Merge tags and Special links settings
Merge tags are available in all Beefree plans. However, this article talks about custom merge tags and special link settings. This applies to the Professional, Business, and Enterprise Beefree plans.
Dynamic content in emails is created through syntax we call merge tags and special links. This can allow you to customize your email for the recipient. Your sending platform may have different names for this type of content.
Beefree itself is not a sending platform, so it can't generate dynamic content for you. This must be generated by an entity that has access to your mailing list. We offer this feature so you can create dynamic content placeholders within Beefree. Once you export or import to your sending platform, they will validate the syntax.
Merge tags
Merge tags are used in email as placeholders that are replaced with real values at the time the email is sent. They could be recipient-specific (e.g. first name, email, the latest product ordered, etc.) or system-wide (e.g. today's date, sender's name, etc.). Reference the Default Syntaxes for Common Sending Platforms section of this article, and consult with your email service provider to learn more about which merge tags you can use in your emails.
Add Merge Tags in Workspace Settings
You can add merge tags in your workspace Settings, or within the builder’s stage.
To add and manage merge tags through your workspace Settings, click on the Settings page. You will see an area of the page entitled Merge tags under your General settings.
To add a new merge tag, click on Add new merge tag. Specify a name (it will be shown in the builder when you select a merge tag) and the placeholder syntax.
Required Merge Tag Fields
When you add a new merge tag, ensure you complete the following required fields:
- Merge tag name: This is the name of your merge tag. This is typically named after the type of content you’d like to make dynamic depending on the recipient receiving the email. For example, first name is a dynamic field that is unique to each recipient.
- Sample content: This is an example of how the content looks in the Beefree builder before you export the email to an ESP.
- Merge tag syntax: This is the syntax for your merge tag. You will see this syntax within your design when you merge tags to your emails. When you notice the syntax in your design, that means there is a placeholder for dynamic content. The merge tag syntax you use will depend on your ESP. Reference our Default Syntaxes for Common Sending Platforms to learn more about syntax types for different ESPs.
- Category: Typically, this is the name of your sending platform, but you can type in any category name you’d like.
Manage Merge Tags within the Builder
You can add and manage merge tags from within the builder. From within the builder, you can use an existing merge tag, add new merge tags, or search merge tags.
How to Add Merge Tags in the Builder
Take the following steps to add merge tags to your email within the builder:
- Enter your email or page design
- Identify where in your design you’d like to add a merge tag
- Note: You can only add merge tags to content blocks with text
The text toolbar will appear
- Select Merge tags from the text toolbar
A Merge tags modal will appear
- Search for the merge tag you’d like to add, or create a new one
- Click on or confirm the merge tag to add it to your email
Search for a Merge Tag
Take the following steps to search for merge tags to your email from within the builder:
- Open the Merge tags modal using the steps outlined in the previous section
- Click on the Search bar within the modal
- Type the merge tag name
A predictive menu of options will appear below the Search bar
- Select the merge tag you’d like to add from the list of options
The merge tag will be available within your email or page design. You will see either the merge tag Sample content or Merge tag syntax.
Preview Merge Tags
Once you add merge tags to your email, you can preview how the email will look like to the recipient.
If you added Sample content to your merge tag when you created it, the email preview will display this content. If you did not add Sample content, you will see the merge tag syntax in the email preview. Either way, you’ll be able to reference the merge tag from within the email preview.
Edit or Remove Merge Tags
To edit or remove a merge tag:
- Navigate to your workspace Settings
- Click on the General settings tab
- Scroll to the Merge tags section
- Hover over the merge tag you'd like to modify
- Click Edit or Remove
You'll be redirected to a modal asking you to confirm the action you'd like to perform.
Note: You can only edit or remove merge tags in your workspace Settings.
Default Syntaxes for Common Sending Platforms
When you get started with merge tags within Beefree, we will provide you with a list of default merge tags along with their corresponding syntaxes. This is based on the most common sending platforms and their most commonly used dynamic field. You can keep, delete, or edit these default merge tags.
The following section lists common sending platforms and their corresponding merge tag syntaxes for different dynamic fields.
