Merge tags insert customer details when a message is sent. A greeting such as “Hi there” can become “Hi Ada”. Add a fallback to each optional value so the message still reads naturally when a contact’s details are missing.
Add a tag in the designer
- Select a heading or text block and click into its text.
- In the sidebar, open Insert personalization and choose a Field: a contact field such as First name, one of your custom attributes, or a workspace detail.
- Enter the Fallback text: the word to use when a contact has no value, such as “there”.
On the canvas the tag shows as a named chip, such as First name. While you’re editing the text, it shows in its short form, for example {{first_name|there}}. You can type the short form yourself in headings, text and column blocks.
The tags you can use
| Tag | What it fills in |
|---|---|
{{ contact.firstName }} |
First name |
{{ contact.lastName }} |
Last name |
{{ contact.email }} |
Email address |
{{ contact.phone }} |
Phone number |
{{ contact.externalId }} |
Your own ID for the contact |
{{ contact.attributes.plan }} |
Any custom attribute, by its key (here plan) |
{{ org.name }} |
Your workspace’s name |
{{ org.address }} |
Your workspace’s postal address |
Two more kinds work only in certain emails:
{{ event.properties.total }}reads a detail of the event that started a journey, or of a transactional send, such as an order number or total. Campaigns don’t have an event, so they can’t use these.{{ item.name }}reads one row inside a Repeating list block, such as each line of a Juniper Kitchen order receipt.
See Attributes for creating your own fields.
Fallbacks
Add a fallback anywhere a missing value would read badly:
Hi {{ contact.firstName | default: "there" }},A contact with no first name sees “Hi there,”. fallback: works the same way as default:, so {{ contact.firstName | fallback: "there" }} is also fine. Workspace details such as {{ org.name }} are the same for everyone and don’t take a fallback.
Personalise the subject line
Subjects use the full form of the tag, not the short one. In the campaign or journey email’s Subject field, open Insert personalization, choose a field and a fallback, then choose Insert at cursor. For example:
{{ contact.firstName | default: "Friend" }}, your table at Juniper Kitchen is readyIf you paste the short form ({{first_name|there}}) into a subject, Kirora flags it and the campaign’s review lists it as an issue to fix.
Check before you send
- Use Preview as in the designer’s Preview view to see the email filled in for a real contact, or with the fallbacks.
- Only use the tags listed above. Don’t invent tags such as
{{first_name}}or{{discount_code}}. A tag Kirora doesn’t recognise isn’t filled in. - You never need to add an unsubscribe link: Kirora adds a personal one to every marketing email.
Show different content to different people
To go beyond swapping in a word, select a block and set Show this block to to Only contacts who match. For example, show a “Welcome back” banner only to contacts who have ordered before. See Design an email.