hello everyone welcome back to the
channel
my name is Larry snow in today's video
we're gonna be taking a look at
MailChimp merge tags what are they how
they work how to set them up and that's
all coming up next so stay tuned
[Music]
so MailChimp merge tags gives you the
ability to add functionality and
personalization customization to your
campaigns there are two types of merge
tags there are system merge tags and
audience merge tags system merge tags
are things like the RSS process the RSS
merge tag that you can add to your
campaign audience merge tags are coming
from your signup form such as first name
last name company birthday personal
color favorite color that type of thing
so we're going to start taking a look at
how all this works so to start things
off we're gonna go in and add a merge
tag to our signup form so the first
thing you have to do is go into your
audience level in this case I'm at
strategic marketing solutions over on
the right hand side I'm going to select
the manage audience drop-down list and
select setting from the settings part we
can select audience and merge tag and
that will take you to this page how do
you know what a merge tag looks like it
looks just like this that they have
displayed here so it's an asterisk
followed by a pipe or and some people
call it a bar or just a vertical line
followed by the word merge or whatever
your merge tag is named and then
followed by an end bar line and an
asterisk so that's the format it has to
take it cannot be bold it cannot be
italicized it just has to be straight
text so on the left hand column it says
first name email address address and
phone number and then next to it it
tells you what type of label that is or
form field that is
so text email address phone on the next
column MailChimp is asking whether you
want that required in your signup form
or not and the column index that it's
asking whether or not you want it
visible on the form or hidden something
you want to capture without people
seeing it or putting an input and this
the next column is put this tag in your
content so this is saying if I was gonna
add a merge tag to a campaign so say
hello first name then it's saying you
would use this merge tag see it already
has it predefined with the asterisk and
that little pipe or vertical line there
okay
or you could it says you could use this
merge one as your merge tag and it does
the same thing for email now notice that
email we cannot change because that's in
there by default
MailChimp controls that and obviously
you want to capture people's emails
addresses so that's why you can't edit
it next we have address and then phone
now you can go in here and you can edit
this but you are limited in the amount
of characters that you have so maybe I
wanted to do biz add and notice you
cannot have any spaces it will take out
the spaces so maybe it's a business
address instead of a regular address and
maybe this is a bus phone so I can do
bus pho something like that and we'll
see where this comes into play when we
start putting these merge tags in our
campaigns now in the last column it says
something here default merge tag value
so let's say that you have people's
email addresses but you don't have
necessarily their first names some of
the first names are missing well
MailChimp says well you can add in a
default merge tag value that will
display in lieu of or absent of that
particular field so let's say I have a
whole bunch of email addresses but I
don't have first names
well I still have first names here so
maybe I could just called this default
value as friend so in lieu of first name
so why add in the merge tag first name
to my campaign it'll say friend instead
of a blank space makes sense to add a
field go down here to the bottom and
click on add a field now you'll have
certain predefined options such as a
text or a number or radio buttons drop
downs date birthday people want to put
in a website address this way MailChimp
knows what it is so let's say we want to
put in people's website address we'll
click on that and that field will be
added to our audience fields or in this
case our signup form so we're going to
call this website you can see it comes
in untitled so that you can create it we
can ask if it's required or visible
we're going to say its visible but not
required and instead of merge two we're
just gonna call it website and then I'm
going to click on Save Changes
since we're capturing our information
from our signup form now it's time to
take a look at our signup form in
particular our embedded form because
we're putting this on our website so we
go sign up forms embedded form so here's
a preview over to our of our embedded
form if you don't have a plug-in or
anything like that you simply copy this
and paste this code into your website
and then test things out so once you
have captured this data next we're going
to show I'm going to show you how it all
works in your campaigns so let's click
create just an ordinary email this will
work on landing pages it'll work in
automation it'll work in a regular
campaign
wherever you have the ability to add
merge tags it will work for us we're
just going to do a simple email I'm
going to call it merge merge click begin
so I'll select the strategic marketing
solutions one will do all subscribers
and audience one of the options that you
can do right up front is personalized to
two fields so if you've captured first
names you can select that and say first
name so instead of saying you know Joe
Schmo at gmail.com it'll say Joe and
then his email address so it makes more
personalization right up front I'll
uncheck that for this click Save from
here I'm just gonna skip the rest go
into design the email and we'll just
pick something here okay so I've clicked
it in the text box here I'm just gonna
move this down a little bit that will do
left align on that if I click into merge
tags you'll see that we've added and
here's all of our member data so we've
had first name email address there's our
business address that we've added to
phone number website so I could add any
of this any of these merge tags in here
more than one you don't have to use one
and then you'll notice that we have list
data so we could add in subscriber
counts unsubscribe link forward to a
link the Monday the monkey reward stuff
we could add in Facebook like buttons
social media profiles and even content
helpers like that RSS feed items that I
was talking about at the intro so let's
just do F name now you say well how come
anything didn't come out right why don't
I see a first name there so what you
have to do here to check your merge tag
is working properly is click on the
preview and test click on enter preview
mode and you notice here it has our
default tag value as friend so that's
what people will see
if they don't have a first name so
that's working if I enable live Birds
tag information if I turn that on you'll
notice that I now have a first name in
there and no longer friend because
Alberto here put in his first name when
he signed up to receive the free ebook
and you can go through your entire list
if you want to spot check so that's how
you can check it you can also exit of
this and you can send yourself a test
email and that too will put in your
first name when it's sent to your email
address so this is just getting started
here you can do a lot more with merge
tags but as long as you're capturing the
customer data the subscriber data you
can use that to then personalize it so
let's say they have birthdays coming up
or they want their favorite color
displayed on a certain date you can do
all that by capturing audience data and
then filtering out segmenting it out and
then automating that to go out at a
certain type or a certain time with a
certain color in the header so that they
get their personalization and get more
interaction with your email list hope
you enjoyed this video guys if you have
any questions post them in the comments
below thanks so much for watching and to
carry on your journey with bale chimp
don't forget to click on some of these
links that are appearing right now so
that you can continue on learning more
about MailChimp I'll see you in the next
video