Mail merge is an antiquated term. Let’s just put that out there to start. The term dates back to when people would use software to print out “personalized” form letter templates and mailing labels.

But it’s the best term we’ve got — even as mail merging has gone fully digital.

Because, yes, you can mail merge with all your favorite email, word processing, and spreadsheet software.

You just have to know how.

In this article, I’m going to give a brief overview of how to create mail merges with all of the most popular apps (namely, Microsoft Office and Google Workspace/Gmail).

I’m also going to (hopefully) answer any lingering questions you might have about running your own mail merges.

(Also: Note that our blog has several related articles available where we’ve done deep dives into the merge process with different apps. I’ve linked to those throughout this guide.)

Mail Merge: Table of Contents

• What Is Mail Merge?
• How to Mail Merge in Gmail
• How to Mail Merge in Google Docs
• How to Mail Merge in Microsoft Word
• How to Mail Merge in Outlook
• Mail Merge FAQ: Answers to Your Questions
• Mail Merge: Which Should You Choose?

What Is Mail Merge?

A mail merge lets you create personalized messages, documents, labels, and more that are automatically customized on a recipient-by-recipient basis. This spares you the trouble of manually personalizing each document yourself.

What types of document can you create using mail merge?

You can use mail merges to create personalized messages automatically for:

• Cold emails.
• Marketing emails.
• Newsletters.
• Corresponding with job seekers.
• Custom promotions.
• Sending invitations.
• Form letters, labels, envelopes, and other printed items.

Note: A form letter is a template file used to create mass letters. Instead of typing a letter for each recipient, you can use a form letter to make quick, unique, personalized letters for each person.

Essentially, if there’s a document you need to personalize at scale, mail merges can take care of that for you.

Why would you use mail merge?

Mail merge is far better than CCing (or BCCing) a bunch of people on an email.

With mail merge, you can send personalized messages that are proven to get better engagement than generic mass emails. (After all, personalization and relevancy are essential for email success.)

Using mail merge also saves a ton of time over manually customizing anything, from emails to documents; once you use it, you’ll wonder why you ever tried to do the process by hand.

How to do a mail merge

There are two documents that are essential to running a merge: A template file and a data source.

Your mail merge template is an email or document that uses specific merge tags or merge fields as placeholders for where your data will go.

Your software will then insert the relevant info into each mail merge field for each email message, mailing labels, or any other merge document.

And the software gets that info from your data file, often a spreadsheet (but sometimes a database or customer relationship management platform).

For instance, if you have a column in your Google Sheet data file called FName, anywhere your merge software sees the {FName} field in your email message it will insert the recipient’s first name. Then it will create another email for the next recipient (with their first name inserted) and on and on.

How to Mail Merge in Gmail

While I don’t have hard data to back this up, I’d feel confident saying the most common mail merge use case today is someone sending personalized emails through Gmail/Google Workspace.

Fortunately, Gmail also has the most robust mail merge options out there.

There are a few different methods you can use for a Gmail mail merge, which we cover at extended length in that linked article.

In brief, the three options are:

1. Sending mail merges from inside Gmail using a Chrome extension like GMass.
2. Sending mail merges through Gmail from inside a Google Sheet, using a Google Workspace Marketplace add-on.
3. Using Gmail’s comically limited built-in mail merge feature. (It’s free for a reason.)

I’m going to give you the walkthrough of using GMass to send your Gmail mail merge.

One, you’re reading this on GMass, so we really know every possible nuance of what it takes to send a high-quality mail merge. But two, the other options for mail merges in Gmail are much more flawed.

We see it on (literally) a daily basis: Someone tries one of the other methods, gives up, comes to GMass, and leaves a 5-star review two days later.

A quick step-by-step overview of doing a Gmail mail merge

Create your data file in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. (GMass has a native Google Sheets mail merge integration.)

The first row of your sheet will become the names of your merge fields; each column header corresponds to a different field.

Once your sheet is ready, head over to Gmail.

Make sure you have the GMass Chrome extension installed. (If you don’t, it takes about 30 seconds. Here’s our quickstart guide if you need.)

Now open a Gmail compose window, just like you would if you were typing a regular email.

Click the GMass icon in the To field, then connect your Google Sheet of contacts.

You can now compose your email. Type a left curly brace { to bring up your list of merge fields; there’s no long, complicated “insert field” process here.

You can use the GMass settings box for all sorts of other features, including tracking, auto follow-ups, setting the sending speed, scheduling, A/B testing, quick polls, and dozens of others.

When you’re ready to send a personalized email to everyone in your Google Sheet, click the red GMass button to send.

Pros and cons of a Gmail mail merge

I’m well aware of how self-serving it’s going to sound but, again, GMass really is the best way to send your mail merge emails. (300,000+ people who’ve left nearly 8,000 reviews averaging 4.8/5 over our eight years agree.)

