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Personalizing Emails with Placeholders

How to add a contact's name, event details, and order info to your emails, and what to set as fallback text.

A placeholder is a piece of code that gets swapped for real data when the mail goes out. Write "Hi {{ account.firstName }}" once and every recipient reads their own name.

Adding one to your mail

The placeholders you can use sit on the left of the email builder. Click one and it copies the text/code to your clipboard. Paste it wherever you want it: the subject line, a Free text component, or any text field in the mail. That's all there is to it.
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Placeholders don't fill in on test mails, so an empty spot in your test doesn't mean something is broken. They work as soon as the mail goes out for real.

The placeholders you can use

Four placeholders work in any mail you send:

Placeholder

Code

Shows

Contact first name

{{ account.firstName || default.account.firstName }}

First name of the recipient

Contact last name

{{ account.lastName || default.account.lastName }}

Last name of the recipient

Contact full name

{{ account.fullName || default.account.fullName }}

Full name of the recipient

Opt-in page URL

{{ opt_in.pageUrl }}

Link to your newsletter sign-up page

The other placeholders pull data from a specific event, order or membership, so they only work in an email or automation template. They show up in the list once you're editing one.

Placeholder

Code

Shows

Event name

{{ event.name }}

Name of the event

Event date

{{ event.date }}

Date of the event

Event doors open

{{ event.doorsOpen }}

Doors open time

Event program start

{{ event.programStart }}

Start time

Event program end

{{ event.programEnd }}

End time

Order number

{{ order.number }}

Order number of the recipient's purchase

Order date

{{ order.date }}

Date the recipient bought their tickets

Membership ticket type

{{ membership.ticketType }}

The recipient's membership type

Membership expiry date

{{ membership.expiryDate }}

When that membership runs out

Templates are mostly used for automated service mails, but you can build one for any mail you send more than once.

If an order covers more than one event, Stager can't tell which event you mean, so those event placeholders come out empty.

Placeholder fallback

If you're using a placeholder, you might also want to use a fallback. Just in case a recipient doesn't have a first name attached to their contact in Stager (this can happen with incomplete imports or sign-ups through the newsletter API).

Go to Settings - Marketing - Email settings and fill in a Placeholder fallback for the first name. "ticket-buyer" for example, or think of something fun that's applicable to your audience, like "festival goer" or "party animal".

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