The Merged Content feature allows you to set up details for each unit you have on your account which can then be automatically merged into your emails through the use of Merged Content IDs.
If you operate multiple units (sites), it’s useful to be able to merge localised content for each unit without having to send multiple emails or manually add common details each time. The kind of details you will be adding as merged content could include:
Website URL
CTA (Booking page URL)
Manager Name
Phone number
Postal Address
Social media URLs
Getting started with Unit level merged content
1 - To add content for a unit log onto your account and choose the specific unit from the drop down menu. Once you are on the unit, click Tools in the sidebar and choose Content Manager at the bottom of the list.
2 - Where it says ’Enter content description’ for new content, click Create Content
3 - Enter the description of your content into the box (e.g. ‘Website URL - Birmingham’ - it is a good idea to include the name of the unit you are on).
4 - Once written press the grey Create Content button to the right. Your content description will appear in the list below, along with the Content ID that you will use later in your emails.
5 - When you add a new content merge tag, a space will appear in your list for you to enter the actual detail for the unit. So for a ‘Website URL’ category you would add the website URL, for a ‘Facebook’ category you would add the Facebook page URL etc. You just need to click away from the box and click anywhere else on the page for the details to save.
6 - If you want to delete a merge content tag, just press the red X.
7 - Carry on with this process until you have entered all the details for each category of merged content you need, on every unit.
Head Office merged content
If you are also going to send emails from the head office unit to multiple venues in one send, you can add the merged content descriptions and details onto the head office unit. This is where you can really get some efficiencies in your sending process, by sending a single email to all your units, merging unit specific content for each venue to localise them for the recipient.
1 - On the ‘Head Office’ unit press ‘Content Manager’ in the Send list. The bar at the top will be showing ‘View content for Head Office’. Leave this as it is. Enter your content description into the space provided in the same way as described above.
2 - This time you will have the option ‘Assigned’ and ‘Unassigned’. Press ‘Unassigned’ next to a description to show all the unassigned units for that category. Enter in all of the details for each unit on the account. Click in an empty space to save the details and add that unit to assigned.
Tips
Remember the red x is to delete not to hide the options! If you want to hide the assigned/unassigned fields visit a different page on the console and when you come back they will be hidden again.
If you change the ‘View content for..’ drop down box to be a specific unit you will see the merged content you have set up specifically for that unit. You can edit the details for each unit by clicking on ‘Assigned’ and updating the data in the field for each category. If you want to add a new description category for individual units you will need to add that in the Content Manager section on that individual unit (by using the ‘switch logged in unit’ drop down menu to change unit, then going to ‘Content Manager’).
Using merge tags in emails
Now you have set up your merged content you have a Merged Content ID. This can be used to automatically merge in the information into your emails without having to write it out again each time! To do this:
1 - Take a note of the Merged Content ID of your created content.
2 - In your email, where you want the content to appear, use the following syntax:
:con_[id goes here]:
For example, for a Merged Content ID 1947, use:
If using a merge tag in a call to action button or behind an image, make sure to add this to the URL box of the image or button which appears down the right hand side of the email builder.