Why isn't the customer's name auto-populating in my test email?

[LadyAvira]

Hello! 

In the "Marketing" section of Shopify, I've created an email template and used the option to have the customer's name auto-populate in certain areas. However, when I send a test email to myself, it says, "Hey {first name}." Is this how it will appear to my customers, or is this just for the test emails?

Thanks,

Avira

[Mihail_Shamrin]

Hey! Most likely, your name is not substituted because of an incorrectly written variable. Try this varaint

Hey {{first name}}.

[LadyAvira]

So, I didn't personally write the variable; I used the option (the pencil
with the sparkles icon) to have the name added for me.

[timberlinetack]

I'm having the same issue on my test emails. I've gone through all the trouble of setting up an email flow using automations and now I'm afraid to send emails because I don't want them to say Hi {first name}. Help!  

[Beautiful_Human]

Just to necro this this thread - {first name} shows only on test emails; It will not show in the actual emails.
It will update to: {{ data.customer.first_name}}.

Make a customer segment for your email addresses for testing, and run the marketing email to that segment. This way you can test what the live emails look like as opposed to Test Email.

[AvadaCommerce]

Hello Avira,

Thank you for your good question!

Don't worry too much. The tag "{first name}" is just for the Test email. When you send out the campaign, it will automatically insert your customer's first name into the text. I can see you are using the correct tag. There is no need to change it.

I was having the same worry until I found out this always happens for the Test email, even for other Email Marketing Apps like Mailchimp, Klaviyo,...

You can check out the screenshot below of the Test and Sent emails from Mailchimp. it works perfectly. (The tag looks a little different from the tag in Shopify Email as each Email Apps use their own tags system)

A small tip: Try using your email to subscribe to your own store so you can see how the email actually looks like after hitting the Sent button : )

[LadyAvira]

Thank you!

[CharbelChammai]

Hey there! Hope you're doing good. I recently talked to support and they said this {first name} feature doesnt exist? and i just tried it, didnt work. What could be the issue?

[Beautiful_Human]

Support is correct that " {first name} " feature/value does not exist.
The correct value is: {{ data.customer.first_name }}.