Personalize your emails using variable tags

Business Benefits

Understand how to use and insert variable content tags into your email marketing for better personalization and engagement. 


Insert variable tags or dynamic content into your email template to personalize your emails with relevant information from your user.

Common variable tags include first name, last name, preference, gender, past product purchases or browsed. See your email marketing platform’s documentation for a master list of tags that you can use.

When using variable tags create and insert a default value for users in your database whose profile lacks the information.

For example, if your first name variable tag is ((FIRSTNAME)) and a contact doesn’t have a first name listed, your email will have a blank space. Add ((FIRSTNAME|Default: "Friend")) to insert Friend if the contact’s first name is unavailable. To leave the variable tag blank if the user has not provided that info, leave the area between the “” blank.

Use event variable tags to add dynamic content based on a user’s action or an event.

Event variable tags auto-populate with information based on a user’s action. The information is not input by the user. For example, you may wish to send a purchase receipt with the purchase amount. In Klaviyo this tag takes the form of (( event| lookup: "total_price")). This will pull through the price of a purchased product.

You can insert event variables or dynamic content like product browsed, product abandoned in cart, or content downloaded. Each of these actions or events will have a specific variable tag associated with it. These will be found in your email platform’s documentation.

Use event variables in automatic or triggered emails, as they rely on user actions to populate the tag. Common triggered flows or automations include: browser abandonment, cart abandonment, post purchase receipt, content downloaded flow, welcome/sign-up flow.

Proofread the variable tags and the sentence it has been inserted into to ensure it is grammatically correct.

You may need to adjust the tag to reflect its position in a sentence. For example, if using a ((FIRSTNAME)) tag in an email opening, add a comma after the first name tag and ensure the next word is not capitalized. For example, Hey ((FIRSTNAME)) Look at these products would result in Hey John Look at these products. The correct version would be: Hey ((FIRSTNAME)), look at these products.

Variable tags will pull data exactly as it’s been entered by the user. For example, a user may have input their name as john, but you’d like to capitalize the first letter, so you need to add an instruction to your variable tag. In Klaviyo, add title case to your variable tag like this: {{ first_name |title }}. The user would see John, rather than john, in the email.

If you are uploading data from multiple sources, standardize column titles like first name, last name, location, and preference.

For example, if you upload a list with the location column title as City and another list with the location column titled Region and then use the ((CITY)) variable, you will only pull in location data from the list with the City column title, not from the list with the Region column title.

This is especially important if you wish to use custom variables. In general, ensure all your data tables are standardized. This includes information that you collect from multiple sources. It’s no good collecting location information from one source but not another as you’ll be limiting how you can use variable tags. Many of your subscribers will not provide extra info if you’ve not asked for it in early stages.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T16:15:43Z