Some of the pros are:

• A native integration between Google Sheets and Gmail.
• Send your campaigns from right inside Gmail.
• Easy mail merge personalization.
• Advanced mail merge personalization, including images, attachments, and much more.
• Fallback values and conditional formatting.
• Quick A/B testing and auto follow-ups, all from the settings box.
• GMass can help you break Gmail’s sending limits (including inbox rotation options).
• Automated recurring campaigns when you add new contacts to your linked Google Sheet.
• Advanced analytics, including tracking on opens, clicks, replies, and more.
• 99% of users report the best deliverability they’ve ever had; hit the inbox and not the spam folder.

So what are the cons? Well, GMass isn’t free. If you’re, say, sending 10 emails one time where you want to mail merge in people’s first names, a paid GMass subscription might be overkill. (Then again, when you try to do it using Google’s free option…..)

But GMass is reasonably priced — in fact, we’re the least expensive cold email software out there — so it’s at least worth trying to see everything it can do to charge up your Gmail mail merges.

How to Mail Merge in Google Docs

In general, Google products work better for mail merges than Microsoft products.

Except if you want to create a template document in Google Docs to create mailing labels or other printed docs.

In that case, the Word document merge is far superior to the Google Docs merge.

The main reason: Unlike Word, Google Docs does not have a native mail merge function. So you’ll need to bring in a third-party Google Workspace add-on.

A quick step-by-step overview of doing a Google Docs mail merge

I always recommend starting with a data file rather than a mail merge template; this is no exception.

Create a new Google Sheet with the data you want to merge. The first row of the spreadsheet should be the headers you’ll use in your merge; each header becomes a field.

Now, in Google Docs, create your merge document. Depending on your add-on of choice, the merge field tags will use different syntax. In this screenshot, I’m using Autocrat, and it uses double carats.

Once your document is done, head back to Sheets. You can install Autocrat (or your other mail merge plugin of choice) from the Add-ons menu.

Now connect your Docs file with your Sheet in the document (much like you did with an Excel workbook, make sure you’re on the right sheet in your workbook). Match up each field in your Doc with the correct column in the spreadsheet.

Then hit the “start mail merge” button in your add-on. That will produce each merged document in your Google Drive.

Check out our complete guide to the mail merge Google Docs process for even more screenshots and helpful details.

Pros and cons of Google Docs mail merges

Again, there aren’t many pros of doing a Google Docs mail merge — unless you operate completely out of the Google Workspace suite. In that case, yes, grab an add-on and run your merges.

I didn’t even get into using Google Docs to create mail merge emails. That’s because it won’t get involved in the process.

We can go directly from a Google Sheet to Gmail without needing the extra step in the middle of using Docs. (This differs from the Microsoft Office process, where an Outlook merge requires using both an Excel spreadsheet and a Word document.)

How to Mail Merge in Microsoft Word

A quick step-by-step overview of doing a Word mail merge

To run a mail merge in MS Word, first up: You’ll need an Excel file to use as your data file.

Create a new Excel spreadsheet and use the first row as your line of headers. Each column header will correspond to a mail merge field.

Now head over to Microsoft Word and create a new Word document.

There’s a whole tab in Word around mail merging: the Mailings tab.

Click to open the Mailings heading, then you can choose what type of merge you want to create: letters, email messages, envelopes, labels, or a directory.

Since this is your first time, you may just want to use Word’s built-in mail merge wizard to walk you through the process.

Either way, you’ll need to use the Select Recipients option to find your list (in this case, your Excel file), then select the correct spreadsheet in the Excel Workbook.

Now you can insert field names from the sheet into your template document either manually (with the format «FieldName») or via the mail merge wizard or Mailings tab. You can also include things like a greeting line, an address block (good for mailing labels), or any other mail merge field.

Once you’re done you can preview your merged document (whether it’s a form letter, mailing labels, or personalized email) in the Mailings tab bar. Then choose Finish & Merge to generate your individual, custom documents.

We have a complete step-by-step walkthrough of how to mail merge Word from Excel available if you need.

Pros and cons of Microsoft Word mail merges

MS Word is a solid choice if you’re looking to create physical mail merge documents, like address labels or a form letter.

There are also add-ons, like the Mail Merge Toolkit for Word, which allow you do to even more with personalization. (It also allows you to send different attachments to each recipient, which isn’t possible normally.)

It’s less ideal if you’re trying to send bulk emails.

Basically, when you use an Excel Spreadsheet → Word document → email software (Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, the rest) chain, you’re adding unnecessary steps — steps where things can go wrong.

You’ll need to manually set up the connection between Word and either Outlook or Gmail, which is less intuitive than native options.

How to Mail Merge in Outlook

Let’s make one important distinction clear off the bat: It’s hard to run a mail merge in Microsoft Outlook. (Or Outlook 365.)

