Resolve the Broken Conditional Merge Tags Alert

Sometimes, when you create an email campaign, you may see an alert about broken conditional merge tags. Most often, you'll see this because of small edits made to the Footer content block. If you're using custom conditional merge tags, you might also see this error.

Mailchimp’s built-in footer automatically inserts required content into your email, like your audience name, address, and unsubscribe link. But if certain parts of the content are removed, the footer can break.

In this article, you’ll learn how to resolve the broken conditional merge tags alert.

Resolve the alert

If you have a broken conditional merge tag set in your campaign, you’ll see an alert in the Content section of the campaign builder.

Click Edit to return to your design and find the broken conditional merge tags. We use the IF/END:IF construction to display several things in the footer, so if you've accidentally removed one of those tags, you may see the error.

Here’s how the footer should appear.

To fix the error, either add what’s needed, or insert a new footer content block and delete the old one. We’ll include the correct footer content automatically. After you’re done, be sure to preview and test your updated footer to make sure everything looks OK. When you’re ready to send, the error should be gone.

Other conditional tags

Conditional merge tags aren’t only for email footers. Add your own conditional merge tag blocks to an email to target pieces of your content to contacts who meet certain criteria.

Depending on what you want to achieve, merge tag blocks can become very complex, so it's important to understand how the code works and to test your email thoroughly each time.

Use Conditional Merge Tags

And if you have a Standard plan or higher, you may be able to achieve the same marketing goal with our Dynamic Content feature.

About Dynamic Content