All About: Merge Fields

Have you ever gotten an email from a company's newsletter that referred to you by name? Chances are, their marketing team didn't type out personalized emails to each of their customers - they used merge fields! Merge fields are data points attached to your contacts that you can pull in anywhere that you write text. Inserting a merge fields allows each recipient to feel like your communication was designated for them and them only. In ThankView, you can utilize our default merge fields, in addition to adding up to 5 of your own!

Using Merge Fields

ThankView comes with 11 default merge fields you can pull into a campaign text box:

  • Title
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Preferred Name
  • Company
  • Donor ID
  • Ask Amount
  • Last Donation
  • Designation
  • Years Giving
  • Class Year (K-12 and University Only)

Using Merge Fields in a Campaign

There are a few areas where you'll be able to take advantage of merge fields and personalize your message even further inside of a campaign. You'll be able to do this anywhere that you see the blue merge field icon inside of a text area - it will look like two lines merging into an upward-pointing arrow! You'll get a dropdown of fields, and when you select one, it will insert the data point between two % signs. For example, if you want the recipient's first name to appear in a subject line, the text in your campaign should read "Hello %first_name%, thanks for your donation!" You'll have this option in Email Setup (Message) and your Landing Page ( Page).

Message Page

This is where you'll customize how your email will appear to recipients. Try using merge fields in the following areas:

  • Subject Line
  • Sender Name
  • Email Message
  • Button Text

Landing Page

While configuring your landing page, also known as the Page tab in your campaign, you'll see the option to add merge fields in several places.

  • Envelope Appearance
  • Description

Try planning out how you'd like to personalize at every step and get creative with custom merge fields, as well!

Creating Custom Merge Fields

Custom merge fields can be really useful if your organization collects and would like to utilize data outside of the scope of the default fields we offer. To add your own merge fields:

  1. Click the profile icon (contains your first initial) in the top right corner of your portal and select Settings from the dropdown.
  2. In the lefthand sidebar here, click on My Portal and scroll to the very bottom of the page to the Merge Fields section.
  3. Enter your desired merge field under the Add a New Custom Merge Field area and select the purple +Add Merge Field button.

Deleting Custom Merge Fields

  1. Click the Profile Icon (contains your first initial) in the top right corner of your portal and select Settings from the dropdown.
  2. In the lefthand sidebar here, click on My Portal and scroll to the very bottom of the page to the Merge Fields section.
  3. Select the radio button beside the custom merge field you wish to delete.
  4. Click the red Delete Merge Field button and in the dialogue that appears, type 'DELETE' into the bar. Click Delete Field and you'll see it removed from your list.

Notes

  • You may add up to five custom merge fields to your portal at a time.
  • You can delete a custom merge field at any time, but editing the text of an existing field that already contains data will require you to contact your Customer Success Rep for support.
  • While using the search bar on your Contacts page, you will be able to search for contacts using information that populates any of your custom merge fields, in addition to name fields and IDs.

If you have additional questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Representative or support@thankview.com.

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