You can’t just connect an Excel file data source to Outlook; it doesn’t have a native mail merge feature. You’ll need to add an intermediary step and get Word involved.

But if you’re a Microsoft Outlook user and you want to send mail merge emails, here’s your step by step mail guide.

A quick step-by-step overview of doing an Outlook mail merge

Much like I described in the Word instructions, go to Microsoft Excel and create an Excel spreadsheet. (Or import a CSV, if that’s where you’ve got the email addresses for your mass email.)

The first row should, again, be your column header for each merge field.

Now head over to Microsoft Word and create the email message in your main document. Use the Insert field option in the Mailings tab to insert merge field names in the proper spots. (Again, if needed, you can use Word’s mail merge wizard here.)

Once you’re ready to start sending your personalized mass emails, go to the Select Recipients menu.

You should select your Excel spreadsheet here; however, you do have the chance to select a recipient list from your Outlook contacts. (Unfortunately, the Outlook contacts route is less ideal than the Excel spreadsheet, since you will unexpectedly run into missing fields a lot.)

Once you’re connected, you can preview the results in your Word document. If all looks good, you can go ahead and choose to start mail merge.

In the Finish & Merge menu, choose Send Email Messages… from the dropdown. Choose your data file header for email addresses, then set the subject line and other options.

It’s finally time to head over to Outlook.

Click the Outbox folder and you’ll see your personalized mass emails there.

Take a look at them, then click the Send/Receive All Folders button to send your merged emails.

Here’s our full guide to step by step mail merges in Outlook if you want more granular detail or a more robust walkthrough.

Pros and cons of Microsoft Outlook mail merges

As I said at the beginning of this section… unfortunately, there aren’t many pros of sending personalized mass emails through Outlook.

The process requires three different Microsoft Office apps, which is cumbersome. You can’t even pull this off in the Outlook web app; you’ll need either a paid Office 365 subscription or the full version of Outlook on your desktop.

Also, there are a lot of features missing. The Mail Merge Toolkit add-on can help with some, but not all, of your personalization needs. And there’s no way to do things like tracking your merges, sending automated follow-ups, throttling your sending speed, or anything else that experienced emails take for granted.

So what are the pros? If you live inside the Office suite and want to keep everything there, this is the mail merge email process for you.

However, if you’re just doing this to send through Outlook, there are ways to do that with a Gmail alias that will allow you to use much more robust software in a much less Byzantine process.

Mail Merge FAQ: Answers to Your Questions

What are the advantages and disadvantages of email mail merge?

Mail merge for your email marketing or cold emailing has several strong advantages, such as:

• Personalization: Mail merge personalization makes your form letter sound like individual correspondence, so it’s more likely to be read.
• Saves time: Once you set up your mail merge template, it takes relatively little time to create a large number of personalized messages because it’s tied to your Excel data — the single spreadsheet where all personalized information is kept.
• Controls the appearance of your message: A mail merge template lets you manage how the type and images look, so your email is attractive even where the personalized content is different.
• Allows for testing: You can quickly adapt a template to create two versions of the message for A/B testing. This way, you can effortlessly know what version of your message works best.

On the other hand, a mail merge also has some disadvantages for email campaigns:

• May require additional software: To go beyond the features of Microsoft Word, you may need email merge software, like GMass, with advanced features to automate data collection or add conditional formatting.
• Requires accuracy: If your Microsoft Excel database is incomplete, inaccurate, out of date, or saved under a new name, then mail merge may not work.
• Risk of error: If you make a mistake in your mail merge template or personalization data, that error will get reproduced on all the emails that use those elements. As a result, it’s essential to allow time to test your email before sending it to your entire list.

Can you perform an email merge with an attachment?

When you’re using Word, you don’t have the option to include an attachment with a standard mail merge message, but you can if you use the Mail Merge Toolkit add-in for Microsoft Office.

However, if you’re after a better solution, use a purpose-built mail merge platform like GMass that not only lets you include an attachment but even allows you to choose different attachments for each recipient.

Can you send a mail merge from a shared mailbox?

If you want to send a mail merge from a shared mailbox (such as from an email address named for a department, company, or event instead of a person), you can arrange it in Outlook.

Start by finding the “Other User’s Folder” and open it to navigate to the shared mailbox. Associate that mailbox with the spreadsheet that contains your recipients’ data and prepare the mail merge as usual.

How do you do a mail merge in Word for labels?

One of the coolest features of MS Word’s mail merge functionality is the ability to drive printed labels with placement designed in Word and data-driven by your personalization data sheet.

If you know how to do a letter or email mail merge in Word, labels are very easy.

Under the Mailings tab in Word, click the Start Mail Merge selection and then the Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard. Choose Label as your template document type, and under Label Options, select a label manufacturer and style number (for example, Avery 5160, etc.).

