How to add personalization to your messages

You will learn

Learn how to add basic personalization tags to your email, SMS, and push messages. Personalization allows you to use your customer data to create an individualized experience for every contact, and allows recipients to take subscription-related actions from within a message. 

For specific examples of personalization variables and more advanced use cases, head to our message personalization reference. 

Key terms

• Profile personalization
  Personalization based on special Klaviyo profile properties, like first name or email address. Learn about profile personalization variables.
• Custom personalization
  Personalization based on custom profile properties you create and collect, like birthday or hair color. Learn about custom personalization variables.
• Event personalization
  Personalization based on data stored within an event, like the products someone ordered in a Placed order event. Learn about event personalization variables.

Personalization types

You can add profile, custom, and event personalization to email, SMS, and push messages in both campaigns and flows. 

• Learn how to add profile and custom personalization to a message.
• Learn how to add event personalization to a message.

Add profile and custom personalization to an email, SMS, or push message

1. Click the personalization icon within a text block, or Add personalization in any other text field (e.g., text cell in a table block, SMS, or push message).
   
2. Search for the property you’d like to add or scroll through the list.
3. Select a property.
4. If needed, add default text (i.e., text to appear if personalized data is unavailable).
5. Click Insert.
   

Additional profile and custom personalization options

If you don't see the personalization options you'd like to use, visit the preview pane for more detailed options. 

1. Click Preview & test. 
   
2. Search or navigate through the available profiles to locate someone with the information you'd like to add to your message. 
3.  
4. Hover over the variable’s name until you see the message Copy {{ person.variable_name }} variable, then click to copy it.
   
5. Paste the variable into a block in your message.

Learn more about using the preview panel for message personalization. 

Add event personalization to an email, SMS, or push message

Your message must be sent through a flow that is triggered by the event containing your event property (or properties) in order for event personalization to populate. Only use properties from a single metric in a template. However, you may also use profile variables in a template that uses event variables. 

Basic event personalization

Basic event personalization may be available in the Personalization menu, depending on your ecommerce platform. 

1. Open a message (i.e., email, SMS, or push) within an event-triggered flow. 
2. From any text field, click Personalization. 
3. Under All types, select Event. 
4. Choose an event property.
5. Optionally, add a default value, then click Insert. 

Advanced event personalization

For more advanced event properties, use the preview window to copy personalization tags. 

1. For an email template: 
1. Click Preview and test from the template editor.
   
2. Under Preview data source, click Event.
3. Select an event from the dropdown.
   
2. For an SMS or push message: 
1. Open an SMS/push message in a metric-triggered flow.
2. Click Preview & test.
   
3. Open the All properties menu. 
4. Use the arrow buttons to find an event that includes the variable you’d like to add.
3. Scroll through their Event Properties until you find the variable you’d like to use.
4. Hover over the variable’s name until you see the message Copy {{ event.variable_name }} variable, then click to copy it.
   
5. Paste the variable into a block in your message.

Set default text

Sometimes, you’ll send a message with personalization tags to someone who hasn’t provided all the data your tags reference. For example, you might send an email to someone who hasn’t shared their first name with you. 

When this happens, it’s important to have default text set to prevent blank spaces in place of the missing data. Set default text using the examples below to determine what should appear if data isn’t available. 

Text with variables	Output
Hey {{ first_name|default:'friend' }}, any interest in some {{ person|lookup:'Favorite Food'|default:'tasty treats' }}?	Hey friend, any interest in some tasty treats?

Outcome

By using these steps, you can add basic personalization to your emails, like someone’s first name or a product they left in their cart. When the message sends, it will reference the data available for the recipient and populate the tags with custom data. 

Additional resources

• Read the personalization variables reference for a deeper understanding of variables.
• Learn how to use filters to customize variables.
• Try more advanced personalization: How to build dynamic blocks in a flow email.