Transactional vs. Regular Email Campaigns

One of the most important concepts to understand is the difference between transactional emails and regular marketing campaigns. Both result in emails going to your guests, but they serve completely different purposes and are managed in different ways.

Transactional Communication

Transactional emails are triggered automatically whenever a specific event occurs in your Property Management System (PMS). They are always tied to a single reservation status change and sent to one specific guest. Because they are event-driven, they happen in real time (or near real time) - no scheduling or audience building is needed.

The required events are configured entirely using TrustYou CDP webhooks. As soon as your PMS reports a reservation status change, TrustYou CDP receives the notification proactively and triggers the corresponding email through Mandrill (the transactional sending engine connected to your Mailchimp account).

Regular Email Campaigns (Audience-Based)

Regular campaigns - such as birthday emails, win-back campaigns, newsletters, or seasonal promotions - work differently. Instead of being triggered by a reservation event, they are sent to a defined audience: a group of guests who match certain filter criteria in the CDP.

For these campaigns, TrustYou CDP handles the audience creation and data segmentation. The resulting audience is synced to Mailchimp, where your team designs the email template and sets up the sending automation. Mailchimp handles the scheduling and delivery of these campaigns.

The key distinction is this: for transactional emails, the guest's own action (making a booking, checking in, etc.) triggers the email. For regular campaigns, your team decides who receives a message, based on data stored in the CDP.

When to Use Which

• Use transactional events for booking confirmations, cancellation confirmations, check-in messages, check-out messages, or any communication that needs to happen in response to a PMS event.
• Use CDP audiences + Mailchimp campaigns for birthday emails, win-back campaigns, newsletters, re-engagement campaigns, or any communication sent to a group of guests based on shared characteristics.