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Templates can include each recipient’s name, their custom field values, and data sent with the email, such as an order from your store or your API. This page covers how to insert those values and how to check them before you send.

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Merge tags

Merge tags are placeholders in double curly braces, such as {{first_name}}. They’re replaced for each recipient when the email is sent. To insert one: select a Heading, Text or Rich Text block and click the Merge Tag pill above it. Search or pick a tag and it’s added at the end of the block’s text. You can also type tags directly, or insert them from the HTML tab of an HTML or Rich Text block. These tags work in every campaign, journey and transactional email:

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Fallback values

Add a fallback after a pipe to cover contacts with no value: Hi {{first_name|there}}, prints “Hi there,” when the first name is empty. The picker’s Custom group lists your workspace’s custom fields and inserts each as {{customField:KEY}}. They work in every send and are converted to the other platform’s syntax by Push to ESP.

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View in browser

{{view_in_browser_url}} (and the View Online block, which uses it) links each recipient to a web page showing their copy of the email: campaigns, journey emails and transactional messages all fill it in. The page is on your custom endpoint when you have one, and opening it doesn’t count as an open or a click. For campaigns and journeys, the page is built again when it is opened, from the same template and the contact’s current details, so an email sent before a contact changed their name shows the new name. Transactional emails show the copy that was sent. Anything that has since been deleted (the campaign send, the journey, the contact) makes the link show “no longer available”. A test send’s link opens a page that says it is a test. Push to ESP converts the tag to the other platform’s own web-view link.

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Liquid

For anything beyond a simple value, templates support Liquid: conditions, loops and filters. Liquid works in the email body and the subject line.
What you can read depends on how the email is sent: Values are HTML-escaped automatically, so data from your API can’t inject markup. To output trusted HTML as-is, add | raw, for example {{ data.promo_html | raw }}.
To show a list of items (order lines, products, articles), use the Repeater or Item List block instead of writing a loop by hand.

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Preview as a contact

The Preview tab shows merge tags as written. To see real values, use Preview as… in the toolbar.
1

Open Preview as…

Click Preview as… (the person icon) in the toolbar.
2

Choose who to preview as

Pick Me, A contact (search by email), A list or A segment. For a list or segment, use the arrows to step through its members one at a time.
3

Check the result

The Preview tab now renders the email exactly as that person would receive it, including the subject line.

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Sample data

Template data in the same panel is the JSON payload the email is previewed with: what your API sends as data, or what an event carries. Paste the contents of data, without a "data" wrapper. If you paste it wrapped, the panel warns you and offers Remove the wrapper.
  • Update preview re-renders with the JSON you typed.
  • Save stores it on the template as its sample data, so everyone on your team previews with it.
  • Load from a recent send… fills in the payload from a recent transactional send of this template.
The test email uses the same contact and data when you click Send test with this preview context.

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Variables and required variables

The Variables list shows every value the template reads. Any the current contact and sample data don’t provide are marked missing. Tick required next to a variable to make it mandatory. When a transactional API send doesn’t provide a required variable, the send is refused instead of going out with a blank. This is useful for things like a password-reset link. See Transactional email.
Required variables are enforced for transactional API sends. Campaigns and journeys don’t check them.

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What happens when Liquid fails

If a template contains Liquid that can’t be rendered:
  • Campaigns skip that recipient. The message log shows Template error: with the reason.
  • Journeys fail the email step with the reason.
  • Transactional API requests are rejected with an error.
Use Preview as… before sending. It catches syntax errors and missing values.

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Troubleshooting

Check the spelling and that there are exactly two braces on each side. Tags the system doesn’t recognize are left as they are.
Open Preview as… and look at the Variables list. A variable marked missing isn’t in the contact’s record or the sample data. Remember that data.* is empty in campaigns.
Your JSON is probably wrapped in a "data" key, so the template would need data.data.*. Click Remove the wrapper.