The * | MC:TOC | *  dynamic merge tag works by pulling anything from your email that is formatted as Title text, and displaying it as an ordered list complete with bullet points. Each item in your table of contents is then anchor linked to the corresponding blurb in your email.

To add a table of contents to your email, simply insert * | MC:TOC | * where you’d like the contents listing to appear. In the example screen shots you can see that I added some Title text (”In this edition of The MonkeyWrench”), and then added the merge tag below it.

You can also insert a Table of Contents in either the right or left column of a two-column template and the merge tag will work exactly the same way.

(I’ve used extra spaces between the elements of the merge tag so that it will render correctly for those who subscribe to the RSS-to-Email version of the blog.)

also see: Personalizing your welcome emails w/merge tags

Advanced Merge Tags

In the latest MailChimp system update, we’ve added support for advanced merge tags.  These enable you to to do some very cool things, including the ability to create dynamic content.  In the Campaign Builder, when you click to edit any area of your content, you’ll see a link for the “advanced merge tag reference”.  Clicking this will bring up an information window with all the details I’m about to share.  We’ve divided this reference into categories to make it easier to use: Formatting, Dynamic Content, List Information, Sharing, and Campaign Information.

Let’s start with Formatting.  This class allows you to modify the way the content inside you various merge tags is displayed.  You can make the value displayed appear as all lower case characters using *|LOWER:YOUR_MERGE|* (where *|YOUR_MERGE|* might be something like FNAME for first name or LNAME for last name, etc).  *|TITLE:YOUR_MERGE|* will change the value of *|YOUR_MERGE|* to title-case, which means that the first letter in each word is capitalized.  This one is especially handy if you want to standardize the way names, for example, are displayed, regardless of whether someone signed up for your list using ALL CAPS or all lower-case characters.  Check out the image below for some additional advanced formatting tags.

Next, let’s take a look at the new tags for Dynamic Content.  In our opinion, this is one of the most exciting and powerful of our new advanced merge tags.  Essentially, we’ve enabled you the capability to set up an *|ELSEIF:CONDITION|*, using the protocol of basic logic statements.  Let me give you a scenario to make this a little more clear.  Let’s say you run an online store for Major League Baseball fans.  You might want to tailor your content to fans of certain teams based on the region they are from. For example:

*|IF:STATE=FL|*

Save 20% on all Marlins Window Stickers!

*|ELSEIF:STATE=GA|*

Save 15% on all Braves apparel!

*|ELSEIF:STATE=MD|*

Save 10% on all Orioles Window Stickers!

*|ELSE:|*

Save 15% on all MLB apparel this weekend only!

*|END:IF|*

In the coming weeks we will be going in to greater detail and giving you more examples, tricks and tips for using these advanced merge tags. There are a few more that I want to mention right now though. *|MC:SHARE|* will add all the social network icons that you see displayed at the bottom of this blog post. (Shameless plug: we know you are reading, now you’ve got to Digg us!)  In addition, *|DATE|* will insert the current date, and *|RSS:RECENT|* will insert the titles of your five (by default) most recent blog posts.  If you want to display a different number, all you have to do is use *|RSS:RECENTx|* where x = whatever number of posts you want to display.  Happy merging!

Quick Update: Here’s a cheatsheet of all MailChimp Merge Tags

If you’re a MailChimp customer, you’re familiar with sticking the merge tag *|FNAME|* wherever you want the recipient’s first name to appear. Simple stuff.

But we’ve got a new set of merge tags that let you do some really smart stuff with logic and conditions and A/B test content…

Here’s a list of some of the new Smart Merge Tags in MailChimp, and what you can do with them.

Simple Stuff

*|TITLE:MERGE|* will upper-case the first letter of each word of the field, so that *|TITLE:FNAME|* *|TITLE:LNAME|* will convert “roGEr WATERS” into “Roger Waters”

*|UPPER:MERGE|* will upper-case all the letters in the field

*|LOWER:MERGE|* lower-cases all the letters

*|HTML:MERGE|* will print the field without escaping. So if you merge in HTML code like, <b>Bananas!</b> it’ll actually render like: Bananas! in your email.

Interest Groups

*|INTERESTED:Pizza,Pie|*
This will only show up if they’re interested in pizza or pie
*|END:INTERESTED|*

Note: the interested block right now can only do OR, not AND conditions.

A/B Splits

For A/B splits, there’s

*|GROUP:A|*
This will only show for group A
*|END:GROUP|*

(this lays the foundation for upcoming A/B tests on content)

Advanced Stuff: Conditions

Ever wanted to dynamically change content in your campaigns, based on the recipient?

In general,

*|IF:MERGE|*
something
*|ELSE:|*
something else
*|END:IF|*

For example, a sporting goods store could send a holiday promotion to its entire list, but swap out the offer by the recipient’s state:

*|IF:STATE|*
*|IF:STATE=CA|*
Save 20% on surf boards!
*|END:IF|*
*|IF:STATE=GA|*
Save 20% on Mountain Bikes!
*|END:IF|*
*|IF:STATE=FL|*
Save 40% on water skis!
*|END:IF|*
*|IF:STATE=CO|*
Save 50% on ski gear
*|END:IF|*
*|ELSE:|* Save 10% on everything in the store!
*|END:IF|*

More advanced conditions can be done like:

*|IF:MERGE != Bob|*
Your name’s not Bob!
*|END:IF|*
There’s also:
*|IFNOT:MERGE|* to do negative conditions.

And what if you want to start with “Dear *|FNAME|*” but not all your recipients have FNAME data (someone called about this yesterday)? You don’t want it to be blank. You can replace it with something generic:

*|IF:FNAME|*
Dear *|FNAME|*,
*|ELSE:|*
Dear Braves Fan,
*|END:IF|*