Adding Merge Fields
In Outbound E-mail, you can personalize an e-mail message to an individual Contact by adding to it the Contact’s surname or telephone number in the text of the e-mail. Outbound E-mail allows you to personalize individual fields through the use of Merge Fields.
A Merge Field is a piece of text that represents a specific Contact Detail, such as a telephone number or the organization to which the Contact belongs. You can enter Merge Fields wherever text may appear, but in most cases you will use Merge Fields in the following places:
- In the E-mail Subject, From, and E-mail Sender Address fields of a Mailing
- In a Component field
- In Component Templates or Page Templates
To insert a Merge Field, you wrap the name of a Contact Detail in angled brackets and asterisks as follows:
[* ContactDetail *]
where ContactDetail is the name of a Contact Extended Detail field. For example, if your Contact's extended details consists of the fields described in the table below, you can insert the following Merge Fields in a Mailing to create a Mailing personalized to each individual who receives the Mailing:
[* Salutation *][* Prefix *][* Surname *]
The result would be, for example, personalized text inserted in the e-mail such as "Dear Mr Moody" or "Dear Mrs Popova".
| Contact Extended Detail Name | Description |
|---|---|
Salutation | A phrase preceding the name in a letter heading, for example "Dear" |
Prefix | The title of a person, such as "Ms", "Dr" or "Mr" |
Name | The Contact’s first name, such as "Penelope" or "Federico" |
Surname | The Contact’s surname, such as "Horowitz" or "Smithers" |
EmailAddress | The Contact’s e-mail address |
Company | The organization to which the Contact belongs. |