Personalizing your message

Liquid is a powerful template language from Shopify that will enhance your mobile conversations with highly personalized responses. For more information, see the Shopify website (https://shopify.github.io/liquid/).

Use Liquid language to personalize your broadcast messages with values stored in the recipient's profile. There are two types of markup in Liquid:

• Output markup uses a profile field name surrounded by matched pairs of double curly brackets {{…}}. Use Output markup to personalize your message by merging the contents of a profile field into your message.

  For example, insert Hi {{first_name}} to add the recipient's first name to your message: Hi Mara or Hi Greg. You can even insert a pipe ( | ) to specify a default value; for example, Hi {{first_name | default: "friend"}} displays Hi friend when the first_name field in the user's profile is blank.

• Tag markup uses if ... else statements surrounded by matched pairs of a curly bracket and percent sign {%...%}. Use Tag markup to set conditions for content added to your message.

  For example, insert the following statements to invite Maine residents to a rally in support of a state bill and urge subscribers outside of Maine to support an online petition:

  {% if state == 'ME' %}

  Show your support for the Evergreen Preservation Bill! Meet in front of the statehouse in Augusta on at 1 p.m. on Sunday to make noise and be heard!

  {% else %}

  Show your support for the Evergreen Preservation Bill! Log in to www.evergreenforest.org and sign our petition.

  {% endif %}

Always test your message markup in Liquid Tester, which can accommodate both standard 160 character messages and longer messages of more than 160 characters. For more information, see Testing your Liquid markup and Getting started with a sample Liquid message.

Note: Liquid does not recognize spaces in field names, so when you add a field name to your message, be sure to replace all spaces with underscores, for example, first name becomes first_name.

Working with Output markup

You can insert any default profile field or custom field using double curly brackets {{...}}. When you surround the name of a profile field or custom field with {{...}}, the stored value in the field is merged into the message.

When using Liquid to merge a date field into your message, be sure to specify the default format:

{{field_name | date format}}

where field_name is the default profile field or custom field containing the value to merge into the message and format is one of the date format expressions.

Working with Tag markup

Tag markup sets conditions using if ... else statements surrounded by matched pairs of a curly bracket and percent sign {%...%} , which displays as conversational text in your message.

Tag markup supports:

• Filters that perform calculations or commands within tags, for example, if, elsif, else, and endif.

• Operators for comparisons, for example, ==, !=, <, >, and, or.

Tags may be nested for multiple conditions.

Testing your Liquid markup

To test your use of Liquid to personalize conversations in text messages:

1. Select Text Messaging in the left pane, and then select Campaigns.

   The Campaigns page opens.

2. Select Actions at the top of the page, and then select Liquid Tester.

   

   The "Liquid Tester" page contains a sample profile on the left and a text box for testing a sample liquid template in the middle.

3. Type the message to test in the Message Template text box, and then select Test.

   The Liquid markup is processed based on the field values in the sample profile and displays in the Message Result.

   Tip: To refine your test markup, edit the entries in the sample profile.

Getting started with a sample Liquid message

Liquid language is a powerful tool for communicating with your subscribers. It can take some time to develop expertise, so here is a sample message so you can get started quickly.

Requesting an email address

You want to collect an email address from subscribers who have not already provided one. In this sample, you can specify separate messages, depending on whether an email address is available.

If the user's profile contains an email address, the following message is sent	If the user's profile does not contain an email address, the following message is sent:

For information on advanced liquid, see Advanced Liquid.