From there, follow the wizard’s prompts.

How do you do a mail merge with Outlook?

To create an Outlook mail merge, you’ll need to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.

Starting in Word, choose the Mailings menu, then Start Email Merge, and then Email Messages.

When your message is ready, click Select Recipients to link to the Excel spreadsheet with your data. Then, select Finish & Merge to send your email to your list using Outlook.

What is extended mail merge?

If you’re a Salesforce user, you have two options for mail merge — standard and extended.

Standard mail merge is the preferred approach for those with specific CRM software and operating systems, such as Luminate CRM and Windows 10.

Extended mail merge is a mail merge tool for all other Salesforce users. Although the tools are different, the results are the same — personalized emails to recipients listed in Salesforce.

Mail Merge: Which Should You Choose?

Mail merge is a powerful and underutilized technique to create personalized emails, documents, and printings at scale.

You can run mail merges with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace — however, different platforms excel at different types of merges.

If you want to send mail merge emails, Gmail is far superior to Outlook. The best option is using a third-party option, like GMass, to turn Gmail into a fully-functional mail merging email platform.

If you want to create printed mail merge items, like envelopes or mailing labels, Microsoft Word will work better than Google Docs. Word has a built-in merge feature that excels at printed items. (It’s much less useful for emails, though.)

Ready to get started?

You can download the GMass Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store and get set up on a free trial in a matter of seconds. Join the 300,000+ others who are sending out personalized mass emails and other mail merge campaigns effortlessly and without a learning curve.

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

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We’ve got good news and bad news on how to send mass email from Excel.

The good news? It’s possible.

The bad news? It can get a bit convoluted and requires bringing Microsoft Word into the equation when you’re sending through Microsoft Outlook. (And in complex cases, you might even need to bring Excel VBA and at least one VBA macro into the equation.)

More good news: There’s a simple solution to send your email blast which we’ll cover in this article.

In this article, I’ll show you how to perform a mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet to send your personalized mass email messages whether they’re cold email, email marketing, or any other type of email campaign.

I’ll also go into detail about common merge issues with MS Excel, as well as the fixes for those problems.

How to Send Mass Email from Excel: Table of Contents

(Click on the links below to jump to a specific section)

• How Does a Mail Merge Work?
• How to Send Mass Emails with Excel — The Easier Way
• How to Send a Mass Email with Excel — The More Complicated Way
• Conclusion

How Does a Mail Merge Work?

A mail merge automatically fetches data from a spreadsheet (or other data source) and inserts it into an email template. This data can be your contacts’ names, company names, or any other details. (You’ll need a list of addresses; it’s most common to put them in column A.)

To send a mail merge, you need two files:

1. A data file. Obviously in this article we’re covering a Microsoft Excel file but we’ll also get into Google Sheets. Really, your data file can be any spreadsheet or database that contains your contacts’ information.
2. A template file. The main document that has placeholders for inserting the data that is fetched from your data file. For our purposes here, we’re focusing on an email template.

Here’s what your template file might look like.

When you’re sending email with a mail merge, your data file will be the spreadsheet that contains all your contacts’ details.

The mail merge function would then combine the email template with your data file to create individual emails for each contact.

How do merges make your life easier?

How do merges make your life easier?

The mail merging process automatically creates separate, personalized emails for each recipient. This way, you save tons of time as you’re not wasting hours manually creating a new customized document for each person.

Imagine manually composing 100 different emails for 100 different recipients!

You can use mail merges without having to individually select recipient data from your Outlook contacts or elsewhere to send different documents like:

• Bulk email
• Cold emails
• Email marketing messages (newsletters, promos, and more)
• A form letter
• Mailing labels
• Envelopes
• Return address labels
• Personalized brochures
• And more…

How to use mail merge for sending mass emails in Excel

Mail merging is the most commonly used method to send mass emails.

Here, the data file will be a mailing list, which is usually stored in a spreadsheet, like Google Sheets or Excel. Your mail merge template will be the email that you send to your list.

However, sending mass emails from Excel with Microsoft Word Mail Merge can be challenging due to formatting errors and other issues.

Find out the most common Word mail merge formatting errors you encounter when sending emails from Excel, as well as how GMass fixes these problems here.

Send mail merges easier with GMass

Unfortunately, an Excel mail merge is a time-consuming and often convoluted process to send bulk email with which many people struggle.

What if there was an easier way to send emails that were personalized to your entire mailing list? There is, and the solution is called GMass. You can use GMass to send email quickly and efficiently from Excel.

What Is GMass?

GMass is a powerful mail merge tool that makes it incredibly easy to draft and send mass emails from Gmail.

Our ease coupled with the most robust feature set of any Gmail-based email service provider have led to 300,000+ users (leaving 7,500+ reviews with a 4.8/5 star average).

