Your Gratavid contacts contain contact properties that refer to your contact's information. Examples include "First Name", "Last Name", "Salutation", etc. Some contact properties can be used as a merge field, which looks like a snippet of text wrapped in percentage signs: %mergeField%.
When you insert a merge field into your message, we'll replace the field with the content stored in the corresponding contact property.
For example, to include your contact's first name in your Gratavid message, you would place the %firstName% merge field in your content where you want your contact's first name to appear. When your contact receives the message, they'll see their own first name where the merge field was placed.
Default Values
When you use merge fields to personalize your messages, Gratavid uses default values to display for contacts who don't have any data for that property. For example, the default value for your first name merge field is "friend." When you use "Thank you, %firstName%," in a message, contacts whose first names are not in the system will see "Thank you, friend."
- The first name default value is "friend"
- Last name default value is ""
- The salutation default value is the first name.
Submit a ticket request if you need to change the default values for your account.
Custom Contact Properties
You might find yourself needing more merge fields that are more custom to your organization. The good news is Gratavid can add these for you. All you need to do is create a ticket providing your custom contact property and it's default value. Examples of custom contact properties include scholarship names, account names, church names, and many more.