My merge tags don’t work in a template test

Once you receive a test message of your template, 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 of a template. 

This is intended behaviour. Since test messages of templates 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 a test of an actual campaign or automated email – you can learn more about it here.