• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

OrganicWeb

Mailchimp Services for Medium & Large Organizations

  • Home
  • Services
    • Mailchimp Corporate/Team Training
    • Mailchimp Consulting
    • Mailchimp Live Public Classes
    • Mailchimp Recommendations Report
  • Free Tools
    • Mailchimp Tutorials on YouTube
    • Map maker for email
    • Is Mailchimp down?
    • Marketing facts and stats.
  • Content
    • Blog
    • Videos
  • Contact & About
    • Contact
    • About
You are here: Home / Marketing / How to Set a Default First Name in Mailchimp

How to Set a Default First Name in Mailchimp

Dynamically adding the first name for each of your email campaign recipients results in better conversion rates. Inserting the first name into your email marketing is simple. But what happens if you don’t have some of your contacts first names?

By default Mailchimp inserts nothing (blank) if you use the first name merge tag value in your email campaign and don’t have a recipients first name in your Audience.

Learn how to add a default first name that will appear where you don’t have the first name of a recipient below.

Instructions to Add a Default Merge Tag Value in Mailchimp

Time needed: 2 minutes.

If you personalise your email campaigns sent from Mailchimp then follow these instructions that show how to add a default merge tag value for the first name field.

  1. Login to Mailchimp and view your contacts

    Login to your Mailchimp account, click “Audience” then the “View Contacts” button.

  2. Enter the Audience fields screen

    Click “Settings” then “Audience fields and |MERGE| tags”.

  3. Enter your Default Merge Tag value

    Find your Field Label (to the left of the screen) and enter the default value in the corresponding “Default merge tag value” field (to the right of the screen). For example if you want “Customer” to appear if you’re using the first name merge tag and don’t have a contacts first name then enter “Customer”.

  4. Save the change

    Click the “Save Changes” button to the bottom of the screen.

Video Transcript

Hi I’m Gary from organicwebcomau.wpcomstaging.com and I’m a Mailchimp partner.
We can use merge tags in Mailchimp to personalise our content. For example we could use the first name merge tag to insert the recipients first name but what happens if we don’t have a person’s first name? Well Mailchimp by default enters nothing, an empty value, so let me show you how we can set what will appear if we don’t have a person’s first name.
So in Mailchimp itself I’m in my audience. If I click “view contacts” I then click “settings”, “audience fields and merge tags”. On the left hand side I can see the fields in my audience. On the right hand side we have the default merge tag value. So looking at the first name field label there’s nothing in the default merge tag value for the first name so I could enter something in here that would appear as the default if I don’t have a person’s first name. So for example “customer” then at the bottom of the screen, you might not be able to see it because the video might be in the way, but I click “Save Changes”. And now if I use the first name merge tag value and I don’t have a person’s first name the word “customer” will appear.
Thank you for joining me.

Found this useful? Please share:

Related

  • How to set a default value for Mailchimp fields
  • How to personalise the Mailchimp subject line
  • Magically Have Mailchimp Capitalize Your Subscribers First Names

Filed Under: Marketing

Watch Gary in action

Gary frequently adds Mailchimp instructional videos to his YouTube channel. Subscribe to keep updated.

→  Subscribe   ←

How to create a lead-capture form with file download.

How to target your most engaged Mailchimp contacts.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Grith says

    March 3, 2021 at 8:23 pm

    Brilliant – so easy to do! Thank you Gary.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Free Mailchimp Tutorial

Learn from a Mailchimp Pro Partner

Signup to receive info about Gary's Mailchimp beginner and advanced classes.

Sign up

Gary on Australian National Radio

Changes are coming to the Australian Spam Act

Read Gary's article in SmartCompany

Meet Gary, Mailchimp Expert

Gary is a Mailchimp Expert and Partner. He delivers Mailchimp training and consulting services in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Gary presents at Mailchimp events and hosts the first, and only, Australian Mailchimp sponsored event. He is M.B.A. qualified from Henley Business School, U.K.

Contact Gary for your Mailchimp needs

Footer

Customer ratings

Mailchimp pro partners

Contact

Contact Gary for all your Mailchimp training, consulting and integration needs.

Contact Gary.

Copyright © 2021 · Sitemap · ABN: 40800872179 · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service