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Email personalization using merge fields

Merge contact fields into your emails

Zoltan Wagner avatar
Written by Zoltan Wagner
Updated this week

This article is part of a series of articles about personalizing emails. You can check out other ways to personalize your messages.


Merge fields can be used to personalize message content. They can be added anywhere in emails, including the subject line and pre-header text.

Usage

Frequently used fields can be added using the "Merge field" selector from the message editor toolbar. The most common merge field is the first name used in the greeting line.

The merge field in your message will look like this:

Hello {fname},

Default first name

On the account settings page you can enter a default "first name" value to be used if a contact doesn't have a first name field in the database.

Additional merge fields

Other, less common fields can be added by typing the merge fields in the message using the syntax below:

Contact fields

Email: {email}
First name: {fname}
Last name: {lname}
Company: {company}
Primary phone: {phone}
Secondary phone: {phone2}
Mobile phone: {cell}
Province or state: {province}
Country: {country}
City: {city}
Postal or zip: {postal}
Title: {title}
Address line 1: {addr1}
Address line 2: {addr2}

Custom fields

{@my-NAME}

For example if your custom field is called "StudentID" then the merge field becomes {@my-StudentID}

Pro tip: For "note" type custom fields you can use {@my-fieldname|html} to parse line breaks (<br> tags) as the content of the field is merged into your message.

You can read more about custom fields here.

Contact IDs

Envoke external contact ID {eid}
Remote ID {remote_id}

Email messages

View online link: {@msg-url|noeid}
Message name: {@msg-name}
Message ID: {@msg-id}
Subject line: {@msg-subject}

Subscription details to show in email footers

If the message is sent to an opt-in subscription:

Subscription name: {@msg-subscription}
This option uses the language setting of the message.

Subscription name: {@msg-subscription|lang:en}
Showing the English version of the subscription name.

Subscription name: {@msg-subscription|lang:fr}
Showing the French version of the subscription name.

This only applies if the mandatory communication feature is enabled.

Mandatory message reason: {@msg-mandatory_reason}
This option uses the language setting of the message.

Mandatory message reason: {@msg-mandatory_reason|lang:en}
Showing the English version of the mandatory sending reason name.

Mandatory message reason: {@msg-mandatory_reason|lang:fr}
Showing the French version of the mandatory sending reason name.

Link to the email preferences / unsubscribe page

{@pref-0} Link to the preferences page in contact's selected language.
{@pref-0}/en Link to the preferences page in English.
{@pref-0}/fr Link to the preferences page in French.

See this article for details about the Consent and Preferences page including options to customize the unsubscribe link.

Dates

Year (four digits, for example: 2019): {@sys-timestamp|Y}
Month (full name, for example: May): {@sys-timestamp|F}
Month (numeric, for example: 10): {@sys-timestamp|m}
Day (numeric, for example: 23): {@sys-timestamp|d}

Branding fields

Account name: {@brand-company}
Website: {@brand-url}
Logo: {@brand-logo}
Address: {@brand-address}

Social media

Facebook: {@social-facebook|url}
Twitter: {@social-twitter|url}
LinkedIn: {@social-linkedin|url}
Instagram: {@social-instagram|url}
Pinterest: {@social-pinterest|url}
YouTube: {@social-youtube|url}
Vimeo: {@social-vimeo|url}
RSS: {@social-rss|url}
TripAdvisor: {@social-tripadvisor|url}

Test and preview

Use the Preview as... option in the email editor to see the content that a contact on your list will see after the merge fields are in place.

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