Liquid Formatting

Personalised data in communications from Movement

Across the Movement app, The Liquid templating language is available to customise and personalise content and messages. Most commonly Liquid is used to personalise email and text message communication as well as pages and thank you emails.

With Liquid, you can insert data on your members, create conditional content, and generate dynamic lists based on your audience's information.

Typically this is done through the use of merge tags, for instance Hi {{ first_name }}, would insert the recipients first name into the message: Hi Bob,. More complex customisation is available through the use of advanced logic tags and filters.

Depending on the context, different variables are available for templating. Merge tags can be inserted within editors by clicking the 'Merge Tags' button, or the '+' icon. These tag variables can additionally be used within more advanced logic tags and filters.

Merge Tags

Merge tags, also known as objects in Liquid parlance, provide a way to substitute custom data into text. These allow you to dynamically insert member data into your emails, whether it's within paragraphs, links, buttons, or anywhere else. Merge tags are always wrapped in double curly braces: {{ }}.

When dealing with contexts that have member data, there is access to variables such as:

Basic Information

first_name: First name of the member
last_name: Last name of the member
email: Email of the member
phone_number: Phone number of the member
address_1: Address line 1 of the member
address_2: Address line 2 of the member
address_3: Address line 3 of the member
address_4: Address line 4 of the member
postcode: Postcode of the member

Membership

join_date: Date the member joined
membership_status: Status of the members membership
external_id: Membership number

Custom Fields

Custom fields can be utilised through the 'API name' of the custom field, which can be viewed from the Custom Fields setup screen within Audiences.

For example, if you have a custom field called "Parliamentary Constituency" and an API name of constituency, you can use it as {{ constituency }}. These will also be shown in the merge tag picker, for easy reference.

Organisations

Movement creates a merge tag for each organisation type you have. For example, if you have Regions, Councils, and Towns, you may have the following merge tags:

{{ organisations.region }}, {{ organisations.council }}, {{ organisations.town }}

You can find these in the merge tag picker, by clicking 'Organisations'.

Additional Contextual Data

In certain circumstances there may be additional data available such as public share links to the page the member is on, recent actions, donation history, and more.

Alternate Contexts

In some contexts such as page thank you emails, there won't be a valid member and so only a subset of typical merge tags may be available. Use the merge tag selector to view the available variables.

Conditional Logic

The same variables used for merge tags can also be used within logic tags. Logic tags are differentiated from merge tags through the delimiters {% and %} instead of {{ and }}.

You can show or hide content based on merge tag values using Liquid's if, elsif, and else statements.

Basic Conditionals

{% if first_name != blank %}
  Dear {{first_name}},
{% else %}
  Dear Friend,
{% endif %}

Multiple Conditions

{% if membership_status == 'active' %}
  Thank you for being a valued member!
{% elsif membership_status == 'pending' %}
  Please complete your membership registration.
{% else %}
  Join us today to unlock exclusive benefits!
{% endif %}

Complex Conditions

You can use operators like and, or:

{% if membership_status == 'active' and joined_at < '2023-01-01' %}
  As a long-standing member...
{% endif %}

Examples

Based on the region of the member. To retrieve the name of the variable, use the merge tag picker.

{% if organisations.local_region == 'London' %}
    Lives in London!
{% else %}
    Elsewhere
{% endif %}

Based on a custom field. Here a custom field representing the next event id the member has rsvped to. If blank then they have no upcoming events.

{% if soonest_rsvp_event_id == blank %}
    No event
{% else %}
    Has event
{% endif %}

Filters

Filters are used to modify the output of a Liquid variable.

Defaults

If a variable is not present, the default value will be used,

{{ first_name | default: "Friend" }}

For a user with a first_name set will display that, otherwise will display Friend

Multiple Filters

{{ organisation.region | capitalize | prepend: "Welcome to " }}

For a member who is a member of the organisation region hartlepool, will display Welcome to Hartlepool

Loops and Lists

Liquid allows you to iterate over lists of data to create dynamic content.

Assigning values

You can assign values to new variables using the assign tag:

{% assign fruits = "apples, oranges, peaches" | split: ", " %}

Assigns the new variable fruits to a list of items apples, oranges, and peaches. The collection was created by splitting apples, oranges, peaches, between , .

Looping

Loop through variable using for syntax:

{% for fruit in fruits %}
- {{ fruit }}
{% endfor %}

Will display an item for each fruit:

- apples
- oranges
- peaches

Address Loop Example

This will show the 4 lines of an address if present

{% if address_1 != blank %}
  Your registered addresses:
  {% for i in (1..4) %}
    {% assign address_field = 'address_' | append: i %}
    {% if address_field != blank %}
      {{address_field}}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

Comments

You can disable processing and rendering of code by using comment tags. You may use these to explain how logic works or temporarily disable functionality.

{% comment %}
This won't be visible!
{{ nor_this_variable }}
{% endcomment %}

Best Practices

Use fallbacks: Provide default content when merge tags might be empty:

{{first_name|default: "Friend"}}

Test your logic: Before sending, test your email with various several different records to ensure your conditional logic works as expected.
Keep it simple: While Liquid is powerful, overly complex logic can be hard to maintain. Break complex operations into smaller, manageable pieces.
Check for empty values: Always verify that data exists before trying to use it in complex operations:

{% if postcode != blank and postcode contains "SW" %}
    London-south-west-specific content here
{% endif %}