CarpeMessaging
Request early access

Help · Content

Show a block to some people

A rule decides who sees one part of an email. Give the line about free shipping for members a rule — is tagged HasAccount in Shopify — and the people who have an account see it, and everybody else gets the same email without it.

Where a rule lives

Every section, and nearly every block, has a Show this only when … card at the foot of its panel. With nothing in it, everyone who gets the email sees that part; a part that carries a rule wears a thin bar down its left edge.

The card reads:

Show this only when …

With nothing in it, it says:

Everyone who gets this email sees it.

A block or section that carries a rule wears a thin bar down its left edge in the email, and its row in the list of blocks says:

Shown to some

Select the block and, where the email has room, its name tag says so too — Text · Shown to some.

A rule on a section covers everything in it. When a section's rule is false the whole section is excluded — its background, its padding, every block in it. When a block's rule is false that block is excluded, padding and all, and the blocks around it close up. A section whose every block was excluded is excluded too, so nobody gets an empty band.

A rule inside a Library element travels with it. In the Library, a block of an element has the same card, with one more line under the heading:

A rule here travels with this element to every email that uses it.

Every email that uses the element shows that block to the same people, and the email marks it the same way. To hide a whole Library element from some people, put the rule on the section it sits in. Unlinking an element keeps every rule its blocks carried.

The kinds of rule

A rule asks about a profile property, a Shopify tag, or whether you know the person's first name. In an automation that starts with an event, it can also ask about a detail of that event. One part of an email can carry up to five rules, combined as all or any.

Press Profile property, Shopify tag or First name beside Add a rule — and, in an automation that starts with an event, Start event detail (see A different block for each carrier below). A template on its own offers Start event detail too while you preview it with one of a person's events, so you can build the rule there; it can only be sent once an automation that starts with that event uses the template.

One block or section can carry up to five rules. With two or more, the heading asks how they combine — all of these are true, or any of these is true — and the word between the rules says the same. There is no nesting: one way of combining them, for the whole card. At five the card says:

Five rules is the most one part of an email can have.

Take the last rule off and the part is back to everyone.

A rule is saved once it is finished. Choose is and the rule waits for what to compare with; until you type it, the card says under it:

Type what to compare with, or choose another test.

and the email keeps the rule you had before. A name typed under Other that belongs to a profile field or to Shopify's tags waits the same way:

Choose one of your own properties — a rule can’t use this name.

Taking a rule off, or switching between all and any, is saved at once for the rules that are finished; one still waiting stays on the card until you finish it or take it off.

A different block for each carrier

In an automation that starts with an event, a rule can ask about that event. An automation that starts when an order is fulfilled knows which carrier took the parcel, and you can show each person the block that fits theirs: the carrier's own image, a link to track it with that carrier, and what to do if it is late.

Press Start event detail beside Add a rule, choose the detail — for the carrier, Carrier — then how to compare it and what to compare it with: is, is not, contains, does not contain, is set or is not set. Capital letters don't matter.

Use the carrier name exactly as it appears in your Shopify orders. We keep whatever Shopify sends and compare it with what you type; there is no list of carriers to pick from, because every store ships with its own. Contains is the safest choice: a store in the United States might write these four blocks,

and each person sees the one block for their carrier. ("USPS" does not contain "UPS", so the two never both show.) The image in each block is one you add from your own image library.

A line that should vanish when it is empty — a second address line, say — gets its own text block with the rule Address line 2 is set, and its detail's fallback left empty. A block whose rule is false is excluded, padding and all, so nobody sees a blank line. A line made only of details that all come up empty already goes on its own, with no rule at all; the rule is for a line that has words of its own too, such as Apartment: Address line 2.

In the preview, choose a profile under Previewing as and the event you pick under Event — in an automation's email, their most recent one is picked for you — and the rule reads it, so you can check which block they get. With No event, the rule reads no event. A rule about the start event cannot go out where there is no start event: in a campaign, a template on its own, or an automation that starts any other way, the rule and the Checks card say:

This email shows a block only when a detail of the event that starts an automation matches, and only an automation that starts with an event has one. Take the rule off, or use this email in such an automation.

A greeting for people whose name you don't have

A greeting with the first name in it reads well only for the people whose name you have. The simplest way is one line with a fallback word — Hi {first name, or "there"}! — which prints the word for anybody without a name. When no one word reads right, use two text blocks instead:

Everybody sees exactly one of the two. A first name counts as known when it has something in it: a name that is empty, or only spaces, is not known — and the same goes for a fallback word, which prints for an empty name as it does for a missing one.

In the preview, choose a profile under Previewing as to see which line they get; No profile information shows the line for people without a name.

