Merge fields allow you to personalize your messages or pages by including your contacts’ name or other information, such as their city of residence, date/time of their appointment, or personal coupon code.

Merge fields serve as placeholders that populate with data from your contact records. For example, if you use the merge field [First Name] in an email message (such as “Hi [First Name]”) and send it to 10 contacts, the field will be filled in with each contact’s first name when the contact receives the email. The email to Vanessa will say “Hi Vanessa” while the email to Kevin will say “Hi Kevin.”

There are also special merge fields and formatting available.

Adding merge fields to messages and pages

When you’re editing text elements on Ontraport Pages or messages, you’ll find merge fields in the dropdown menu .

For the most part, merge fields appear as the name of the field you’re merging surrounded by brackets. For example, when you select the First Name field, it’ll appear in your content as [First Name].

Find details on formatting merge field dates and text stylization here.

 

Setting up default merge fields

In cases where you’re sending a message with merge fields to your contact list and some of the contacts don’t have a value in those particular fields, you can use default merge fields to populate the merge field with a specific value of your choosing. For example, if your email message begins “Welcome, [First Name]!” and you send it to contacts who do not have a value in their first name field, you can set the default merge field for [First Name] to be “friend” so the message will read “Welcome, friend!” instead of “Welcome,!”  

All default merge fields are blank until you customize them. This means that if you send contacts an email with a merge field that isn’t yet populated in their contact record, that area will show up blank in the email they receive. Here’s how to set up the text you’ll want the merge field to default to instead:

  • Go to the contacts tab → Settings → .
  • Type a default value into the fields of your choice. 
  • Click the blue save button.