All your questions answered (with examples too).
Dynamic and personalised email content is a proven way to increase engagement with your subscribers. With merge tags, email marketers can easily include unique details, such as a prospect’s name, or discount code, directly to your email subject lines, or main messages.
Today, we explore what merge tags are, how, when, and why you should use them.
What are Merge Tags and how do they work?
Merge tags are clever little snippets of code that you can insert into your email body and subject lines to personalise your content for, or to, your reader.
When you send your email out, real data replaces the merge codes, which is pulled from fields in your audience database.
Using merge tags in your email marketing allows you to customise your campaigns with relevant information about your audience members.
In technical speak, a merge tag is a ‘text identifier’. It matches unique data that’s saved in your audience database.
The best way to show you, is in an example.
EXAMPLE
John wants to insert their subscriber’s first name into their email subject line. Instead of writing 13,761 emails out individually, he uses the merge tag [firstname].
Each time Transpond finds this tag in your email content, it replaces this tag with the unique data held in each row of your recipient list.
What’s a field in your audience database?
An ‘audience field’ is specific information held on your contacts. It most often includes names, email addresses, dates of birth, contact information, addresses and much more.
The more fields you have, the more data you’ll collect on your customers – which can be extremely powerful when it comes to marketing to them.
Why should I use merge tags?
Merge tags are great for personalising your marketing emails. Personalisation grabs your readers attention and helps to build a more personal relationship with them. Readers are then much more likely to engage with your content, and you’re more likely to drive more engaged towards action.
Merge tags make personalisation extremely easy but expanding their use beyond basic personalisation is where their power really lies.
How can I use merge tags differently?
The more data you can collect on your audience, the better. Adding a first/last name is just the beginning.
Some powerful ways you can use merge tags include personalising based on information specific to your relationship with your prospect/customer.
EXAMPLE
- It’s been eight years since you purchased your mattress from us. It’s time to get a new one!
- Happy birthday! Another year wiser. Here’s 10% off to celebrate.
- We noticed you haven’t popped into our coffee shop since 2021, surely you need a coffee by now. Pop down this weekend for a free brownie with any medium or large hot drink!
Another idea, which is great for turning customers into evangelists, is to personalise your content with previous purchases, thanking them for their custom, or asking for feedback.
- How was your visit to our Stockton store last weekend? We’d love to hear your feedback!
- We hope you love the shoes you brought from us last week, give us your thoughts.
Alternatively, you can personalise content with information collected on interactions and website visits.
- Hey Mark, we saw you eyeing up these trousers, we think they’d look great on you.
- Philippa, you’re missing out – you’ve not logged in to your Fizilizzy account yet.
Merge tags for grouping and segmenting
Merge tags are also great for internal list segmentation. For example, if a customer comes from a specific campaign, enters a competition, or undertakes a particular action on your site, then you can assign them with a specific tag. This tag can then inform a series of emails, relevant to the action.
EXAMPLE
Ellie enters a competition on your social channels to win a weekend spa break at a hotel in Cheshire. When you import Ellie’s data into your list, you tag her record with the merge tag ‘[cheshirespacompetition]’.
You then follow this up with a ‘Thank you for your entry, Ellie! Good luck!’ email and then a ‘Sorry you didn’t win, perhaps you’d like to buy some of our spa treatments instead?’ email.
Merge tags for design customisation
When you’ve got super confident with merge tags, you can even use them to customise the design of your emails.
EXAMPLE
You want to send out a B2B email that’s customised to your client’s brand colours, so you want to change the background colour of the email to reflect the subscriber’s company logo.
Here, you must add a new merge tag field, such as “bgcolor”, and fill in the appropriate hex colour in each record. Then all you need to do is change the bgcolor tags in your email code to read “bgcolor=”*|BGCOLOR|*”, and bingo, you’ve just altered the format on each email you send out.
Very clever.
Get assistance with your merge tags with Transpond.
Transpond is an easy-to-use email marketing tool that will help you grow your business through helping you to improve and refine your email marketing approach.
If you want more assistance with merge tags or personalising, feel free to reach out. Our team are ready to help.