Dynamic Content with Special Attributes

How to use Special Attributes to swap content — addresses, links, images, offers — per recipient inside a single email or SMS, so one campaign or flow can serve every location.

Most merge tags pull a value that already exists on the contact record — {first_name}, {last_visit_date}, {workroom_name}. A Special Attribute is a merge tag you define, where you decide the value based on filters.

You write the rule once:

If the contact's location is Northside, this tag means 1420 Oak St, Suite 3 — otherwise it means 88 Harbor Ave.

Then you drop {location_address} into an email or SMS. Every recipient gets the right address, from one message.

This is what lets you run one campaign, one template, and one flow across every location instead of building and maintaining a near-identical copy per club.

Special Attributes aren't limited to locations. Anything you can express as a filter can drive the swap: membership tier, coach, lead source, plan type, sign-up date range.

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How it works

A Special Attribute has three parts:

Part	What it does
Label	The tag name. You insert it into messages as {Label}.
Default Value	What the tag resolves to when no filter matches. Required — it's your safety net.
Filters	An ordered list. Each filter pairs a value with criteria. If a recipient matches the criteria, they get that value.

At send time, for each recipient:

1. Gleantap walks the filters in order — Filter #1, then #2, then #3.

2. The first filter whose criteria the contact matches wins. Its value is substituted and the rest are skipped.

3. If no filter matches, the Default Value is used.

Two consequences worth internalizing:

• Order matters. Put your most specific filters first. If Filter #1 is broad enough to catch everyone, Filters #2 and #3 will never fire.

• Nobody gets a blank. Because the Default Value is required, every recipient resolves to something. Make the default the value that's safest to send to a contact whose location or tier you don't know — usually your main location or a generic link.

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Creating a Special Attribute

Step 1 — Click the gear icon at the top-right of the app, then Configure Workroom.

Step 2 — In the Workroom Settings menu on the left, click Special Attribute. You'll see a table of existing attributes with their Label and Value.

Step 3 — Click New Attribute.

Step 4 — Enter a Label. This is the tag name you'll type into messages.

Labels can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, periods, and hyphens — no spaces. location_address works; Location Address is rejected. Labels must also be unique within the workroom.

Step 5 — Enter a Default Value. This is what recipients get when none of your filters match.

Step 6 — Click Add Filter. A Filter #1 card appears.

Step 7 — In the card, enter the Value this filter should produce, then click Update Condition.

Step 8 — In the Add Condition panel, click Add Filter to add criteria rows, build your condition (for example, Location is Northside), and click Save.

Step 9 — Repeat Steps 6-8 for each additional variant.

Step 10 — Click Create.

The attribute is immediately available in every message editor in that workroom.

Note on criteria: the condition builder is the same one used for segments — the same attributes, events, pipeline stages, form responses, purchases, and loyalty criteria are available. See Filter Options for operator semantics. All criteria you add to a single filter must be true for that filter to match. To express an either/or, create two filters that produce the same value.

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Using it in messages

Once created, the attribute shows up in the Special Attributes group of every merge-tag picker.

Where	How to insert
SMS campaign	Click Personalize → Special Attributes → pick your attribute
Email campaign / template	Open the merge-tag dropdown in the content block → Special Attributes
Flow email and SMS steps	Same merge-tag picker inside the step editor
Inbox	Click the {} icon in the message composer
Landing pages	Merge-tag menu in the page builder

In every case the tag is inserted as {Label} and resolves per recipient when the message actually sends.

Swapping links

If your Special Attribute's Default Value is a URL, it also appears in the email builder's link dropdown under Managed links. Select it when linking a button or text, and each recipient's button points at their own destination — their location's booking page, their studio's schedule, their gym's Google review link.

In SMS, a URL that comes from a Special Attribute is shortened and click-tracked like any other link in the message.

Swapping images

Put {Label} in an image's URL field instead of a fixed image address. Set the attribute's default and filter values to the full image URLs you want, and the image itself changes per recipient — a location photo, a coach headshot, a tier-specific offer graphic.

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Worked example — one email for five locations

You run five studios in one workroom. Contacts carry a Location attribute (see Managing Multiple Locations). You want a single monthly newsletter.

Create three Special Attributes:

location_address

	Value	Criteria
Filter #1	1420 Oak St, Suite 3	Location is Northside
Filter #2	88 Harbor Ave	Location is Harbor
Filter #3	2200 Mill Rd	Location is Millbrook
Default	Find your studio at ourstudios.com/locations	—

location_booking_link

	Value	Criteria
Filter #1	https://book.ourstudios.com/northside	Location is Northside
Filter #2	https://book.ourstudios.com/harbor	Location is Harbor
Filter #3	https://book.ourstudios.com/millbrook	Location is Millbrook
Default	https://book.ourstudios.com	—

location_photo

	Value	Criteria
Filter #1	https://cdn.ourstudios.com/img/northside.jpg	Location is Northside
Filter #2	https://cdn.ourstudios.com/img/harbor.jpg	Location is Harbor
Default	https://cdn.ourstudios.com/img/brand-hero.jpg	—

Then build one email:

• Hero image URL → {location_photo}

• Footer address line → {location_address}

• "Book a class" button → the Managed link location_booking_link

One campaign. One send. Five versions delivered.

