Creating and Using Tokens

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Tokens allow you to add elements to your email or content that are personalized based on the information you already know about constituents.  For example, you could address email recipients by name or reference past purchases or other content unique to each recipient.  Tokens allow you to compose and send a single email, while each email recipient receives a different text, links, or images, which pulls automatically from the constituent's record.

Personalization is all about making your content even more relevant to individuals, and first name personalization is only a first step—be sure to experiment beyond that.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Related information:

System Tokens

Adding Tokens to URLs in Email+Marketing

Customizing Admin and Member Confirmation Emails

Creating a Token

You can find several System Tokens already created and used in Email Marketing and/or Content Management. You can also create tokens from other fields when you Add or Edit a Field:

  • Click the box to Show Advanced Options.
  • Token Name: Enter a short, easy-to-remember, unique name for the token into the textbox.  For example:  ##Email##

Using Tokens

Use tokens to display content that you want to vary by recipient/viewer. Tokens function just like content, so place punctuation and spacing around tokens as if they were the substituted content.

For example, notice the spacing and punctuation in the following entry:

Dear ##First Name##,

Legacy Email Marketing

When you are creating content in Legacy Email Marketing, you can add tokens by selecting them from the Token List dropdown in the content editor:

Events, Donations, Membership, and Forms

You can also add tokens in the following areas:

  • Confirm Page, Finish Page
  • Member Confirmation Email
  • Admin Confirmation Email
  • Step Settings - Instruction Text
  • Category Settings - Category Instructions
  • Rich Text Boxes

For event registrations, our Professional Services team recommends that clients tokenize the last name of the registrant in the subject line of the admin confirmation email so that you have an easy way to search through confirmations when a constituent calls.  For example, Goldman – Homecoming 2015 Registration.


Content Management

The constituent must log in to view customized token data in the Content Management system.  There is no Token List dropdown in CMS so that you can type tokens directly into the content editor.

NOTE: You must enter tokens accurately, or the system will not display the data.

 

What if I use a token and the constituent's field does not contain data?

If you use a token for a field that does not contain data for a particular contact, a space will display in place of the token, so it is best to use tokens when every recipient/viewer has a value for the field.