How to Personalize Emails With Your Subscriber’s Name (or custom details) in Flodesk

Adding a subscriber’s name or custom details to your emails makes your message feel more human—and more effective. With Flodesk, personalizing your emails is fast, simple, and can help boost open and click rates.

Personal touches help build trust and connection. Imagine how these subject lines land:

• I'd love to get your thoughts on this, Kate

• Toya—I wish more people asked me this

• Your next steps, Mike

• Hit reply and let me know if you’re here for it, Tasha.

Let’s walk through how to collect that data and use it in your emails.

You’ll first need to ask for names or custom data when people opt into your list.

To add name fields and custom fields to your form:

1. Go to Forms > + New form

2. Choose your form type: Popup, Inline, Full page, or Link in Bio

3. Once in the form editor, click into any form field to open the Fields tab on the right

4. Click + Add field and choose:

   • First name and/or Last name

   • Or select Custom field to collect something unique (like Wedding Month)

Step 1. In your email, add a Text block.

Note: Personalization fields only work in plain text copy areas. You cannot add personalization fields like subscribers’ names to Layouts.

That’s because Layouts are converted to images once you finish editing your email, and images cannot read the underlying HTML codes and scripts.

Step 2. Click where you want to insert the name (e.g., after “Hey”)

Step 3. Type the @ symbol to open the personalization menu

Step 4. Select the field (e.g., First name) from the dropdown

Optional (but highly recommended): Add a fallback value, like “friend,” “email superstar,” or something fun that matches your tone.

Example: Hey @FirstName, becomes Hey Amy, or Hey friend, if no name is available

​

Step 5. Click Insert field. You can repeat this for as many places as you’d like in the Text block—including the end of your email.

If you’ve added custom fields like “Wedding Month” or “Pet’s Name,” you can use them in your emails just like First name.

Just type @ and choose the matching field to insert that data.

Want to greet your subscribers before they even open the email? Add their name or custom field to your subject line or preview text:

• In the subject line/preview field, type @ and choose the personalization you want

• Add fallback values just like in your email body

This adds an instant connection before the email is even opened.

The same way, you can pull in data from custom fields that you collected from your subscribers.

Flodesk supports a code snippet within email links that allows you to insert your subscribers’ email addresses into your email URL parameters, enabling them to be captured by third-party sites.

This is important if you're a Raptive user, for example, and want to set up Newsletter Identity Capture via clickthrough URLs in your email newsletters to capture your subscribers’ email addresses.

To utilize this functionality, simply add this to the end of the clickthrough URL for all of your Flodesk email newsletters and sequences:

?adt_ei={{ subscriber.email }}

Example:

https://homedecorsite.com/article1/?adt_ei={{ subscriber.email }}

• Collect subscriber names or custom data via form fields

• Use personalization in Text blocks, subject lines, and preview text

• Type @ to insert a personalization field, and always add a fallback value

• Avoid using personalization inside Layouts, since they render as images

By using personalization wisely, your emails will feel more relevant, more human, and more likely to inspire a reply—or a click.