Tokens

Learn how to personalize messages with Tokens and the different tokens available to use.

Eric Range avatar
Written by Eric Range
Updated over a week ago

Overview

The Campaigns module is all about customization and personalization of emails and SMS messages with the student in mind. We want you to be able to address each student by name and reference details from their profile and other data points found in your Element instance that help make your communication useful and unique β€” even when that communication is going out to many people at once! Tokens are a great way to do this.

Tokens are essentially a small bit of code that works like a placeholder. When you're writing a message, you see the token as something like [user:intended_major] in your text. When the person receiving the message sees the message, the token is replaced with real content. For example, if Student A has an intended major in Biology and Student B has an intended major in Accounting, [user:intended_major] would be replaced with Biology in the message for Student A and Accounting in the message for Student B.


Inserting a Token in a Campaign Email/SMS

Including a token in your email and SMS messages is simple. All you need to do is enter the token text enclosed in brackets [ ] in the content of your message.Β 

Where and how to use them

  • Subject line of an email

    • How: Click the Add Token button

  • Preview text of an email

    • How: Click the Add Token button

  • Body of an email

    • How: Highlight your text and click the Insert Token icon
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  • Body of an SMS

    • Click the Add Token button


Creating a Token for a Custom Field

  1. Navigate to Data + Automations > Field Management

  2. Click on Custom Fields in the left-hand menu

  3. Locate your custom field and the slug for that field. You will use the slug to create the token.

  4. Take the token, add "User:" to the front of it, and put it in brackets.

    • Example 1:

      • Slug: user-custom-demo1-dietary-restrictions

      • Token: [user:user-custom-demo1-dietary-restrictions]

    • Example 2:

      • Slug: user-custom-demo1-dietary-explain

      • Token: [user:user-custom-demo1-dietary-explain]


What happens if there is no data for the token to pull?

Let's say you have a token for a middle name, [user:middle_name], but the student didn't enter a middle name. The space will be empty because there is no data to be collected. Therefore, we advise that you mindfully include tokens that have data to be included in the campaigns.

You could alter the token to use a fallback parameter to insert a value instead of the token when data is missing. To learn more, click here.


Tokens During Campaign Testing

Remember, tokens (and the data they represent) are associated with a particular person's record. This means you will not see tokens replaced if you test your message using an email address or phone number.
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​To test token content, you'll need to send it to a segment of test records that have profiles inside Element451.


Help My Tokens Aren't Populating!

When you send a message (or test to segment of test users) and you see one or more of the tokens used in your email don't populate follow these troubleshooting steps.

  1. Confirm that the contact has data in the field that is associated with that token. If the field is empty the token may have worked as intended. If there is data present:

  2. Delete the token and add it back to your campaign. When adding system tokens you should add them from the token menu. For custom tokens, you should carefully type the whole token.

In some cases a broken token will simply not populate. In others, a broken token may prevent an email or SMS message from being sent at all. So it is important to ensure you are correctly inserting your tokens.

⚠️ Avoid copying and pasting tokens or parts of tokens, from various sources like other Element451 screens, webpages, documents or email editors. WYSIWYG editors, like the one used in Element451, can hide HTML code within the copied text. Although this code is harmless and may not otherwise impact the message, it will disrupt the functionality of tokens if included inside the token string.

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