Dynamic Images in Your Email Campaigns

You've probably used "Merge Tags" before, to personalize your campaign with a recipient's "FNAME" or "LNAME".

But there are other nifty ways to use merge tags that you might want to try. For instance, have you ever wanted to swap out an image, or chunk of content, based on the recipient? For example, what if you want a different "coupon" to appear for each recipient, based on his account status? Here's how you can do it in MailChimp...

Let's say you've got a database of customers, and one of your fields is "Account_Type". Below is what it might look like in Microsoft Excel...

Step 1. Setup your list in MailChimp
If you were to import this list into MailChimp, you'd probably end up with merge tags that looked something like this:

Step 2. Create & upload all your different images
Now let's say you want to send every "gold" member a Special Gold E-Coupon in an HTML email. Every "silver" member gets your silver E-Coupon. And so on. The easiest way to do this would be to create all your coupon files and name them gold.gif, silver.gif, bronze.gif, etc. and then upload them to your server:

Step 3. Code your images with merge tags
Next, in your HTML email, you'd simply use merge tags inside your image code to dynamically insert the appropriate image's filename for each recipient. For example:

<img src="http://www.mywebsite.com/images/*|ACC_TYPE|*.gif">

Wherever MailChimp sees the *|ACCT_TYPE|* merge tag, he'll insert that recipient's account type data. So if a recipient in your database is a "gold" member, then the gold.gif coupon will be displayed in his email.

Step 4. Preview each recipient's email
Just to make sure, you can actually preview how your email will look for each and every receipient on your list before you send the campaign. Just click the "Next and back" buttons at the bottom of our preview window (below is a screenshot).

You can use merge tags to personalize your HTML email graphics in lots of different ways. Some really quick examples might be:

• Photos of each recipient's insurance agent, or financial advisor
• Car dealers can swap photos of the car their customer purchased from you
• Swap out vendor logos when you send them sales updates

If you're thinking about trying something like this over the holidays, setup a test list in MailChimp, and just try it out for yourself first. Once you get the hang of it all, it's pretty easy! If you've already imported your list in MailChimp, and you want to add a new column to your database, simply run through your list setup wizard again (it's under your list's "Settings" area) and add the new field to your signup form. Then, you can export your members from MailChimp in Excel format. Add all your new columns (account type, whatever). Then, use the "Advanced Import" option when you re-import your list into MailChimp. The advanced option will let you basically keep any extra fields (like opt-in date, time, IP address, etc) for every recipient that signed up for your list.

Other Useful Resources:

• Designing proper email template headers
• Free Email Marketing Guide
• Inbox Inspector: Generate screenshots of your email designs in all the major email programs, test all the major spam filters and email firewalls, and scan for spammy keywords in one click.

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