What’s more —

Anyone can get started with GMass immediately — just download the Chrome extension and sign up with your email. There’s no credit card required… there’s not even a web form. It’s that simple!

If you have your contact data saved in an Excel file rather than keeping it as Google Contacts, GMass can easily use it to create a data merge that personalizes your emails to multiple recipients.

How to Send Mass Emails with Excel — The Easier Way

Here’s a detailed walk-through for how to send a mail merge in Excel using GMass.

I’ll be using the Excel spreadsheet, shown in the image below, to walk you through the process.

Step 1: Import Your Excel sheet into Google Sheets

The first step is to import your Excel spreadsheet into Google Sheets. (It just takes a few seconds.)

Google Sheets is free and available to anyone. All you need is a Google account!

Note – If your contact data is in a CSV file, you can also import it into Google Sheets. Here’s a LinkedIn Learning tutorial on how to import a CSV file into Google Sheets.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to import your Excel file into Google Sheets:

• Open Google Sheets.

• Click on the folder icon in the bottom-right to open the file picker.

• A new window showing the Google Sheets File Picker appears.
  Click on the Upload tab to upload your Excel file.

• You can now select the file you want to upload from your computer.
  To select your file, click on the Select a file from your device button.

• Select the Excel spreadsheet you want to upload from your computer and click on the Open button.

• Your file will be automatically uploaded and converted into a new Google spreadsheet.

Voila!

Step 2: Format your new Google spreadsheet

Notice how my Google Sheet has the text — Ted’s Tadpole Tanks — in the first row?

Remove text and blank rows from your spreadsheet for the mail merge (with GMass or, really, anything else).

Here, I’m deleting rows 1 and 2 from my sheet:

Once you’ve selected the rows to be removed, click on the Edit menu and click Delete selected rows.

After deletion, the sheet looks like this:

Your spreadsheet should also have the following. . .

• The first row of your Google Sheet should contain column names such as FirstName, LastName, Email, etc. Ideally, column names shouldn’t contain spaces, special characters, or codes. Instead, stick with alphanumeric characters for each name. GMass will automatically use these field names as the mail merge labels that will be placed in your email placeholders.
• The actual data should start in the second row.
• At least one column should contain your recipients’ email addresses. GMass will auto-detect this column during the data merge.

Step 3: Connect GMass to your Google spreadsheet

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to connect GMass to your Google spreadsheet:

• Log in to your Gmail account.
• Click the GMass sheet button beside your Gmail search bar.

• A pop-up window appears:

• You can now select the spreadsheet you want to use for the mail merge from the Google Sheets drop-down list.

Note – If there’s only one sheet (Sheet1) in your Google spreadsheet, it’s selected by default. However, if your spreadsheet has multiple sheets, you can select the required sheet from the worksheet drop-down menu. 

Once you’ve selected a spreadsheet, click on the Connect to Spreadsheet button.

• After clicking the connect button, GMass will automatically read each recipient’s address and other data from your spreadsheet. It will also insert their addresses into the To field of a new email when you send (though in the compose window, you’ll see an alias address representing your list.)

• Now you can compose your email using the advanced personalization features of GMass. To access these personalization settings, click on the settings arrow next to the red GMass button.

Click the Personalize drop-down list, and all the column names you added in your Google Sheets file will show up.

To personalize your email message, select the column names in your spreadsheet from the drop-down menu. You can insert these placeholders anywhere in your email subject and email body.

• Here’s how my personalized email looks:

Notice the {FirstName} label?

That’s a personalization tag corresponding to the FirstName column in my Sheet.

• Once you’ve finished composing your mail, hit the GMass button to send the email.

Note – GMass will automatically personalize the email for each prospect or contact based on the mail merge labels you’ve used in your email messages. For example, the second line of the spreadsheet, Brandon Walsh, will receive an email that starts with “Dear Brandon,” since the {FirstName} label was used in the email body.

Using your Outlook email address in Gmail

Even though you’re sending through Gmail you can still use your Outlook address for your email campaign. (You could also use a Yahoo mail address, AOL email address, and so on.)

And we even have a technique for sending mass email through Gmail with GMass where you can use your Outlook address — but still get the top-of-the-line deliverability by sending through Gmail’s servers. Here’s an explanation of how to set up that Gmail alias. (It only takes a few minutes.)

How to Send a Mass Email with Excel — The More Complicated Way

It’s easy to do your mass emailing from Excel through Gmail/GMass. But if you really want to keep everything within the Microsoft ecosystem, you can.

It’s just a little more complicated.

Send Personalized Mass Emails From Outlook with Excel

It’s common for organizations to send mass emails using Outlook and Excel Mail Merge. You can use mail merge in Microsoft Office to create a form letter with unique personalization elements like greetings or salutations for each contact.

