A merge tag (or personalization tag, replacement token, etc.) is a dynamic field provided by your email service provider (ESP) to inject dynamic content into your campaigns.
Examples of such tags at different ESPs include:
- Act-On: {{Email-Address}}
- Adobe Campaign: <%= message.campaign_id %> (Adobe Campaign)
- Bronto: %%!message_id%%
- Constant Contact: $SUBSCRIBER.EMAIL$
- MailChimp: *|EMAIL|*, *|CAMPAIGN_UID|*
- Marketo: {{lead.Email Address:default=noemail}}
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud: %%emailaddr%%
How merge tags work
When you upload a subscriber list to your ESP, you can generally map columns in the list to merge tags your ESP recognizes. Then the ESP takes values from your subscriber list and merges them into your email where the tags exist.
A common example of a merge tag is first name. You include your ESP's recognized tag for first name, like %%firstname%%, in your email content where you want the subscriber's first name, like Pamela, to show up. Then you map the first name column to your ESP's first name tag during the list upload process. When your ESP sends your email to Pamela, her name gets merged into your email content, and your email tells her, "Hi Pamela." (If you've ever seen "Hi %%firstname%%" in an email instead of "Hi Pamela," you've seen an error in merging.)
Merge tags and the Everest tracking pixel
Your tracking pixel is designed to track two merge tags: email address and campaign ID. The email address merge tag helps us track recipient-level engagement data, while the campaign ID helps us sort the information for you on the backend. The pixel can also track custom properties.
As long as you include email address and campaign ID in your subscriber list, mapped to the tags in your tracking pixel, those should merge automatically from your subscriber list during the send.
Special notes
- If you use a subscriber ID or other hashed value in place of the email address in your e= parameter, make sure you're mapping that as well. Your ESP can help you with the tag and value you should use.
- If you can't merge a campaign ID with your ESP, you can always copy the ID for your current campaign and paste it into the spot after c= in your email template. Make sure the campaign ID is unique for each campaign.
