Must See ConvertKit Hacks

Update October 2016 – Some of these hacks are now only working in sequences within ConvertKit and will not work in Broadcasts. See disclaimer below.

DISCLAIMER: ConvertKit merge tags are based on Liquid, however, they use a custom implementation. Therefore, modifications to the merge tags, as described in the post below, will not work inside Broadcasts and may not work inside Sequences. ConvertKit does not officially support any modifications to their merge tags. Use the following “hacks” at your own discretion.

Over the last month, I’ve been digging further into ConvertKit and the “hidden” personalization options available.

It started in the official ConvertKit Facebook group. Someone asked about adding the day of the week to emails within a sequence, like “Happy Friday”. Since users within a ConvertKit sequence could receive the email on any day of the week, the only way to handle this would be to know the date. I jumped into the conversation later to find that Chris Moore had found a solution.

The best part? The solution was very similar to code I use every day at my day job, which led me on a hunt for more.

Because I’m sure there will be more hacks found in the future, I’m focusing this first installment on personalizing your emails.

When I first read the question about including “Happy Friday” in an email my initial thought was “why?”. But then it hit me; it makes the email more personable. These sequences that you wrote days, weeks, months in advance are meant to work on autopilot. But you still want to connect with your audience right? Some of the simplest details can achieve that.

If I were to get an email that said “Happy Friday”, I’d be more prone to assume it was written purposely for that day. I’d feel more of a connection.

Here are a few hacks you can use to personalize your ConvertKit emails

Day of Week

For example, if you wanted to say: I hope you’re having a wonderful Tuesday!

You’d replace “Tuesday” with the tag for day of the week: {{ 'now' | date: "%A" }}

Weekend

Want to sign off your email based on whether it’s the weekend?

This is similar to Day of Week above, except now you’re checking if it’s equal to Friday, then changing your text if isn’t.

{% assign day = 'now' | date: '%A' %}
{% if day == 'Friday' %}
Have a great weekend!
{% else %}
Talk soon,
{% endif %}

Bonus tip: If the email goes out on a Saturday, you could say “Hope you’re having a great weekend!”

Name – capitalizing or splitting

When a subscriber is filling out the form on your website, they might not be paying too much attention to how they type in their name. They could type it in with a lowercase first letter (“melissa”) or they might include their full name in the first name field (“melissa thorpe”). But when you send emails, you just want to address them by their first name and you want it properly capitalized, right?

Capitalizing names within your emails

The above solution is a bit cumbersome because you have to remember to include it on all forms. Plus it doesn’t apply to past subscribers. So to be sure the name is capitalized within the email, you can add a filter to the merge tag: {{ subscriber.first_name | capitalize }}

Including only their first name

Finally, some subscribers like to type their full name into the first name input. And it’s not ideal to address someone in an email by their full name. So to prevent this within your emails, you can add some additional filtering to the merge tag: {{ subscriber.first_name | capitalize | split: " " | first }}

Keep in Mind

You won’t see this working within an email preview or test email, so to see it in action, you’ll need to send yourself an email.

Bonus Tip: To send yourself an email, create a tag “+Me” and add it to your email. Then you can select the “+Me” tag when sending a broadcast.