Mailchimp
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for Mailchimp.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
*|EMAIL|* | janedoe@example.com | |
First name | *|FNAME|* | Jane |
Last name | *|LNAME|* | Doe |
Reference the All the Merge Tags Cheat Sheet by Mailchimp to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
Sendgrid
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for Sendgrid.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
-email- | janedoe@example.com | |
First name | -first_name- | Jane |
Last name | -last_name- | Doe |
Reference the Using Custom Fields article by Sendgrid to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
Campaign Monitor
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for Campaign Monitor.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
First Name | [firstname] | Jane |
Last Name | [lastname] | Doe |
[email] | janedoe@example.com | |
Unsubscribe | <unsubscribe>Unsubscribe</unsubscribe> | |
Web Version | <webversion>Open in a browser</webversion> |
Reference the Personalize emails with subscriber custom fields article by Campaign Monitor to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
MailUp
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for MailUp.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
[email] | janedoe@example.com | |
First name | [firstname] | Jane |
Last name | [lastname] | Doe |
Company | [company] | Beefree |
Reference the How to Customize Emails Using Dynamic Fields article by MailUp to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
Autopilot
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for Autopilot.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
First name | --First Name-- | Jane |
Last name | --Last Name-- | Doe |
--Email-- | janedoe@example.com | |
Company | --Company-- | Beefree |
Reference the Autopilot: Add personalization variables article by Autopilot to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
HubSpot
The following table lists common merge tags and their corresponding merge tax syntax for HubSpot.
Merge tag name | Merge tag syntax | Sample content |
Company city | {{ site_settings.company_city }} | Los Angeles |
Company name | {{ site_settings.company_name }} | Surf Love |
Company state | {{ site_settings.company_state }} | CA |
Company street address | {{ site_settings.company_street_address_1 }} | 1234 Surfs Up Rd. |
Reference the Personalize your content article by HubSpot to learn more about other merge tag options they offer.
Additional Considerations
When using merge tags within Beefree, consider the following:
- Beefree does not limit the number of merge tags or categories you add to your workspace.
- Beefree does not verify the merge tag syntax you add, which means you and your sending platform will need to verify the merge tags work as intended.
Special links
Most providers use special syntax for the system links that perform actions such as:
- Unsubscribing a recipient
- Loading a Web version of an email
- Sending the email to a friend
You can add these special links to your account settings. This will ensure they are available in the builder.
To add special links to your Beefree account, click on the Settings page. You will see an area of the page titled Special links.
To add a new special link, click on Create new special link and specify a name, the link URL, and a category.
To edit or remove a special link, simply mouse over it and click on the corresponding link.
Why use merge tags & special links?
Merge tags and special links are inserted into your design as code and are treated as such during export. They're never encoded and you can be sure they'll populate in the HTML as-is. This ensures that your sending platform will properly validate the syntax. We recommend using merge tag and special link settings as a best practice.
Alternatively, merge tags inserted as plaintext (and special links inserted as typical URLs) are treated as such during export. This can result in values being encoded in the HTML output. Encoding is common if your syntax includes certain special characters. (e.g. < > { } & etc.)
If your merge tag or special link gets encoded, the sending platform may not recognize it. As a result, your dynamic content may fail. In other cases, your sending platform may experience errors with your design.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Comments
24 comments
I really welcome these changes! With these features, we could now use Campaign Monitor with Beefree Pro, without having to edit by hand the generated HTML to include tags.
Regrettably, it seems that the proposed "special links" for CM are not correct. By importing a HTML from BF Pro to CM, it finds the "webversion" tag does not find the unsubscribe tag.
Tags in CM are not "[unsubscribe]" but like this:
Is there a work-around, or a plan to fix this?
Introducing a custom HTML block in the editor (as well as in this post), all "custom tags" are removed. Here is a link to the documentation of CM
https://help.campaignmonitor.com/topic.aspx?t=40
You can edit all the Special Links in your BEE Pro account. It's not clear what merge tag needs to be put in the HREF statement with Campaign Monitor. The documentation that you pointed us to does not clarify that. We are referring to the equivalent to this for MailChimp: http://kb.mailchimp.com/merge-tags/the-unsubscribe-merge-tag
What is the equivalent to that with CM? That way we can update our default "Special Links".
In CM, the tags are like HTML "elements" for paragraphs or divs, i.e. it needs to be opened and closed. This enable to customise the content of the text linking to the unsubscribe page - which is nice.
