Whether just the inclusion of a first name, adding a unique voucher code or whole sections of dynamic content, personalising your emails is a powerful way of making an impact on the recipient.
Step 1: uploading your list
Create your list and upload it to Pure Response by going to Contacts – New Contact List.
Step 1 of 3: Add a list name, language, and choose the relevant option. Click next.
Step 2 of 3: First select the person’s email address from the top drop-down. Now go to Custom fields, where the right-hand column select matching sample column will show each piece of data from a random entry on your list. Choose one of these.
Match this up with a custom field name, either from the left-hand column existing column name if you’ve used this custom field before, or by entering a new one in alternative column name.
Once you’ve matched up all your custom fields, click next.
When preparing your list for upload, add more custom fields than you need and upload them with alternative column names of a,b,c, etc. You can’t add extra custom fields once a list has been uploaded, but you can edit their field names and append lists to add data. Adding more fields before you need them saves you from having to re-upload the list from scratch when you need the extra fields.
Step 3 of 3: Enter the email address where you’d like to be sent the notification that the list has uploaded, and check over the summary. Click finish.
Your list upload will need to be complete before you can use the custom fields in your email content.
Step 2 – Creating your email
Create your email as normal in the message editor.
To add a custom field, click on the button for personalisation and dynamic content above the visual editor.
Choose the relevant field name from the drop down and you’ll be given a personalisation field. Copy and paste this into your message content.
Repeat for as many pieces of personalisation/custom data as you have in your list.
For example, the personalisation field {~FIRSTNAME~} will look up the FIRSTNAME column from your uploaded list, and insert the relevant name in place of the code.
Note that the custom field name is case-sensitive and should not include spaces.
Step 3: adding a default value
If you are 100% confident that each field of your list is populated with the relevant data, you may not need to include a default value.
For example, if the first name is missing from one person on your list, then that part of the message will be blank in a live campaign. (In one-to-ones you’ll see the personalisation field {~FIRSTNAME~).
Add default value(s) when you are at the preview and testing stage of your message content creation – click on settings, enter a default value, tick use as default value, choose update and then save.
Personalising URLs
You may want different groups of recipients to go to different landing pages on your site, and you can personalise the URL of a link to do this.
The custom data would then take the form of the rest of the URL, e.g. /email-marketing or /sms-marketing
FAQs
- Can I personalise a subject line? Yes – absolutely. Just use the same code.
- Can I personalise whole sections of text/images? Yes – using our options for dynamic content.
- What about the plain text version? The personalisation field needs to appear in the plain text version of the message as well as the HTML email, otherwise it won’t send.
- If you get a warning alerting you to unused custom fields, check the plain text version. Sometimes when new emails are created by copying & editing an old one, old custom fields can linger in the plain text