Add Custom Variables to Email Campaigns Follow

Use custom variables to dynamically pull recipient-specific data points into an email campaign. Custom variables are similar to merge tags, which allow you to pull in a member’s first name, last name, etc. into an email.

Custom variables have limitless possibilities, since you are able to manually create any variable, link that data to a member, and pipe it into an email using an excel file as a User Distribution List.

To build an email campaign with custom variables...

1. You will need to send your email to a User Distribution List of your desired recipients. Start by creating a CSV file.
2. Name the first column “User Id.” Then, list the User IDs of the members you wish to contact.
3. In the subsequent column headers, add the names of your custom variables in all CAPS, with words separated by underscores (e.g. FAVORITE_COLOR).
   
4. Below the column headers, list corresponding custom variables for each User ID.
   
5. Within the text of the email campaign, you will need to wrap the custom variable in a ${}. For example, place ${FAVORITE_COLOR} where you want the members’ favorite color to populate. You must use ALL CAPS, with words separated by underscores. The text within the ${} should exactly match the custom variable names in the column headers of your User Distribution list.
   
6. To send your campaign, upload your CSV file as a User Distribution List in the schedule tab of the email campaign.
7. Testing is very important. To test this, you will need to send yourself an actual test email campaign (rather than simply send yourself a test email on the Email Template page).
   1. Make a copy of the email you are creating
   2. Send it to a User Distribution List with only your test member ID and information for each custom variable.
   3. Once you receive this email, check to make sure the proper custom variables have properly replaced your custom variables.