My merge tags don’t work in tests

Once you receive a test message of your campaign, you might notice that your merge tags aren’t displayed correctly. For example, a {{FirstName}} merge tag would be displayed as <<First name>> in a test message. 

This is intended behaviour. Since test messages are not sent to actual lists, merge tags don’t get populated with dynamic data – there’s simply no field value they can be populated with.

If you’d like to test your merge tags, you’ll need to send an actual campaign, for example, to your seed list. This is also a great way to test your campaign’s deliverability and inbox placement.