Skip to main content

Personalize banners with visitor names

Greet visitors by name in banners either on your website or in your emails to create a more personal experience, and set a fallback when the name isn’t available.

Updated this week

Personalized greetings make visitors feel valued and recognised, which can improve click-through rates and conversions. You can use visitor data from their Person record, or from your messaging provider to automatically display their name inside a banner image, for example, “Hi Daisy!” or “Happy Birthday John!”

If the visitor’s name isn’t available, you can set a fallback message such as “Welcome back!” or “Happy Friday”.

While this guide focuses on banners, you can use the same method to personalize text in other SmartBlocks, such as recommendation headers - “Our Top Picks for Daisy” or countdown timers - “Daisy, our sale ends in 4 hours”.


Before you start

Things you need to know:

  • You need to have an accurate first name data in Person records.

  • Depending on site implementation, fallback behaviour may display frequently if names aren’t identified before the banner appears.


Example use cases

Fashion retailer

A returning customer named Emily visits your website. On the homepage, she sees a hero banner image reading “Welcome back, Emily!” instead of the generic “Welcome back!”. Fresh Relevance pulls the message from her Person record.

Birthday promotion

Your system knows today is Michael’s birthday from his Person record. On the cart page, a bright banner says “Happy Birthday, Michael! Enjoy a gift with your order today”. If the name isn’t available, it simply says “Happy Birthday! Enjoy a gift with your order today.”

Grocery store email

An abandoned-cart reminder email in your messaging provider dynamically greets the recipient by first name in the header image: “Hi Sarah — don’t forget your basket!” If Sarah’s name isn’t available from the messaging provider merge field, it falls back to “Hi customer — don’t forget your basket!”.


Step-by-step guide to personalizing website banners with visitor names

1. Create a Dynamic Banner SmartBlock

  1. Go to Content > SmartBlocks.

  2. Open the Banner tab.

  3. Select CREATE SMARTBLOCK.

  4. Set Placement to Website and select Home Page.

  5. For Starting tactic, choose Hero Banner.
    Depending on your needs, you can select a different type of banner.

  6. Select a starting Popover Hero Banner layout.

  7. Complete the setup wizard to configure placement and name.


2. Configure banner design

  1. In the SmartBlock editor, use the Design tab to set your banner background image and layout.

  2. Place a text layer where you want the personalized greeting to appear.

  3. Choose font, size, and colour to make the greeting stand out.


3. Add name personalization and fallback

  1. In the banner’s text element, insert this Jinja code to pull the visitor’s first name from their Person record:
    Hi {% if person.fn %}{{person.fn}}{% else %}Customer{% endif %}

  2. This outputs, for example, “Hi Daisy” or “Hi Customer” if the first name is not available.
    You can modify the fallback to something more suitable for your site:
    Welcome back {% if person.fn %}{{person.fn}}{% else %}friend{% endif %}

  3. Select SAVE AND USE, then select your website slots and desired folder.


4. Deploy to your website

  1. Go to Content > Site Editor.

  2. Select the Site Editor for your chosen experience.

  3. Drag and drop the personalized banner SmartBlock into the desired slot on your homepage (or other page).

    • Alternatively, select PUBLISH AND USE within the SmartBlock to create a Slot, copy the embed code, and paste it into your site’s HTML where the banner should display.

  4. Save and publish the changes.


5. Test

  1. Visit your website logged in as a user with a populated Person record first name field, and check that the banner displays the correct name.

  2. Visit again in an incognito browser to simulate a new visitor without a name, and check that the fallback message displays correctly.


Best practices

  • Use warm, friendly language in greetings to make personalization feel genuine rather than purely functional.

  • Keep fallback text neutral and in line with your brand tone.

  • Make sure text contrast works with your banner imagery for easy readability.

Did this answer your question?