Want to add a personal touch to your broadcasts and campaigns? With Podia, you can include your subscriber's name in any email you send!

Adding name personalization to your emails

To add a name variable to your emails, type @ into any email's text area and select what you'd like to use: Name (full name), First Name, or Last name.

You can also click on the name variable token to configure your name placeholder: a term to refer to recipients who signed up without a name.

Please note: Name variables may not function correctly during a test email preview.

Test emails are primarily designed to preview the layout of your emails and not to showcase full functionality.

FAQs

What if some of my subscribers don't have a name associated with their profiles?

You can configure your name placeholder to refer to recipients who signed up without a name.

By default, the placeholder word is "there" but you can adjust this by clicking directly on the name variable token:

Can I add name variables to my emails' subject lines?

The name variable command won't work for subject lines.

However, you can add a first name variable to your subject lines by using the {{first_name or 'there'}} code line. Be sure there are no leading or ending spaces in the syntax.

You can also customize the placeholder text by replacing the word between ' '.

Make sure no other special characters are used in this placeholder text, or it might cause a conflict with the code.

I'm not seeing my personalization in the test email I sent!

Name variables will default to the placeholder text you've set during a test email preview.

Can I use merge tag syntax from other email tools, like {{customer.first_name}}?

No. Placeholder syntax from other email tools — such as {{customer.first_name}}, {{first_name}}, *|FNAME|*, or [first_name] — is NOT supported in Podia. These tags will appear as literal text in your sent emails rather than being replaced with the subscriber's name.

My email wasn’t personalized. Why?

Start by confirming the personalization variable is actually in your email. In Podia, personalization doesn’t appear automatically. You need to type @ in the email editor and select First Name, Last Name, or Name from the menu. If you skipped this step, the email will send without any name personalization.

If the variable is in the email, the next thing to check is whether your subscribers have names on their profiles. When a subscriber signed up without providing a name, the email uses the placeholder word instead (the default is “there”). You can customize this placeholder by clicking directly on the name variable token in the email editor.