mailpitcher

Templates and merge tags

Save the emails you write again and again, put them into any message or campaign, and personalise campaigns with merge tags like {{first_name}} and fallbacks.

Updated · 3 min read · 7 steps

A template is a saved email: a name, a subject and a message, with images and links. A merge tag is a placeholder like {{first_name}} that a campaign fills in for each person.

Templates

Open Templates

Click Templates in the sidebar, under Outreach. You see your saved templates.

Templates, opened from the sidebar under Outreach.
  1. Open a template to edit it
  2. Copy it with formatting, images and links
  3. New template

Make a new template

Click New template and fill in:

  • Name: only you see it, for example Guest post pitch.
  • Subject and Message. Paste images or use the image button; they are hosted so your recipients can see them.
  • Available in: Every project, or one project only. Project templates show first inside that project’s campaigns.

Click Save template.

Editing a template.
  1. Name: only you see it
  2. Subject and Message
  3. Available in: every project, or one

Use a template

  • In a new message: click the template button at the bottom of the window and pick one. Its subject is used if yours is empty, and its text goes where your cursor is.
  • In a campaign: each email has Insert template… at the top right.
  • Anywhere else: click Copy next to a template. It copies with formatting, images and links, ready to paste into another app.

To change or delete a template, click its name, then Save template or Delete.

Merge tags in campaigns

Merge tags are filled in when a campaign sends. In a single email they are not, so replace them yourself.

Know where tags come from

Every campaign has these: {{first_name}}, {{name}}, {{website}}, {{domain}} and {{email}}. Every column in the list you paste becomes a tag too. A column called Company becomes {{company}}.

Insert a tag

In the campaign editor, click into a subject or message, then click a tag under Insert at cursor. It goes where your cursor was.

If you’re used to BuzzStream, switch Style to [ ] and tags look like [first_name]. Both styles always work.

In the campaign editor, click a tag to put it where your cursor is. Columns from your list appear as tags too.
  1. Merge tags
  2. Placeholder style: {{ }} or [ ]

Add a fallback for empty values

Some rows have no first name. Add a fallback after a bar: {{first_name|there}} becomes “there” for anyone without a first name. So “Hi {{first_name|there}}” never turns into “Hi ,”.

Check the preview

Scroll to Preview in the editor. Pick people in Preview as to see their emails filled in. It says All merge tags filled, or names the tag that would be empty.

The Preview shows each email with one recipient's details filled in: first with every tag filled, then with a tag that has no value and no fallback.

When you start the campaign, Mailpitcher checks again. If a tag would go out empty or doesn’t match any column, it shows Check before sending first.

Good to know

  • Tag names ignore capitals and spaces: {{First Name}} and {{first_name}} are the same tag.
  • A tag with a typo and no fallback is caught before sending. If you send anyway, it is left empty: nobody ever gets a literal {{...}}.
  • {{website}} uses the website column if there is one, else the domain of the email address. {{first_name}} uses the first word of the name if there is no first name column.
  • In a campaign’s Sequence tab, Save as template saves any of its emails as a template.