Conditional Content in an Email 🎬

Video

How-to Guide

Conditional Content allows you to display only the content of interest to your contacts, depending on data that they have listed against their contact record.

An example of this might be emails from a bakery but the content & imagery changes if the contact is vegetarian or gluten free.

The beauty of conditional content is that it allows you to do all of this within one email message. So instead of creating a separate message and separate sends to each dietary type on your contact list, you can do it all in one message and only send the message once.

Please note that for conditional content to work correctly and efficiently, you must have the relevant contact data in your contact list prior to sending your message.

For those contacts who may not have any data selected, you can always choose a fall-back option which will be suitable no matter who the target audience is. If you are not sure what to use for your fall-back, the default setting can be helpful here!

This article will step through some important information on inserting conditional content and its limitations. Here is what we will be covering (click to skip ahead):

• Using conditional content on entire components
• Using conditional content on specific content within a component
• Conditional content limits

Using conditional content on entire components

1. Open the email message in question for editing.
2. Select the component that you would like to apply conditions to make conditional. In our example, we're going to select an image component - but you can add conditional content to almost any component.
   
3. From the right Settings panel on the right, expand the Conditions section.
   
4. Click Add Conditions.
5. In our example, we're going to change the image for recipients who have Gluten Free set on their profile. So in our case, the criteria for the first condition would be: Dietary - Includes any - Gluten free.
   
6. Click OK.
7. Once the condition is added, you can now populate the component with the content that matches this conditions, so in our case we'll change the image to a gluten free cake, as shown below.
   
8. Now let's add another condition - this time for our paleo customers. Click Add Conditions again.
9. The criteria for our second condition would be: Dietary - Includes any - Paleo.
   
10. Click OK.
11. Once the condition is added, you can now populate the component with the content that matches this condition, so in our case we'll change the image to a paleo donut, as shown below.
    
12. Repeat this process for any additional conditions.
13. Once complete, we then need to set the image for the default condition (ie. when none of the other conditions are met). To do so, click on the Default condition in the Conditions panel over on the side to select it.
    
14. Now set the image for the default condition. In our case, it will be an image of a regular donut.
    
15. Save your message.
16. Once your message is saved, click Preview from the top right corner of the editor.
17. Test your conditions are set correctly by choosing the list and scrolling through the contacts. The images should swap as you scroll through - based on the dietary preferences of each contact in the database.

Using conditional content on specific content within a component

You can also apply conditions to specific content (such as single words or lines of text) within your paragraphs by highlighting the content and then clicking the CC conditional content icon from the floating toolbar. 

When doing so, the section of text with a condition applied to it will have a special shading applied to it, as you'll see in one of the screenshots below.

V6NOTE: It won't immediately be clear what condition is applied to which block of text, but you will be able to view this by going into HTML mode for the text component you're working in.

1. Type all the content required into your component and apply any links, font styling, etc first.
2. Highlight the first bit of content that you want to apply a conditional rule to.
3. Click the CC conditional content icon from the floating toolbar (as shown).
   
4. Set up the criteria for your condition. In this example, we want to show a particular link to our Gluten Free users which links them directly to the relevant page on our online store. So the criteria we use is: Dietary - Includes any - Gluten free (as shown).
   
5. Repeat the steps above for your other conditions - highlight & apply conditional rules.
   
6. Save your message.
7. Once your message is saved, click Preview from the top right corner of the editor.
8. Test your conditions are set correctly by choosing the list and scrolling through the contacts. The images should swap as you scroll through - based on the dietary preferences of each contact in the database.

Conditional content limits

Conditional content can be a very useful tool when wanting to customise the content of your emails to specific recipients. However, users should be aware of the limitations of this feature, to avoid problems when sending their emails.

When using conditional content, in any type of email, there is a cap of 75 conditional content checks which cannot be exceeded.

When using the drag and drop editor in the system, individual components have a limit of 5 conditional content checks ie. on a paragraph or header component for example.

If these limits are exceeded, you will receive a warning and the email containing the conditional content will not be able to be sent.

These limits are in place to optimise the system's performance and make sure everything runs smoothly and quickly. If a subscriber meets multiple criteria for a condition, the last condition is displayed.

Further Reading

We also support advanced conditional wildcards through HTML code - either within certain components in our drag & drop email editor, or via a HTML email.

Advanced Conditional Wildcards