Dynamic From addresses and Subject lines

Dynamic From addresses and Subject lines

What is a dynamic Subject line?

An email that utilizes a dynamic subject line will display a configured subject line that is unique to the recipient of your email. Typically this display is based on the subscriber's attributes in the system. For example, you can define one subject line to appear for all males in your list and another for all females.

There are two ways to accomplish the dynamic display in our system:
  1. Merge subscriber data into a Subject line. In this example, you simply insert a tag to merge the subscriber's data at the time of the email send. A common example of this is to use the %%FirstName_%% tag (seen below). Easily use the "Add Merge" button to find a field in your account.
  2. Utilize our dynamic Subject line builder. This feature allows you to configure Subject line display based on data of subscribers or their category membership within your account.

Using Merge Tags (merged fields) in Subject Lines

Add personalization to your emails with data merges. A popular technique is to use merged fields in the Subject line of an email. In this article we will cover how-to use merge fields. 

When creating a campaign, you can add merge tags to your Subject line or Preheader. To do this, simply click the "Add Merge" button seen for either of these fields. A new screen will pop-up allowing you to select the field that you want to merge in:


Both standard fields and custom table fields are available in the menu for selection.

Tip
Only merge fields that you have complete and accurate data for contacts in your account. 

Dynamic Subject Line Builder

Evaluate contact data 

You can easily personalize subject lines based on evaluations of demographic information and display what is most relevant to the audience(s) receiving your emails.

Preparation

  1. Choose the demographic fields you are going to utilize for dynamic Subject lines. Example: Display Subject line by Industry. 
  2. Populate your contacts with appropriate values stored in the demographic field or populate to the categories that will be used. Examples: Import a CSV file to update the gender demographic field or to add contacts to a category.

How-To

  1. Create a new campaign or edit an existing draft campaign.
  2. In the Setup step, click the "Make Conditional" button next to the Subject Line text box.
  3. Set a Default Subject line. This ensures any contact that does not meet the dynamic conditions setup will see a Subject line. 
  4. In the "Or display" box, build conditional statements. Select your demographic field, operator and value.
    1. If other conditions are needed for the group, click "Add Condition".
    2. If more groups are needed click "Add New Group".  Click Ok when done.
Tips
  1. Be sure to test. Run test campaigns to contacts that have matching criteria for the category statements of the Subject line(s).
  2. You can preview how the Subject line displays using specific email addresses in the Preview steps of the campaign builder.
  3. When working with multiple clauses for your subject line criteria, you'll want to pay attention to the "Match" setting.  If the recipient should match all layers of criteria, set to "All".  If the recipient should match one, set to "Any".

Evaluate category membership

You can also personalize subject lines based on category membership and display what is most relevant to the audience(s) receiving your emails.

Preparation
  1. Identify (and create, if needed) the categories you are going to utilize for dynamic Subject lines. Example: Create a category for your volunteer workers and display a Subject line specific to them in an email about an upcoming event. 
  2. Populate your categories with appropriate contacts. Example: Import a CSV file of email addresses to populate the volunteer category.

How-To
  1. Create a new campaign or edit an existing draft campaign. 
  2. In the Setup step, click the "Make Conditional" button next to the Subject Line text box.
  3. Set a Default Subject line. This ensures any contact that does not meet the dynamic conditions setup will see a Subject line. 
  4. In the "Or display" box, build conditional statements. Select your category, operator and value. In the insert field drop-down locate the "Categories" section and click "Category Membership" to identify the category.
Tips
  1. Be sure to test. Run test campaigns to contacts that have matching criteria for the category statements of the Subject line(s).
  2. You can preview how the Subject line displays using specific email addresses in the Preview steps of the campaign builder.

Can I use dynamic profile criteria set inside my email to populate the Subject line?
At this time, the dynamic Subject line is not linked to Who Sees This, which is the dynamic content builder inside of our drag-and-drop editor.

Dynamic From Addresses

It's not unusual for (especially B2B) email marketers to want to create a "dynamic" From Line when creating other dynamic content. The most common example is sending a marketing email to opted-in prospects or clients and having the From Line display the prospect/client's Sales Rep or Account Manager's name and email.

This helps personalize messages and make them feel like more of a 1:1 conversation. For example, rather than a From Line reading "XYZ Company" <marketing@XYZCompany.com> you may want an important automated note about your account to come from "CSM Name" <csmemail@XYZCompany.com>. 

Requirements

Data We use merge tags to accomplish dynamic From lines. As these pull from data fields, you cannot personalize a From line without ensuring you have the relevant or necessary data saved in your account. For example, if you want to have the From line be the prospect's sales representative, you need to have both the sales rep's name and email saved on the contact record. 

Domain You must own the domain the email is coming from or it is unlikely the mailing will get into the inbox. 

How-To

There are two ways to achieve this. You can either make the adjustment at the individual campaign level or at the Sender Address level (Settings>Account Management).

With either, you need to make sure to:

  1. Determine the merge tag for the fields that store the Name and Email you want to be dynamic. Usually merge tags look like this: %%databasename_%%. You can pull a merge tag into a campaign to determine how it reads exactly. 
  2. Either in Sender Addresses or on the campaign itself, paste your merge tags in the correct format (See: How Should the From Line Be Formatted?). If you are using Sender Addresses, it will format the From Line for you.
  3. If you used Sender Addresses to add your dynamic From Line, you can choose it in the "Sender Name and Address" drop down on the campaign setup tab. 
Warnings
  1. If any contacts included in the campaign do not have data stored in the fields being merged, your campaign will fail. To prevent this, utilize default value available for your contact fields.  For example, if the first name is not a stored value, set default to "XYZ Company" or "Friend" to make your greeting still appear customized.  
  2. When setting up a campaign that uses a merged From line the authentication indicators for DKIM, SPF, and DMARC will fail in the application.
  3. When you change a From Line to make it dynamic, it will also change the Reply To address if you leave the Reply To field blank. Meaning, the Reply To will also be dynamic depending on the From line that is merged.

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