Set up and manage ESP merge tags

Configuring your ESP merge tags in Litmus enables anyone on your team to create personalized emails quickly and easily in Litmus Builder. This article covers how to set up your merge tags in Litmus.

What is a merge tag?

Depending on the email service provider you use, merge tags may also be known as personalization fields, personalization strings, merge parameters, tokens, personalization tags, or other similar names. Merge tags allow you to insert data from your mailing list directly into your email in order to create dynamic, personalized content.

For example, if you are a Mailchimp user and you'd like to insert your subscriber's first name into your email, you would use the merge tag *|FNAME|*. When sending an email, Mailchimp will replace the tag *|FNAME|* with the unique data associated with each recipient in your list.

Setting up ESP merge tags

To set up ESP merge tags, head over to your Personalization settings. To get there, click on your account name in the upper right corner of the screen and click on Settings. From the Settings area, click on Personalization in the left side navigation.

To add merge tags, first choose your ESP by clicking Add an ESP and choose your ESP from the dropdown.

Note: don't see your ESP in this list? Choose Other to set up your merge tags.

Note: do you use more than one ESP? You can add multiple sets of ESP merge tags to your settings. Just note that you can only configure one set of merge tags per ESP.

Default merge tags

Once you've added your ESP, you'll see the ESP name and logo displayed on the Personalization settings page. For certain supported ESPs, Litmus will add default merge tags automatically to your account to minimize setup time. Default merge tags are the tags that an ESP provides to all accounts out of the box.

Litmus will automatically add default merge tags for the following ESPs:

ActiveCampaign
Braze
Emarsys
Emma
Klaviyo
Mailchimp
Marketo
Pardot
Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Note: default merge tags can not be edited or deleted.

Adding custom merge tags

Once you've added your ESP, you can add a custom merge tag by clicking the New merge tag button. Then, in the dialog box that opens, provide a title (e.g. "Full name") and the tag itself (e.g. "{{fullname}}") and click Add merge tag.

You may add as many custom merge tags as you need.

Note: for a given ESP, merge tags must have both a unique title and tag.

Managing ESP merge tags

You can return to your Personalization settings at any time to manage your ESP merge tags. To edit a custom merge tag, click the pencil icon next to the merge tag you wish to edit. To delete a merge tag, click the trashcan icon next to the merge tag. And to delete a set of ESP merge tags, click the trashcan icon next to the New merge tag button.

Note: you can't edit or delete default merge tags.

Using ESP merge tags

Once you've set up your merge tags, you can use them to quickly and easily personalize emails in Litmus Builder. For more information on using ESP merge tags in Builder, please refer to this article.