Mail Merge Sutra – Detailed notes
Send personalized mail merges from Gmail in few simple steps:
Easily send personalized emails with Mail Merge Sutra to many recipients with just a few clicks! Mail Merge Sutra does not require any coding skills and all you need are Google Sheets & Gmail.
STEP 1: Create Mail Merge template:
- To create Mail merge template click Mail Merge> Mail Merge> Create Template.
- This will add basic standard columns required to perform mail merge
Note: Make sure the first row in your sheet contains column names such as ‘First Name’, ‘Last Name’, ‘Email address’ in same order. This is pre requisite for Mail Merge Sutra to run the functionality.
Also if possible we suggest not to edit or change the standard headings inserted as this may create conflicts and not generate desired output from the tool. However you may add additional columns after the standard headers, there is no restriction for this.
Info: Any blank column headers in 1st row will not be considered in the functionality even if it contains some relevant data below it. Hence we advise you to provide column headings in 1st row to columns which has some data so that you can use it as a part of Mail Merge functionality.
STEP 2: Import your google contacts:
- After you have created Mail Merge Template and standard headers are inserted, next step is to add contact details. You can easily import your google contacts into the Mail Merge sheet.
- For Import click Mail Merge> Mail Merge> Import Contacts. Alternatively you can also add or copy paste your contact details in the sheet manually.
Add personalized data based on your requirement in Google sheets
- Once you fill up the sheet with all the basic details, you can add additional columns or any other data in the google sheet if you need to use this data as a mail merge field or just for your reference purpose.
STEP 3: Insert attachments:
- With Mail Merge Sutra you can easily insert attachments based on your requirement. To do so, first upload or store all the relevant files in google drive and use our Insert attachment functionality to insert attachments.
- Mail Merge Sutra gives you two options, each with a different purpose:
Caution: Before you start, please note that your Mail merge sheet should contain “Attachment1” & “Attachment2” as column headers in order to insert attachments (both columns, without spaces and not case sensitive).
As a part of better control, we by default add these headers in 1st step when you create Mail Merge Template. Hence we advise not to modify/delete these columns. All attachment links will be inserted in these columns based on your selections which we discuss below.
i) From Drive:
- This option is suitable if you want to send attachments to few recipients or same attachment to all recipients
- Let us understand how to do so!
- Firstly select any cell in the row where you want to insert attachment .Then click Mail Merge> Mail Merge> Attachments>From Drive.
- Once you click “From Drive”, a new window will open. Click Select File
- Select the file which you want to insert (do not double click) and click Select
- Once this is done, please choose the attachment column where you want to insert attachment link (Attachment1 or Attachment2)
- Click Ok and you will now see attachment links from google drive updated in the mail merge sheet based on your above selections
Tip: If you want to send same attachment to all recipients, you can simply tick “Apply same attachment to all” checkbox. By doing so, it will add same attachment to all the rows in the attachment column which you select in step 3 above.
Note:
- Please do not delete the selected file from google drive unless all emails have been processed, else you may not get desired results
- Also note that if file size is 0 kb, it will not be processed.
- “Apply same attachment to all” checkbox will add attachment links in rows where Email Id is mentioned in “Email address” column. If it is blank, it will skip that row.
ii) From list:
- This option is suitable if you want to send personalised attachment to every recipient i.e different attachment to different recipients
- Firstly upload all your files in a folder in google drive.
- In your mail merge sheet, list the corresponding file names for each email recipient under any additional column. You can freely add any column heading under which file names can be mentioned. In our below reference we will use “File Names” as our column.
Caution: The filenames should be entered without extension (e.g. pdf ,doc). Also filenames are case sensitive and should match exactly with the source filenames. If filenames mentioned here have extra/missing spaces and other characters, then no files will be inserted.
Once this is done, you are now ready to select parameters based on requirements.
For inserting attachments – “From List” click Mail Merge> Mail Merge> Attachments>From List
1) Once you click “From List”, a new window will open. Select the folder in which all files are stored. Click Select Folder
Caution: If no folder is selected, individual files in main google folder will be considered while inserting attachments
2) Choose Folder (do not double click) and click select
3) Choose Identifier column (mandatory field).
- Please select the column where you have mentioned corresponding file names. MM Sutra will match these exact file names in the selected google drive folder for inserting attachments
Remember: Blank headers in 1st row will not be shown. This is a check within our tool to avoid conflicts arising due to blank headings.
In case of duplicate headings, Mail merge sutra will consider column header which appears first. Hence we advise not to keep duplicate headings if possible.
4) Select Extension (mandatory field)
- In this step please select the extension type of the file to be inserted. This is required to identify which file needs to be considered while inserting attachments since there will be instances where there are file names with same names but with different extensions.