When you open a sixth studio, you add one filter to each attribute. You don't touch the email, the template, or any flow that uses it.

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Worked example — beyond locations

The same mechanic works on anything filterable.

renewal_offer — a different incentive by membership tier:

	Value	Criteria
Filter #1	2 free PT sessions	Membership type is Elite
Filter #2	1 free guest pass	Membership type is Standard
Default	10% off your renewal	—

assigned_coach_name — pulled from a pipeline or attribute condition, so a nurture flow signs off with the right person.

front_desk_phone — so "reply or call us at {front_desk_phone}" reaches the right desk.

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Testing before you send

Preview as a real contact. In the campaign preview, search for and select a specific member. The preview resolves that contact's filters and shows exactly what they'd receive. Try one contact per variant plus one contact that matches nothing, so you see your Default Value render too.

A preview or test send with no contact selected shows the Default Value for every Special Attribute. That's expected — with no recipient, there's nothing to filter on. If you test only this way, you'll never see your filters work. Always preview as a specific contact.

See Sending a Test.

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Editing and deleting

Open Configure Workroom → Special Attribute and use the pencil icon to edit or the trash icon to delete.

Edits take effect on the next send. Changing a value updates every campaign, template, flow, and page that references the tag — that's the point. Messages already sent aren't retroactively changed.

Deleting an attribute that's still in use is destructive. The tag stops resolving, and {Label} is delivered as literal text in the message body. Before deleting, search your templates, campaigns, and flow steps for the tag. The same applies to typos — a misspelled tag isn't recognized, so it goes out as-is.

Filters can't be reordered once saved. To change the order, delete the filter and re-add it in the position you want. Because the first match wins, this occasionally matters — plan the order when you build it.

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Common scenarios

"Everyone got the same address, not their location's"

Three things to check, in order:

1. Did you preview with a contact selected? A preview with no contact always shows defaults. This is the most common cause.

2. Do your contacts actually have the attribute the filter tests? If Location is blank on a contact, no location filter matches and they fall through to the default. Build a segment on that criterion and check the count — if it returns 0 or far fewer than expected, the data isn't there. See Filter Options.

3. Is Filter #1 too broad? First match wins. A filter that catches everyone starves the ones below it.

"The email shows {location_address} as literal text"

The tag doesn't match any Special Attribute in that workroom. Either the label is misspelled in the message, the attribute was deleted, or you're sending from a different workroom than the one where you created it. Labels are case-sensitive and space-free.

"I created it but it's not in the merge-tag list"

Special Attributes are workroom-scoped. If you run one workroom per location (Pattern A in Managing Multiple Locations), the attribute exists only in the workroom where you created it — you'd need to recreate it in each. Note that Pattern A rarely needs Special Attributes for location content in the first place; each workroom's messages are already location-specific. Special Attributes pay off most in Pattern B, where all locations share one workroom.

"Can a Special Attribute contain another merge tag?"

No. A value like Call {first_name} at 555-0100 is delivered literally — nested tags inside a Special Attribute value aren't resolved. Keep the tags side by side in the message instead: Hi {first_name}, call us at {front_desk_phone}.

"My SMS credit usage went up after adding a Special Attribute"

The resolved value counts toward the message length, and it differs per recipient. If one location's address is 20 characters longer than another's, those recipients may cross the 160-character line into a second segment. Check your longest filter value against your message length. See Billing.

"Can I use one for a subject line?"

Yes — the subject line supports the same merge tags as the body.

"I don't see the Special Attribute tab"

You need Configuration → Workroom permission. Admin and Workroom Admin have it by default; custom roles may not. See Roles & Permissions Reference.

"How many filters can one attribute have?"

There's no set limit. In practice, if you're past a dozen you're probably encoding something that belongs on the contact record as an attribute instead — then a single {attribute} tag does the job with no filters at all.

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Special Attributes vs. contact attributes

Use a contact attribute (Configure Workroom → Attribute) when the value genuinely belongs to the person and is already in your data — their coach, their plan name, their join date. Insert it directly as a merge tag.

Use a Special Attribute when the value belongs to you, not the contact — an address, a booking URL, an image, an offer — and which one they get depends on a condition. The contact record has no field for "the booking link for the studio this member belongs to"; a Special Attribute is where that mapping lives.

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Related pages

• Managing Multiple Locations — the two multi-location patterns and how location gets set on a contact

• Filter Options — operator semantics for the criteria you build into filters

• Creating Templates — reusable message content that can carry Special Attributes

• Sending a Test — previewing as a specific contact

• SMS Campaign — the Personalize picker in SMS

• Email Campaign — merge tags and Managed links in the email builder

• Billing — plan limits and SMS overage, which message length feeds into