People want to be treated as individuals, which is why personalization is essential to marketing practices. Do you prefer to be addressed by your name? So do your customers!

Emails that are personalized are more likely to be opened and your audience is more likely to interact with them. Sending personalized emails to the right customer at the right time strengthens customer experiences -- which strengthens your business. 😊

Merge tags are used to insert unique user data, linked to a unique value, from your mailing list into emails. For example, you could include your contacts' names in your email by using the *[FirstName]* merge tag in your content. Each time you insert a merge tag into a campaign, that tag will be replaced with user data in the final email.

Merge tags are also known as substitution strings, personalization fields, or personalization tags.

The Contact ID, email address, and subscription date default fields are automatically created with all lists, and cannot be edited or deleted. This information comes from account information or information automatically included in your contact list.

1. Select Contacts in the top navigation bar:

2. On the Contacts page, select the mailing list you'd like to use:

3. Click on the cog wheel on the right-hand menu.

4. You will now see the Manage lists and attributes menu:

When someone subscribes to your mailing list, the default fields (Contact ID, email address, and sign-up date) are automatically created and added here. Tailwind uses this information to track subscriber information and it cannot be removed or edited.

5. Create a custom field by clicking the Enter attribute name box and naming your attribute, then select the field type and click Save.

You can select the following field types:

Helpful Tip: Custom fields cannot contain punctuation marks, special characters, or spaces.

Now that you've created your custom field, you can use it as personalized content in your campaign! 🎉 It can be included either in the subject line of your email or the content body.

Helpful Tip: You'll need to type personalized fields manually if you'd like to add them to your campaign. Remember to match the tag exactly to the field name.

Here are some examples of how custom fields can be used in a campaign:

would become:

You can also use the [email] tag, which will take the recipient’s email address and insert it into the campaign:

would become:

You can also use fallback fields if no data is currently available.

You can automatically include the subject of your email in the body. This text comes from the information you entered when creating your campaign.

You can use the following tags:

Sender information comes from the details you filled out in your account settings.

You can use the following tags:

Client information also comes from the details you filled out when you created your account. You can change your account details under the Email Settings tab:

You can use the following tags for client information:

Note: Your physical address [link article] must appear in all emails sent through an email marketing service provider in order to be legally compliant.

Use these tags as part of your email footer to provide the recipient information about who is emailing them:

which will read as:

This option includes information about a specific mailing list to the campaign. To change this information, access your list settings:

You can use the following tags:

Tags for actions allow readers to share your campaign with others, view your email in a browser window, and use several different subscribe and unsubscribe options. You can add action tags in the header or footer of your email.

You can use the following tags:

You can insert a dynamic date into your campaign or subject line using the [DATE] merge field:

Read more here about adding a dynamic date.

Are you using Google Analytics? You can use merge fields as part of a custom Google Analytics link that includes user information. This way you get highly specific tracking results!

This data will show up in your Google Analytics account under “Traffic Sources.”