Note: If there are same file names with extension doc/docx, then file which appears first will be considered. Same treatment applies in case of xls/xlsx and png/jpeg/jpg
5) Choose column to insert attachment (mandatory field)
- Select the attachment column where you want to insert attachment link (Attachment1 or Attachment2). Attachment links will be inserted based on your selections here
- Click OK and you will now see attachment links from google drive updated in the mail merge sheet based on your above selections
Note:
- Please do not delete the selected files from google drive unless all emails have been processed, else you may not get desired results
- Also note that if file size is 0 kb, it will not be processed.
STEP 4: Configure Mail Merge:
- To configure your Mail Merge settings click Mail Merge> Mail Merge> Configure Mail Merge
- Once you click as above, a new window will open for entering details.
- Let us understand what details needs to be filled here:
1) Basic Details:
- Mail Merge Name: You can define Mail merge name as per your choice. This is a mandatory field and you can view/measure your Mail merge performance/statistics after naming your mail merge.
Remember: You cannot duplicate a Mail Merge name i.e once you have used a Mail merge name, you cannot use that name again. This is a check from Mail Merge Sutra to avoid conflicts
- Sender’s Name: You are free to enter Sender’s name of your choice. This can be different from your default gmail name and intended recipient will receive emails displaying name as mentioned here.
- CC/BCC: Like any other normal email you send, Mail merge Sutra provides you with an option to insert CC/BCC to your emails. However please note all CC/BCC emails will be considered separate emails and will count towards your email quota.
- Click “Save & Continue” to proceed.
2) Email Template:
- With Mail Merge Sutra, you can use our build in email body template to draft personalised emails and increase your engagement with your intended recipients. Follow our below tutorial to learn how to easily send personalised emails to your recipients:
i) Define personalised subject field:
- With MM Sutra, you can easily add Mail Merge fields in your subject and make it look more personalised. To do so, select the relevant column from MM Fields dropdown where you want to add personalised data in subject field.
When you initiate “Send Emails” option from Mail Merge Sutra, data from selected {{Mail Merge field}} column will replace these Mail Merge Fields
By doing so, you can also easily differentiate replies in your gmail account since all emails will have a different subject line
ii) Draft your email:
- You can start drafting your email message in our in built Email template. Include Mail merge fields like {{firstname}} to personalize your email. We have added {{firstname}} in our below tutorial.
- These Mail merge fields will be replaced by actual data present in the column selected [{{firstname}} in our example] against corresponding recipient.
Note: Mail merge fields are case and space sensitive (including double curly {{}} brackets). Hence we advise to use dropdowns and not to edit it manually since it will impact the end result.
Remember: Blank headers in 1st row will not be shown. This is a check within our tool to avoid conflicts arising due to blank headings.
In case of duplicate headings, Mail merge sutra will consider column header which appears first. Hence we advise not to keep duplicate headings if possible
3) Process Mail Merge:
1) Send Test Email:
- With this feature, you will be able to send a test email to yourself. This way you can easily check for any mistakes that may have occurred while drafting your email before it is actually sent to all recipients.
2) Send Emails:
- You are now ready to send your emails and make your recipients feel unique with our Mail merge fields to your email content. Click the “Send Emails” button and Mail Merge Sutra will send your emails with the corresponding attachment to your recipients
- Below is the resulting email that the recipient will receive. Please note that mail merge fields have been replaced with actual data
Note: Mail Merge Sutra considers two points before processing emails:
“Email address” column should contain email address. If “Email address” column is blank, it will skip that row.
“MM-Status” column should be blank. If there is some text/value present, it will skip that row.
Info: Mail Merge Sutra considers hidden rows as well while processing emails (if it has email address mentioned in relevant column)
Once mail merge is processed, “MM-Status” column in your google sheet will automatically get updated with the actual status along-with date and time (please refer below screenshot). This way you can easily get status of your processed emails.
Remember: Time zone in “MM-Status” will be based on your Spreadsheet’s Time zone. To view/modify, go to File > Spreadsheet settings & choose the relevant Time zone. Once selected, click “Save settings”.
Important Note: To keep systems healthy and safe, Google has set a runtime limit of 6 min/execution for free accounts and 30 min/execution for workspace accounts i.e any execution through script cannot exceed these limits. Learn more
Keeping these limits in view, MM Sutra has set runtime of 5 min/execution for free gmail accounts and 25 min/execution for workspace account. So in cases where you have too many emails to process, MM Sutra will run for 5 min/25 min, as the case may be. It will then automatically resume after 30 min of time gap to process pending emails. MM Sutra will follow the same procedure until all the pending emails in your entire Mail merge have been processed.