However, the process can be challenging due to Word mail merge formatting errors and other issues.

Here’s a walk-through for how to create a mail merge in Word and Excel to create personalized mass letters:

Step 1: Format your Excel workbook

Before you start a mail merge in Word and Excel, you need to ensure that your Excel file is properly formatted.

However, unlike the GMass method, it can be a little more confusing.

Here are six things to keep in mind when formatting your Excel workbook for a data merge with your Word document:

• The column header of your Excel table must contain the field names you want to use in your mail merge template. For example, if the Excel column name for your contacts’ first names is “FirstName,” the Word mail merge function will use this as the corresponding placeholder in your template.

• • 
• Organize your Excel data to have one record per row.
• Your data must start in cell A1 in the Excel worksheet.
• All edits to your Excel document must be done before initiating the mail merge with your main document. (With GMass and Google Sheets you can update after connecting.)
• Your Excel workbook must be stored on your computer.
• Data entries with numerical values such as currencies, postal codes, percentages, dates, etc. must be in the proper number format. To do this, you need to:
  • Select the column that contains the numerical value.
    • Click on Home and go to the Number section.
      
    • Click on the Number Format box and choose the required format from the drop-down menu that appears.
      

Note – If your contact data is a TXT or CSV file, you can import it to Excel by clicking on From Text/CSV in the Data section in the menu bar.

Step 2: Prepare the document template for your Word mail merge

The next step is to prepare a mail merge template for your form letter in Microsoft Word. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this:

• Open a new document in Word.
• Select the Mailings tab and click on Start Mail Merge group. A drop-down list showing every different document type pops-up.

You can choose between an email, envelope, letter, directory, or label template. For example, to create mailing labels, you need to select the Label template as your document type.

As we are sending a letter (I mean, not really, but it actually works better to send email message templates), choose Letters as your main document from the drop-down list.

Note: You can also use the Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard to streamline the mail merge in Word process. For example, the wizard lets you select the starting document for your mail merge as shown here:

• Type in the “letter” you want to send to your mail merge recipients.

Step 3: Select Your Recipient List

After composing your letter, you need to choose the list of mail merge recipients for it. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to select your recipients in MS Word:

• Click on the Select Recipients button.

• From the drop-down menu that appears, click on Use an Existing List.

• A dialog box pops-up. Select the Excel file you want to use as the contact list for your letter and click Open.

• Choose the Excel worksheet you want to merge with the Word doc and click OK. If your Excel workbook has only one sheet, you’ll see only Sheet1.

• If you want to edit your mailing list, choose Edit Recipient List.

A Mail Merge Recipients pop-up window will be displayed. In the pop-up window, clear the checkbox next to the name of the person you don’t want to include.

Step 4: Add personalized content to your letter

Now you can add personalized content (like names and addresses) to your letter.

Word lets you add three personalization variables to your current document:

1. Insert Address Block – you can insert a person’s address to your document.
2. Insert Greetings/Salutations – add a personalized greeting to your letter.
3. Insert Mail Merge Fields – add other mail merge labels from your Excel worksheet.

Insert Address Block

Go to the Mailings tab and click on Address Block.

From the dialog box that appears, select the format for the recipient’s address block and click OK.

An address tag will be automatically added to your Word document, as shown in the picture below:

Insert Greeting Line

Click on Greeting Line from the menu bar, choose the format you want to use, and click OK.

A greeting tag («GreetingLine») will be automatically inserted into your letter.

Insert Merge Field

You can also insert other mail merge labels in Word like the recipient’s first name, contact number, company name, etc. by clicking on the Insert Merge Field from the menu bar.

These fields are the column labels in your Excel sheet.

Quick Tip – You can also use the Match Fields dialog box to manually map your Excel column names with your template field names. While it’s more time-consuming, it gives you more control over the personalization process.

Step 5: Preview and finish the mail merge function

Once you’re done creating the letter, you can preview what it looks like with the data added from your Excel spreadsheet.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to preview your letters with Word’s mail merge function:

• Go to Mailings > Preview Results to preview your letter for each recipient.

• You can enter the recipient number (the corresponding row number in your Excel file) in the text box or click on the Next and Previous buttons to scroll through your recipients.

• After verifying the data, select Finish & Merge to complete the mail merge process between Word and Excel.

A drop-down menu appears. You can choose to:

1. Edit Individual Documents – further edit individual letters.
2. Print Documents – print labels, letters, or any other merged document type.
3. Send Them as Email Messages – send the merged document as a bulk email.

Note – Sending letters as email messages requires you to set up Outlook or Gmail with Word manually. Using the GMass method for merges is a much simpler process.

Step 6: Save the letter

When you’re done working with your merged document, you can save it by going to File > Save or by pressing the Cmd/Ctrl + S keys.

To reuse your mail merge document, open it and click Yes when Word prompts you to keep the connection from Excel to Word.

