# Invite email merge tags

Every tag you can put in a Smart Invites email, what it becomes for each customer, and what the email shows when a value is missing.

A merge tag is a placeholder in a Smart Invites email, such as `{recipient_first_name}`. When the email goes out, each tag becomes that customer's details. To add one, open a template and click **Insert tag** above the subject or the body: the tag lands where your cursor is. You can also type a tag yourself.

To write the emails the tags go in, see [Customize your invite emails](/help/collect/customize-invite-emails). To see your tags filled in with a sample customer's details, see [Preview and send a test invite email](/help/collect/preview-and-send-a-test-invite-email).

These tags work in Smart Invites emails only. The emails a project sends after a form submission have their own, such as `{first_name}`: see [Merge tags](/help/account/set-up-project-emails#merge-tags) in "Set up the emails a project sends".

## Every tag

| Menu item                                           | Tag                                | Becomes                                   | When the value is missing |
| --------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------- |
| **Name**                                            | `{recipient_name}`                 | the customer's name                       | left blank                |
| **First name**                                      | `{recipient_first_name}`           | their first name                          | "there"                   |
| **Email**                                           | `{recipient_email}`                | their email address                       | always filled             |
| **Company**                                         | `{recipient_company}`              | their company                             | left blank                |
| **Project**                                         | `{project_name}`                   | your project's name                       | always filled             |
| **Form**                                            | `{form_name}`                      | the name of the form the invite links to  | always filled             |
| **Form link**                                       | `{form_url}`                       | that form's link, written out in the text | always filled             |
| **Metadata (amount)**, **Metadata (currency)** | `{meta:amount}`, `{meta:currency}` | a value from the customer's metadata      | left blank                |

A tag with nothing to fill it, such as a company you didn't enter, is left blank. Write sentences that still read well without it. The first-name tag is the exception: `Hi {recipient_first_name},` reads "Hi there," for a customer without a name.

## Where tags work

- **In the subject and the body** of all three emails. The first email and the reminders take the same tags.
- **Not on the button.** **CTA Button Label** is sent exactly as you typed it, so a tag there isn't filled in.
- **Capital letters don't matter** in a tag's own name: `{Recipient_Name}` works too. A metadata name, the part after `meta:`, must match exactly.

## The first-name tag

`{recipient_first_name}` takes the first word of the customer's name: "Maya" for "Maya Chen". Two kinds of name are handled differently:

- **A name that starts with a title or an initial,** such as "Dr. Chen" or "J. Smith", is used whole, so the greeting reads "Hi Dr. Chen,".
- **No name, or an email address in place of a name,** gives "there".

## Metadata tags

Metadata tags take their value from an extra column in a file you import (`{meta:plan}` shows the customer's value from a column named `plan`, spelled exactly as in the file's header row) or from a webhook's **Extra fields** (`{meta:amount}` shows the field named `amount`). Invites you send by hand have no metadata, so these tags stay blank there.

The **Insert tag** menu lists two examples under **Metadata**. For any other name, type the tag yourself. To set the values up, see [What the CSV file needs](/help/collect/invite-customers-by-hand-or-from-a-file#what-the-csv-file-needs) and [Read more from each event](/help/collect/send-invites-automatically-with-a-webhook#read-more-from-each-event).

## Misspelled tags

A misspelled tag gets an **Unknown merge tag** warning and is removed from the email. The warning names the tag, on that email's tab and under **Quality checks** on the **Settings** tab.

Anything else between curly brackets is removed the same way, so don't use them for ordinary text.