Let Talaria write it

Describe who should see this part in your own words, and Talaria writes the rule and reads it back to you. Nothing in the email changes until you press Use this rule.

Under the rules, the card has a field for describing the people in your own words:

Talaria can write this rule for you

Type who should see this part — people with an account who still have points — and press Write the rule. Talaria writes a rule from your profiles' own properties and Shopify tags, and reads it back to you before anything changes:

Talaria’s rule shows this to:

followed by the rule in plain words. Press Use this rule to put it on the card, where every row can be changed like one you added yourself, or Not this one to leave the card as it was. The email changes only when you use the rule, and it is saved the way every other change you make is.

Your sentence stays in the field after the rule lands, so you can reword it and ask again. If the card already has rules you wrote or changed by hand, Talaria asks before replacing them:

Replace the rule you have?

Talaria only writes rules about properties and Shopify tags, and only from properties and tags your profiles actually carry. Ask it for something a rule cannot do — who opened an email, who bought, who has given consent — and it says so rather than guessing. Talaria never sends anything; it only writes the rule for you to check.

Rules and segments Talaria drafts for your store share one hourly allowance. After a lot of drafts in a short stretch, Talaria asks you to wait a little while — you can always add the rule by hand in the meantime.

What "doesn't have it" means

This is the one thing to read twice. A person whose profile has no value for a property — or who has no Shopify tags at all — is not a gap in the rule. They count as not matching the positive rule, and as matching the negative one. The card says so whenever a negative rule is on screen:

Someone whose profile doesn’t have this property — or has no Shopify tags at all — counts as “is not”, “does not contain”, “is not set” and “has no tags”, and never as the opposite.

So is not tagged Wholesale includes everyone with no tags, and whose loyalty_tier is not gold includes everyone who never had a tier.

Number, date and yes-or-no rules are the exception. They only ever match an answer that is a number, a date, or a yes or a no: whose points as a number is not 500 is false for someone with no points and for someone whose answer was "N/A", and whose VIP is no is false for someone who was never asked, so none of them sees the block.

Checking it

The email beside the controls draws every block, whatever its rule, so you can always click it, change it and see its mark. To see what one person would get, press Preview and choose one of your profiles. The email is drawn for them, with every part their rules exclude gone, and one line says how many:

1 block is hidden for this person.

No profile information draws the email for somebody your store knows nothing about, which is what anyone without the properties and tags would get. A test send is filled in the same way, for the person you are previewing as, and it never draws every block. With sample values — nobody chosen — each rule is decided for somebody with no properties or tags: a block that needs a property or a tag is excluded from the test, and a block that asks for one not to be there — is not tagged Wholesale, loyalty_tier is not set — is kept. The sample does have a first name, so a first name is known line is the one it gets; choose a profile without one to test the other line. The test window says how many were excluded:

1 block was excluded. With sample values, each “Show this only when …” rule is decided for somebody with no properties or tags. Choose a profile to test what they get.

What a rule cannot do

A rule cannot ask about consent, go on a column, cover part of a sentence, or go in a back-in-stock message.

Everyone you email gets both, so no rule may hide either one. A block or section that holds one shows this instead of the add buttons:

This block holds the unsubscribe link or your store’s address, which go to everyone — so it can’t have a rule.

On a section it says the same about the section:

This section holds the unsubscribe link or your store’s address, which go to everyone — so it can’t have a rule.

If a rule is already there — you moved the unsubscribe link into a block that had one, or a section with a rule holds a Library footer — the card says, on a block:

The unsubscribe link and your store’s address go to everyone. Take the rule off this block, or move them out of it.

and on a section:

The unsubscribe link and your store’s address go to everyone. Take the rule off this section, or move them out of it.

The email cannot be sent until one of those happens.

A discount block with a rule

A discount code is set aside for every person an email goes to before any of it is drawn. If a discount block's rule excludes it for somebody, they do not see the code — but it was still set aside for them, the same as for everybody else the email went to.

An email you imported

An email imported from another tool can carry its own tags that decided what each person saw. When you convert it, the ones that read plainly become rules of their own, on the part they covered:

Anything else is never guessed — a guess would show a part of the email to people the original never showed it to. That part is kept as code, and a part that decided who saw it says under it:

Your original shows this part only to some people. Make it a block of your own, then use “Show this only when …” on it — your original stays open beside it.

Build the part as a block, give it the rule, and delete the kept code.

A part that repeated itself — a list of reviews, or of what is in somebody's cart — is kept as code too, without that sentence: it is not a part only some people see, and a rule cannot turn it into blocks.