Set User Variables from Hosted Pages

Autopopulate User Variables

Sailthru-hosted pages make it easy to pull in variables that you’ve set on your subscribers.
Let’s say for example you want to automatically show a subscriber’s interests on a user management page.

  1. Use data-autofill="true"in your HTML form. For example:
<form method="post" data-autofill="true">
  1. Call a variable that you’ve set on a user. This is done in the <input> field of the HTML form. For example, to call the variable “foo” you can use either <input name="foo" /> or <input name="vars[foo]" />.
  1. The input will render in the HTML with the value of the “foo” variable. For example, if these variables are already set on a subsciber’s profile:
<label>Bday:<input name="birth_month"><br />
<label>Color:<input name="color"><br />
<label>Gender:<input name="gender"><br />

This will render as:

when the subscriber arrives at the hosted page.

 

Update User Variables (hidden)

Sometimes you want a user to click a button and update their variables on their profile, without seeing the variables. You’d  include something like the below in a hosted page.

In the example, below the variables “fashion” and “shoes” will both be added to the user’s profile with a value of 1 (as an integer, not a string, because of data-type="int").

<form method="post">
<p>Click the button below.</p>
<input type="hidden" name="vars[fashion]" value="1" data-type="int">
<input type="hidden" name="vars[shoes]" value="1" data-type="int">
<div style="margin-top: 25px;">
<input type="submit" value="Update" style="width: 100px;"></input>
</form>

You may use nested variables on an input. For example:

<input type="hidden" name="vars[moms_kids][age]" data-type="string"/>

Update User Variables (shown)

Text Field

To collect other info about a user, make the name of the field a key in the vars array. The following example would save the subscriber’s first name on their user profile under the variable first_name:

<input type="text" name="vars[first_name]"/>

You will need to pass variables as part of a form with a submit button. For example:

<form method="post">
<label>Favorite Color:<input type="text" name="vars[Favorite_Color]" /></label>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Update" />
</form>

This would update the subscriber’s profile with a variable called Favorite_Color. The value that the subscriber enters into the text box will be posted to their profile as the value. (The value will be a string unless the data type is specified.)

You may also use nested variables on an input. For example:

<input type="text" name="vars[moms_kids][age]" data-type="string"/>

Dropdown Menu

You might prefer to make variables consistent by providing subscribers with a dropdown menu instead of a text field. For example:

<form method="post">
<select name="vars[Sport]">
<option value="Hockey">Hockey</option>
<option value="Soccer">Soccer</option>
<option value="Swimming">Swimming</option>
</select>
<input type="submit" value="SUBMIT" name="action" style="width: 200px;border: none"></input>
</form> 

Set a Date Variable

To set a date var for your users when they sign up for a list, like a birth date, include an HTML date input element in your form:

<form method="post">
<input type="text" name="email" />
<input type="date" name="vars[birth_date]" data-type="date"/>
<input type="submit" value="Subscribe" />
</form>
  • Var name: _date is required at the end of the var name in order for values to be interpreted as dates. (For example, birth_date or first_login_date.)
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