It is not possible in this editor to introduce HTML Tags, these are removed.
The link to the CM documentation contains information under the chapter "Custom coded emails", i quote:
For custom coded HTML, the element automatically generates a personalized unsubscribe link for each recipient."
I tried to use the Special Links as well, but it does not generate the desired results. I tried also to introduce the tags with a "Custom HTML Block", but BeeFree Pro remove the tags - as not HTML Standard (like DIV, P, etc.)
Any other ideas? I subscribed to the new Team Edition mainly for this feature, as it would save me a lot of time editing the code manually after importing it to CM, but it does not work as I want.
Thanks for the additional information. We'll review the information internally and get back to you!
Any update on this, i.e. the compatibility of the merge tags with Campaign Monitor? I upgraded to the Team Edition only for this feature, but I tested today again, and it is not stil working (unsubscribe tags not recognised as such in CM, requiring additional coding for each mailing developed with Beefree).
Otherwise, still the best editor available on the market - by far!
I'm not quite sure I'm doing this right. Can someone help me. Thanks.
Hi, thank you for your request. We sent you a ticket to check if your settings are ok. Cheers.
Guys, my company uses beeplugin in the Startup plan, can I add the function of special links?
Hi Luciana! You can definitely implement special links with a Startup plan for BEE Plugin. For more details, please refer to https://docs.beefree.io/special-links-merge-tags/. You can also open a support ticket through the developer portal if you need further assistance.
Is there a way to change an image based on the info from a merge tag? For example, I have 3 different hero images for our email (football/cricket/tennis). I send an email with %FavouriteSport% as a merge tag and then the image changes based on the customers fav sport.
Is this something that's possible?
Hello Max! This is possible, but this would be entirely dependent on the sending system you are using. You’ll need to figure out what merge tags/syntax can accomplish this in your sending system before you can implement anything in your BEE Pro account. This article can help with what to do on our side once you have more information from your sending system.
Hi Roisin, thanks for the info. I have the merge tags from our email sending tool (Adobe), but how do I upload multiple images into Bee?
I basically need to be able to set rules so that Bee knows which image to display, based on the merge tag.
Hope that makes sense!
Hello Max, you are most welcome.
To achieve what you'd like to do you do not need to upload the images here but they can be hosted externally or with your sensing system if it offers this service.
What you will have to do in your BEE account is set a placeholder image and then enable the Dynamic Image feature for it.
Then you can set there the link that your sending system provides you so that when sending the email the image will change based on that link.
is there a way to group merge tags?
Hello,
I'm using a rewards program that has a mailchimp integration. Will I be able to use those merge tags without issue?
Thanks
Hello Miguel.
Currently, it's not possible to group (nest) merge tags, but I will forward your comment to our product team as feedback to be considered.
Hello Andrea.
You shouldn't have any issues adding and using the merge tags in your Beefree account, you can read Here how to do so.
Currently I am using merge tags but when they are displayed items on the list appear with text aligned in the center. Is there a way to set a different alignment?
Hi Miguel,
Thanks for your response regarding your issue with implementing merge tags with your design. Have you attempted the following steps to change the alignment:
I hope that this helps solve your issue! Let us know if you continue to run into alignment issues, and we'll be happy to look further on our end.
Thanks for your response, but I am referring to the little modal that shows all the available merge tags, not the current inserted one, is there a way to align all merge tags displayed on pop up to any specific alignment?
Hi Miguel,
Are you referring to this modal? (see screenshot below)
For this modal, the alignment cannot be altered by the user, but we can certainly share your request as feedback to our Product team. If you want to share some more details on your use case or why you would like this feature, that would also be really helpful for us.
Why can't I add my own platform and create the merge tags? We use Pardot but if I click add merge tag, I can only add it to one of the preloaded platforms.
Hi Lauren,

Thanks for sharing your question with us!
You should certainly be able to add and use your own custom merge tags when designing, both from the Settings page and from inside the builder. When adding a new merge tag and you wish to create a new category for it that you don't already see by default in Beefree, you can simply type the name of the new category in the "category" field (as highlighted in the screenshot below), and the new category will be automatically created to store your merge tag.
I'm sorry if this wasn't clear. Please let me know if you encounter any further issues with adding the category for your merge tags!
Please sign in to leave a comment.