point toggle enabled and a default variant defined

id: personalisation-point-setup

Layer 2: Personalisation Decision

A Personalisation Decision is the eligibility check attached to a Personalisation Point. It defines who qualifies for each content variant at that Point.

A Personalisation Decision contains one or more variants plus a default:

• Variant A: "Show to recipients who meet Criteria Set A"
• Variant B: "Show to recipients who meet Criteria Set B"
• Default: "Show to everyone who doesn't match Variant A or Variant B"

The Decision is evaluated at send time, individually for each recipient.

[Screenshot: Personalisation Decision eligibility criteria builder]

The Personalisation Decision panel showing two variants and a default, with the eligibility criteria builder open for Variant A

id: personalisation-decision-criteria

Layer 3: Targeting Rule

A Targeting Rule is the specific condition set that determines which recipients see which variant. It is built in a visual rule builder using Unified Individual attributes.

Targeting Rules can reference:

• Any field on the Unified Individual (job title, department, seniority, industry)
• Any field on the associated Unified Account (company size, revenue tier, industry)
• Engagement signals (last email opened, last web visit, engagement score tier)
• Event attendance (attended a specific webinar, registered for a conference)
• Custom fields from any connected Data Cloud source

[Screenshot: Targeting Rule conditions panel with field selectors]

The Targeting Rule conditions panel showing three condition rows: Industry = Financial Services, Account.AnnualRevenue > 10000000, and EngagementScore >= 60, combined with AND logic

id: targeting-rule-conditions

Practical Example: Industry-Based Content Variant

Suppose you are sending a campaign email to 5,000 prospects. You want the hero image and opening paragraph to reflect each recipient's industry.

Setup:

1. Create a Personalisation Point on the hero image component
2. Create a Personalisation Point on the opening text block
3. Define a Personalisation Decision with three variants:
   • Variant A: Financial Services
   • Variant B: Technology
   • Variant C: Manufacturing
   • Default: Generic content
4. For Variant A, add a Targeting Rule: Unified Account.Industry = "Financial Services"
5. Upload a financial services hero image and write FS-specific copy for Variant A
6. Repeat for Variants B and C
7. Assign default content for recipients whose industry does not match any variant

At send time, each of the 5,000 recipients sees the hero image and opening paragraph that matches their industry — without any manual list splitting or separate campaign sends.

[Screenshot: Email preview showing different content variants for different audience segments]

The email preview panel with a segment selector showing Variant A (Financial Services hero image), Variant B (Technology hero image), and Default rendering side by side

id: personalised-email-preview

Merge Fields: Tokens from the Unified Individual

In addition to component-level variants, Marketing Cloud Next supports merge field tokens — placeholders in text that resolve to values from the Unified Individual's profile at send time.

Common merge fields:

• {{Individual.FirstName}} — recipient's first name
• {{Individual.LastName}} — recipient's last name
• {{Individual.CompanyName}} — recipient's company
• {{Individual.JobTitle}} — recipient's job title
• {{Individual.Account.Industry}} — account industry
• {{Individual.EngagementScore}} — current engagement score (useful in internal reporting, not typically rendered in emails)

Unlike Account Engagement's HML which only had access to Prospect fields, Marketing Cloud Next merge fields can reference any attribute from the Unified Individual and its related Account — including fields that come from non-CRM data sources.

The Repeater Component

The Repeater is a special personalisation component that renders a list of items dynamically based on a data source. Rather than showing a fixed list, it queries a data source and renders one item template per returned record.

Example use cases:

• Show a prospect's top 3 recommended resources based on their content engagement history
• Show the most recent events in a prospect's city based on location data
• Show a personalised list of products relevant to the recipient's purchase history

[Screenshot: Repeater component showing a dynamic product list personalised per recipient]

An email section with a Repeater component rendering three product cards, each pulled from a connected product catalogue data source filtered by the recipient's industry

id: repeater-component-example

Dynamic Content vs Personalisation: What Changed from Account Engagement

Account Engagement's dynamic content uses HML conditional blocks embedded in the email HTML:

{{#if prospect.Field_Name == "Value"}}
  Show this content
{{else}}
  Show this instead
{{/if}}

This approach is field-limited (Prospect fields only), is configured inline in HTML (no visual builder), and is binary per rule (if/else only, no multi-variant without nested HML).

Marketing Cloud Next's Personalisation Points, Decisions, and Targeting Rules replace this with a visual, multi-variant, data-source-agnostic system. The key advantages:

• Visual configuration — no HTML editing required
• Multi-variant — up to N variants per Personalisation Point, not just if/else
• Any data source — any Unified Individual attribute, not just prospect fields
• Account-level targeting — reference Account attributes natively
• Engagement-signal targeting — personalise based on engagement score, last open date, web visit recency

The approach is more powerful but requires more upfront thinking. You are designing a decision tree for each content slot, not writing a conditional in code.

Important Limitations

Email/Template conversion restriction: You cannot save an Email as an Email Template or vice versa. If you design a personalised template and then convert it to an email, you must rebuild the Personalisation Points from scratch.

Data source limitation on templates: Email Templates can have one Event Data Provider associated. Once added, the data source cannot be removed — a new template must be created. Plan your template's data source requirements before building.

Segment-Triggered Flows: Accept Emails only, not Email Templates. Build your final personalised email from the template and assign the Email to the flow — not the template itself.

Personalisation Beyond Email

Personalisation rules in Marketing Cloud Next are not limited to email. The same Personalisation Point / Decision / Targeting Rule model applies to:

• SMS messages — personalise message text based on Unified Individual attributes
• WhatsApp messages — personalise conversational messages
• Landing pages — if using Marketing Cloud Next landing pages, personalise content for logged-in individuals

Cross-channel personalisation with a consistent underlying data source (the Unified Individual) means a recipient experiences consistent, coherent messaging across every touchpoint — not fragmented personalisation that differs by channel.

Summary

The three-layer personalisation model in Marketing Cloud Next — Personalisation Points, Personalisation Decisions, Targeting Rules — is a more structured and more powerful approach than Account Engagement's HML dynamic content. It requires planning upfront (mapping which content slots need variants and what criteria drive each variant) but produces more accurate, more maintainable, and more scalable personalisation.

The key unlock is the Unified Individual as the data source for all targeting rules. With full cross-source individual data available, personalisation can move beyond "if job title contains Manager" to genuinely contextual content decisions driven by behaviour, account-level attributes, and engagement signals.

Want to see a live build of dynamic content in Marketing Cloud Next? Pardive runs hands-on workshops covering the full personalisation setup for your specific use cases. Book a workshop.