Personalize emails
How to personalize every part of your email, from content to subject.
When you are sending emails in bulk, it’s a best practice to personalize your emails. It might certainly increase your open rate as your recipient feels like the email is unique.
Mailmeteor makes it easy to insert personalized variables (also called "merge tags" or "merge fields" in other software). A variable looks like this:
{{ firstname }} To personalize your email, all you need to do is to select the desired variable from the dropdown menu when creating or editing a template. This will insert a variable into your email body.
Click on the dropdown menu to insert personalized variables
Once you add your personalized variables, your email should look like this:
A template in Mailmeteor
Now, if we save the template and preview its content, you will see that variables are replaced by the data from your spreadsheet corresponding to each recipient (1 recipient = 1 row).
The variables are replaced by the corresponding data for each recipients
To personalize the email subject, open Mailmeteor and select a template or create a new template.
In the subject field, type your variable inside double brackets. For example: {{ firstname }}
The variable will be replaced with the corresponding data from your Google Sheets spreadsheet. You must ensure that your variable matches your spreadsheet's headers. In other words, if you have a column named "firstname", then you must type {{ firstname }} (in lowercase without space).
In this example, we've added another variable in the Subject field
Sure! Here we have inserted multiple variables in both the email subject and content:
You can add as many variables as you want, both in the subject field and email content
🆕 Your variables can have a fallback value (also known as a default value). The fallback is separated from the variable name using a vertical bar, like that:
{{ variable | default }}. In the screenshot below, the email's content starts with:
Hi {{ firstname | there }}. This means that when the firstname of your recipient is known, we will use it. But when it's unknown, we default to the value "there". In the end, emails start with
Hi Sally, Hi Neil or default to Hi there.Using a fallback value to personalize emails
Using a fallback value is extremely useful. For example, sometimes you might have the firstname of the recipient, but not always. By using a fallback, you make sure that your emails look right in all situation.
Sometimes, you may want to send emails with the same template but different content to make your email even more personalized or reach different audiences with targeted messages.
In the example below, we use a personalized Post Scriptum at the end of the email for certain recipients only. As you can see, we've added a PS only for John.
Using a {{postscriptum}} variable ont email template.
For the other recipients that don't have a Post Scriptum (i.e. the cell is left blank), the {{postscriptum}} variable will be replaced with an empty string. These recipients will not receive a personalized Post Scriptum.
You can use these techniques to send emails with different emails content easily. It is an efficient way to make your recipients feel unique and a good practice to avoid falling into spam because of repetitive email content! For example, learn more about how to A/B test your emails using Mailmeteor.
If you prefer watching a video, here's a tutorial on how to send personalized emails using Mailmeteor:
How to personalize your emails in Gmail using Mailmeteor
Last modified 8mo ago