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Personalization

Overview

Survey Personalization is a feature that lets you include dynamic placeholders in your survey questions or titles. These placeholders pull from a customer’s data (e.g. first name, city) and insert it directly into the text of your survey. This personalized touch can significantly boost engagement and make respondents feel recognized - whether dropping their name in an intro to a survey, or referencing a city for a particular question.

Table of Contents

  1. How Survey Personalization Works

  2. Adding Placeholders to Your Survey

  3. Using Default Values Effectively

  4. Using Placeholders with Kno Links

  5. Personalizing NPS Touchpoint Emails

  6. Good to Know: Edge Cases

  7. FAQ & Troubleshooting

1. How Survey Personalization Works

Placeholders Explained

  • You can insert placeholders in your survey question titles by using double curly braces {{ }}.

  • Each placeholder references a specific field from the customer’s record, for example:

    • {{firstName}}

    • {{city}}

Default Values

  • If a particular field isn’t available (e.g., the customer’s first name is missing), you can provide a default value.

  • The formatting is {{fieldName | defaultValue}}. For instance, {{firstName | there}} will display “there” if the first name field is empty.

Allowed Fields

To ensure data security and proper formatting, only the following fields are allowed by default. Field names are case sensitive and must match exactly:

  • firstName

  • lastName

  • email

  • phone

  • city

  • province (state/province — use this for US states, e.g. ?province=Texas)

  • country

Note: If you attempt to use a field not in this list, the placeholder will display the default value (if provided) or remain blank.

2. Adding Placeholders to Your Survey

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. Open the Kno Survey Builder

    • Go to your Surveys page to edit an existing survey, or create a new one

  2. Insert the Placeholder

    • Wherever you want personalization, type in {{fieldName | defaultValue}}.

    • For example, to greet respondents by their first name, enter Hello, {{firstName | there}}!

  3. Save, then verify on the live link (not in the builder)

    • Save your changes.

    • The builder preview will show the raw placeholder text (e.g. {{firstName | there}}); this is expected. Personalization only happens when the survey is delivered, so it will never render inside the builder.

    • To verify it, open your live hosted survey link with test parameters appended (see Section 4) and confirm the correct value appears for a known customer and the default appears when the value is missing.

Practical Examples

  • Greetings

    • “Hello, {{firstName | there}}!” – If firstName is missing, it shows “Hello, there!”

  • Location Checks

    • “Were you satisfied with your shopping experience in {{city | your city}}?” – If city is missing, it displays “your city.”

  • Email References

    • “We’ll send confirmation to your email {{email | on file}}.”

3. Using Default Values Effectively

Default values ensure your survey text never looks incomplete or awkward if customer data is missing. Keep defaults simple, friendly, and relevant to your branding. We recommend always including a default: if a parameter is missing or empty and no default was set, the placeholder renders blank. Example: {{firstName | there}}.

  • Instead of {{firstName | }} (no default), use {{firstName | there}} or {{firstName | friend}}.

  • Make sure the default language still flows naturally in the sentence.

4. Using Placeholders with Kno Links

When using Kno survey links, you can include placeholders as URL parameters to personalize the survey experience. These parameters are added to the end of the survey link URL.

How to add parameters

1. Start with your base survey link, for example:

https://app.knocommerce.com/surveys/6f62dd02-f08d-4187-b432-d2283f7c346d

2. Add a question mark (?) at the end of the URL to begin the query string:

https://app.knocommerce.com/surveys/6f62dd02-f08d-4187-b432-d2283f7c346d?

3. Add your first placeholder:

https://app.knocommerce.com/surveys/6f62dd02-f08d-4187-b432-d2283f7c346d?firstName=Kno%20Customer

4. Add additional placeholders using (&) at the start of each following string:

https://app.knocommerce.com/surveys/6f62dd02-f08d-4187-b432-d2283f7c346d?firstName=Kno%20Customer&city=Dallas

Best practices

  • URL-encode your values: spaces become %20, @ becomes %40, and a literal + must be %2B (a bare + in a URL is read as a space). Accented and non-English characters work when encoded, e.g. J%C3%BCrgen renders as Jürgen.

  • Security: Avoid putting sensitive personal information in URLs. URLs can be logged by email clients, browsers, and analytics tools.

  • Testing: Always test your personalized links to ensure they work correctly and display the expected personalized content in your survey.

5. Personalizing NPS Touchpoint Emails

The HTML that the email builder generates includes only two variables on each score link: email and order_id. These are used to attribute the response to the right customer and order. They do not personalize your question text.

If your survey uses personalization placeholders such as {{firstName}}, add the matching parameters to each score link yourself inside your email platform.

In Klaviyo, for example, append &firstName={{ first_name|urlencode }} to the href of every score link (0 through 10).

Always send yourself a test email and click a score to confirm the personalization renders before going live.

6. Good to Know: Edge Cases

  • Field names are case sensitive and must match exactly: firstName, lastName, email, phone, city, province, country. Variations like firstname, FirstName, or first_name will not match, and the default value will show instead.

  • Placeholders work in question title text only. They are not applied to helper text, the survey header or footer, the thank-you page, or content blocks.

  • If a parameter is missing from the URL or has an empty value, the default renders. If no default was set, the placeholder renders as blank — so we recommend always including a default: {{firstName | there}}.

  • A misspelled or unsupported field name inside {{ }} renders the default (or blank), never the raw placeholder text.

  • URL-encode your values: spaces become %20, @ becomes %40, and a literal + must be %2B (a bare + in a URL is read as a space). Accented and non-English characters work when encoded, e.g. J%C3%BCrgen renders as Jürgen.

  • Don’t repeat the same parameter twice in one URL (e.g. firstName= appearing twice). If a parameter is malformed this way, personalization is skipped for that page view and defaults render.

  • Values always render as plain text. HTML or formatting tags inside a parameter value display as literal text, not formatting.

  • The survey builder preview shows the raw placeholder text (e.g. {{firstName | there}}). That is expected: personalization happens when the survey is delivered. Verify by opening your live survey link with test parameters attached.

  • Extra URL parameters (like utm_source) are ignored by personalization. They are safe to keep on your links.

  • Avoid putting sensitive personal information in URLs. URLs can be logged by email clients, browsers, and analytics tools.

7. FAQ & Troubleshooting

Q: What if placeholders don’t render at all?

A: Check your spelling and confirm you used the correct field name. Also verify that the field name is in the allowed list.

Q: Can I add new fields beyond the allowed list?

A: Please reach out to KnoCommerce support if a new field is required. While not currently supported, we’d be keen to add it to our roadmap!

Q: Why do I see {{firstName}} literally in my live survey?
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A: Common causes: the placeholder isn’t in a question title (it’s in helper text, header/footer, thank-you page, or a content block); the field name casing is wrong (e.g. first_name instead of firstName); or the URL parameter is missing/malformed. Add a default value so a blank never shows.

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