Connect with your team in a meaningful way by using merge tags to make content personalized to the recipient.
Overview
Utilize employee attributes such as first name, location, title to personalize the content within your email or within your email's subject line. We recommend using merge tags within your communications as personalization is shown to result in higher open rates.
Some great use cases for merge tags within your email:
- Create a warm greeting with a salutation, "Hey [first name]"
- This one is perfect for subject lines!
- Confirm employee's personal information like their [office location] or [address] so you can send them physical goods or confirm their home office location
- Congratulate them on a work anniversary by pulling in their [employment start date]
Requirements
- You must be on our Enhanced or Premium plan
- If you're interested in this feature, get in touch with your Workshop account manager!
- You must have data attributes stored associated with your employee(s) in Workshop
To note, employee attributes can be sync'd over to Workshop from your employee data source such as AD, Okta, or your HRIS system. You are also able to upload attributes via a CSV upload.
How to add a merge tag to your email content
Create a new email or open a current draft within Workshop. Within the email, add or edit one of your content blocks containing text. Within the expanded text format bar, you can locate the Merge tags option.
Upon clicking the Merge tags option, you will be prompted to provide the following:
1. Select the field you want to insert into your text i.e 'first_name'
2. Provide your fallback text. This is the text that will be used if the selected field is not populated for a specific email recipient.
Upon clicking 'Insert tag', you will see the merge tag within your text as such:
We do recommend previewing your email before sending, this ensures your merge tag populates as expected.
- In Preview, the Workshop user writing the message will see their personal information populating, but the end result for the email recipient will display their own information.
Send your message! 🎉
How to add a merge tag to your subject line
Open up the Settings page for an email that has in draft state
Underneath the Subject Line field, you will see the Merge tags option. Have your cursor located in the subject line text where you want to insert a merge tag and then click on this option. Upon clicking the Merge tags option, you will be prompted to provide the following:
1. Select the field you want to insert into your text i.e 'first_name'
2. Provide your fallback text. This is the text that will be used if the selected field is not populated for a specific email recipient.
Where can I view the attributes that are available on an employee within my directory?
Within Manage > Directory, you will see all employees within your Workshop directory. Click into an employee and you will see all data in relation to that employee within Workshop. Within this data, you will see a User Attributes section. This section shows all attributes sync'd/uploaded for the employee and tells you the source from which it came from.
Do I have to provide fallback text?
Fallback text is optional. If not provided, Workshop will just insert a space instead.
Can I use a hyperlink attribute within a merge tag?
Yes! There are some great ways for using this functionality:
- You have specific links that you need to direct employees to
- You have individual gift cards to distribute to employees
How can I see how a merge tag will display for a specific employee?
When sending a test email to yourself, select that specific employee that you want to view the email as. This is selected within the 'Receive email as a specific person' field.