Conclusion

Creating a mail merge in Excel to send emails doesn’t have to be so complicated.

While you can use MS Word to create mail merges for letters, it can be tricky to use when sending mass emails .

Instead, use a mail merge and email marketing tool like GMass.

Its powerful mail merge features let you draft, merge, and send emails faster and easier than any other solutions. So why not download the Chrome extension and try it out today?

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob

Is Woodpecker the right email outreach tool for you?

This Woodpecker review will help you decide if Woodpecker is a good fit for your email requirements. I’ll also highlight three great Woodpecker alternatives that can address all your email outreach needs. And you can also check out our top 7 cold email software solutions.

Here’s what this article contains:

(Click on the links to jump to a specific section)

• • What Is Woodpecker Email?
  • The Key Features of Woodpecker
  • Three Drawbacks of Woodpecker Email
  • Three Great Woodpecker Alternatives to Try
    (includes key features, pros, cons, pricing and customer ratings)
    • GMass
    • Bananatag
    • Hubspot Sales

Let’s get started.

What Is Woodpecker Email?

Woodpecker.co is an email marketing automation tool that lets you send emails and follow-ups from Gmail and Outlook. It’s chiefly used by B2B companies to personalize, automate, and track their outbound sales campaigns easily.

The Key Features of Woodpecker:

Here’s a closer look at some of Woodpecker’s key features:

1. Powerful Email Tracking

Woodpecker automatically tracks the various email metrics of your marketing and sales emails. It measures different stats, such as:

• Open Rate – the percentage of email IDs that opened your email.
• Click-through Rate – the percentage of people who clicked at least one link in your email.
• Sent – the number of emails that were sent.
• Delivered – the number of IDs that received your email, and more.

You can also manually mark your campaign replies as interested, maybe later, or uninterested. Woodpecker then analyzes this to calculate the number of positive responses you’ve received for a specific campaign.

This helps you identify which email templates, subject lines, and links are giving you the best results. You can then tailor upcoming campaign messages accordingly to boost your conversions!

2. Cold Email Personalization

Woodpecker lets you add custom fields and snippets to give your mass cold emails a personal touch. This helps you edit each email on a person-by-person basis, making emails unique and personalized for each recipient.

Woodpecker automatically adds recipient details like:

• Their first name.
• Their company’s name.
• The part of a prospect’s website or blog you liked the most.
• The reason you decided to reach out to them, and more.

For added flexibility, Woodpecker even lets you import your contact data as CSV files for quick personalization.

3. Efficient Follow-ups with Email Automation

Woodpecker helps you send powerful automated follow-ups for your cold email campaigns. As these follow-ups are part of the same email thread, your clients will always have the context — even if they have not responded to your first email.

The tool automatically stops sending these follow-ups if it detects an auto-reply from the recipient. You can then choose to resume the sequence manually or not.

4. Simple Campaign Scheduling

Woodpecker lets you schedule all your emails and follow-ups in advance. This allows you to plan your emails and send them when and as required.

It lets you set a custom date and time within a chosen time zone to schedule your emails. As the tool automatically sends them when the time arrives, you won’t have to be online when they go out.

Three Drawbacks of Woodpecker Email

While Woodpecker is a good email marketing tool, it isn’t a perfect product.
Here are some of its drawbacks:

1. You Can’t Send Email Attachments

Woodpecker doesn’t let you add email attachments to your mass emails.

This can be a big issue when you want to send emails with documents such as presentations, white papers, or even proposals. As you can’t add attachments to your emails, you’re limiting the level of engagement you have with your prospects.

Additionally, email trackers that support attachments give you tons of helpful insights into your prospect interactions, such as:

• The hours they spend on your documents.
• The sections of the file in which they’re most interested.
• If they’re forwarding or downloading your attachments.

If you use Woodpecker, you won’t be able to measure any of this. 

2. Woodpecker Works As a Separate Inbox

Another problem with Woodpecker is that it’s not embedded within your Gmail or Outlook inbox. Instead, it functions as a separate inbox altogether.

This may not be an issue for some users, but I’d rather have my email software work within my inbox.

Why do I prefer that?

• I won’t have to open a separate dashboard or interface to monitor my email engagement.
• The tool can categorize all my campaign replies, follow-ups, and reports under different labels right inside my inbox.

Unfortunately, this isn’t an option with Woodpecker.
If you use it, you’re going to have to juggle between tabs and inboxes to manage your emails.

3. It’s Expensive

The Woodpecker app prices its cold email plans starting at $29/month… but that’s for 500 connected prospects and 2,000 stores prospects. Once you start wanting to email larger lists, the price goes up significantly:

The cold email plan offers automated email, analytics, and teamwork features. It does not include API access (or Zapier usage); that costs another $20/month.

