Email personalization in Xendy

Introduction

Email personalisation is no longer optional, but essential to ensure your emails are as relevant as possible to your recipients. Xendy offers several options to personalise your emails:

1. Use contact fields: use the recipient’s first name in the salutation or send the email from the account manager assigned to your customer.
2. Personalised products: automatically display products that customers previously purchased or related products.
3. Personalised images: personalise images in emails for each recipient.

Using contact fields in emails

Personalising emails with contact fields allows you to insert specific details about your recipients directly into your emails.

What are contact fields?

Contact fields are fields you have imported with your contacts in Xendy or that were automatically imported via a webshop integration. These may include fields such as:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• City
• Date of birth

Go to ‘All contacts‘ in the left menu and select a contact to see which contact fields exist in your account.

Add extra contact fields

You can add extra contact fields to your existing contacts or import new contacts in the following ways:

1. Manual entry: add individual contacts.
2. CSV and Excel import: upload large lists of contacts.
3. Webhook: import contacts from forms or pop-ups on your website or synchronise them with your systems.
4. Webshop integration: automatically import customers via a direct integration with WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento 2, Lightspeed, or a custom webshop.

How to use contact fields in Xendy emails

1. Open an email under ‘Drafts‘ or in an ‘Email automation‘.

2. Add a contact field:

   • Type @ in the email editor to open the list of available fields.
   • Select the desired field (e.g. @first_name) to dynamically populate it with the recipient’s data.
   • The field is successfully inserted when it appears with a purple highlight.
3. You can also use contact fields in the sender name, sender email, subject line, and preheader.

Set fallback values

When using a field like first name in your email, it’s important that this field is filled for each contact. If the first name field is empty and no fallback value is provided, the email will not be sent. This prevents you from sending emails with incorrect or missing information.

It is therefore important to set fallback values. These are the values used when a contact field you are using is empty. To set fallback values for contact fields:

1. Go to ‘Settings‘ in the left menu.
2. Select ‘Email settings‘.
3. Choose ‘Default values‘ in the submenu.
4. Scroll to the field for which you want to set a default value.
5. Enter a value, for example ‘customer’ as a fallback for the first name field.
6. Click ‘Save’ in the top right to save the settings.

Example: if no first name is known for contact email@domain.com, the fallback value ‘customer’ will be used. A salutation like ‘Dear {first_name}’ will now appear as ‘Dear customer’ in your sent email.

Display personalised products

Show your contacts the most relevant products for them. The products displayed are determined by Xendy at the time of sending, based on the rules you have set.

What is the product block?

Within the email editor, you can add product blocks. These display products, fetched directly from your webshop, in your emails. If you update the name, image, price, or URL of a product in your webshop, it will automatically be updated in your emails.

In each email, you can choose products manually or let them be filled automatically based on logic.

How to use the product block in Xendy

1. Add a product block:
   • In the email editor, click one of the purple plus icons to add a new block to the email.
   • Select a block under ‘Products’ to add it to your email.
2. Add products to a product block:
   • Manual selection: choose specific products to display in the email.
   • Dynamic products: let Xendy dynamically select products based on customer behaviour or preferences:
     • Previously purchased products: display products the customer has bought before.
     • Upsells and cross-sells: display additional or related products from your webshop.
     • Category-specific recommendations: highlight products from a specific category (e.g. best-selling products).
3. Adjust the display:
   • Choose whether to show the name, price, and button linking to the webshop.
   • Decide the number of product columns and rows to display.
   • Choose whether product names should be truncated to one line for better layout consistency.
   • Configure the appearance of the button (if applicable).
4. Validation:
   • If no relevant products are found for a contact, the email will not be sent.

Requirements for product blocks

• Connected webshop:
  • You must have connected your WooCommerce, Magento 2, Shopify, Lightspeed, or custom webshop via JSON import so that Xendy can import your products.
• Reliable data:
  • Ensure your product information is well maintained — each product should be linked to the correct category and relevant upsells and cross-sells should be filled where available.

Display personalised images

With dynamic image personalisation, you can display unique images tailored to contact data, creating a truly personalised email experience.

How to use image personalisation in Xendy

1. Upload contacts with image URLs:
   • Add a field with an image URL when uploading contact data via:
     • Manual entry: add an image URL individually for each contact.
     • CSV and Excel import: include a column with image URLs in your upload file.
     • Webhook integration: automatically synchronise image URLs with Xendy via webhooks.
2. Add an image block to your email:
   • Add an ‘Image‘ block in the email editor.
3. Insert a dynamic image URL:
   • Click the image placeholder to open a pop-up.
   • Select ‘Contact fields’.
   • Type @ in the ‘Image URL‘ field to view a list of available fields.
   • Select the field that contains the image URL for each contact.

Set a default URL

When using a contact field in your email, it is important to set a default URL for that field. If the contact field is empty and no default value is set, the email will not be sent. This prevents emails from being sent with missing images.

This is why setting a default value is important. This value is used when the contact field you are using is empty. To set a default value for a contact field:

1. Go to ‘Settings‘ in the left menu.
2. Select ‘Email settings‘.
3. Choose ‘Default values‘ in the submenu.
4. Scroll to the field where the image URL should be placed.
5. Enter a default image URL.
6. Click ‘Save’ in the top right to save your settings.

Frequently asked questions