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Bulk-send per-recipient links with Gmail's built-in mail merge (CSV)

Gmail's built-in mail merge can't resolve a merge tag placed inside a link. Instead, have FeatPaper create a separate link for every recipient up front, download them as a CSV, and use that CSV as your data source in Gmail's built-in mail merge.

Because the links are already split per recipient, opens are attributed more precisely, and you can disable one recipient's link later without touching the others.

Create the link CSV in FeatPaper

Section titled “Create the link CSV in FeatPaper”
  1. On your FeatPaper document, open the Share tab and expand the Per-recipient tracked links row.
  2. Click Create in bulk from an email list and paste the recipient emails. Separate them with line breaks or commas; invalid addresses and duplicates are filtered out for you.
  3. Create them, and the N links created summary appears. Click Download CSV there to download the file.

Use it in Gmail's built-in mail merge

Section titled “Use it in Gmail's built-in mail merge”
  1. Upload the CSV to Google Drive and open it as a Google Sheet. Keep the column names email and link as they are — Gmail reads letter-and-number column names most reliably.
  2. In Gmail, open compose and turn on Use mail merge to the right of the To line.
  3. Click Add from a spreadsheet, pick the sheet you just made, and select the column holding the email addresses.
  4. In the body, type @ where the link belongs, choose the link column from the list, and press Enter. Any column in the spreadsheet can be used as a merge tag.
  5. Preview to confirm each person gets a different address, then send.

Check that it worked

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  1. Open the document from the link in the email you received.
  2. On the FeatPaper document, go to the Visitors tab and check Dedicated link visitors for that recipient.
  3. Since every person has their own link, opens are separated precisely, address by address.

If it doesn't work

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Typing @ doesn't show link

Connect the sheet first. Once you use Add from a spreadsheet, that sheet's column names appear in the list. If a column name has characters other than letters or numbers, it may show by position instead (for example @A).

The address shows in full

That's the trade-off: the built-in merge can't put a link behind text. To link a short phrase instead, use YAMM or GMass with the same CSV.

I don't see the mail merge button

Check your plan. It's available on Workspace Individual, Business Standard and above, and Enterprise or Education tiers.

Official guides

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Another way

Section titled “Another way”

If your tool can resolve a merge tag inside a link, that route is simpler.