Their plans come with a free trial (no credit card needed).

Three Great Woodpecker Email Alternatives to Try

While Woodpecker is a powerful tool, there are some drawbacks to using it.
To help you solve those issues, here are three great Woodpecker alternatives:

1. GMass

GMass is a powerful email marketing software that lets you run marketing campaigns from your Gmail inbox. Its mighty mass mailing capabilities have made it a popular email tracker used by employees from Google and Uber to social media giants like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

GMass lets you:

• Automatically track your email campaign metrics.
• Quickly send emails and marketing campaigns to tons of prospects and customers.
• Automatically personalize mass emails on a person-by-person basis.
• Easily schedule emails in advance.

What’s more?
You can instantly get started with GMass — just download the Chrome add-on, enter your email ID to sign-up, and you’re done!

It’s that easy!

Here’s a closer look at some of its key features:

A) Advanced Email Analytics and Mail Merge Reports

GMass’ Campaign Report is auto-generated after you send each email campaign. It highlights all the core marketing statistics you need to analyze your email engagement.

However, unlike Woodpecker, GMass places your campaign reports right inside your Gmail inbox. You won’t have to open a separate interface to use them; all reports can be easily accessed from the Gmail sidebar!

Here’s what your GMass Campaign Report contains:

1. Total Recipients:
   The total number of email addresses to which you sent your email campaign.
2. Unique Opens:
   The total number of unique email IDs that opened your email. Note: GMass tracks only unique opens to give you clear email stats. If someone opens your email a second or third time, it won’t show up on your report to artificially inflate the number of opens.
3. Didn’t Open:
   The total number of recipients that didn’t open your email.
4. Unique Clicks:
   The total number of unique IDs that clicked at least one link in your email.
5. Replies:
   The total number of recipients that replied to your email.
6. Unsubscribes:
   The total number of recipients that unsubscribed from your emails.
7. Bounces:
   The total number of emails that were undelivered because the address was invalid.
8. Rejections because your Gmail account is over-limit:
   The total number of email IDs that didn’t receive your email because Gmail limited the sending ability of your account.
9. Blocks:
   The total number of emails that were undelivered because the address marked your account as spam.

For detailed information on GMass’ reports, click here.

B) Email Follow-Up Automation

Most email marketers have to follow-up on their campaign emails.

But what if you have to follow-up on hundreds of replies?
You can’t do that manually!

Don’t worry, GMass can help you.

It automates the process of sending follow-ups with up to eight stages of follow-ups (one step further than Woodpecker).

You can even customize everything about these follow-ups, such as:

• The trigger for sending follow-ups.
  For example, you can set GMass to send a welcome email automatically the instant someone signs up for your newsletter. 
• The number of follow-up emails each person receives.
• The time gaps between follow-ups.
• The content of your follow-up email messages.

You can click here for more information on this feature.

C) Powerful Email Personalization

Email personalization is the perfect way to engage your customers effectively.

Think about it.

With what are you more likely to engage?
A generic marketing email?
Or one that’s specifically tailored to you and your needs?

For example, if you send cold emails for a webinar invitation, adding each recipient’s name will boost your attendance rates.

However, when you have hundreds of emails, manually personalizing each one will take you forever!

Luckily, GMass supports automatic email personalization to help you with this.

It gives you features like:

• Auto First-Name Detection and Entry – GMass auto-detects a person’s first name from their email ID and adds it to each email addressed to that person.
• Add personalized blocks of text – you can customize entire paragraphs of your email message on a person-by-person basis.
• Add customized links, images – you can include personalized links, e-commerce URLs, and photos for each email recipient.

And while these benefits are helpful for marketing campaigns, they can also be invaluable for other uses, such as club management or job searches.

D) Automatic Reply Management

Your email campaign will probably receive tons of replies, bounces, and blocks.
How do you sort through all this information quickly to identify the responses that matter most?

GMass can automatically organize all your campaign responses under the Reports label of your Gmail inbox.

It categorizes responses as:

• Bounces – emails that were undelivered because the recipients’ address was invalid.
• Replies – responses where the recipient actually clicked the “Reply” button (unlike autoresponders, which send a reply from a machine rather than a human).
• Delays – messages that were delayed because the recipient is currently unreachable.

This way, it’s easy for you to identify your most important responses and deal with any issues in your outbound sales campaigns.

E) Easy Email Scheduling

Sending emails at the right time is a surefire way to maximize engagement.
Ideally, you’ll need to send your campaigns when your recipients are most likely to check their inbox.

How do you ensure that your emails always reach your recipients at the right time?
By scheduling them in advance.

With GMass, you can easily schedule your marketing emails.
Compose your email, schedule it, and the tool automatically sends it out at the specified time.

It’s that simple!

If there’s any change in schedule, you can always reschedule your emails from the Gmail Drafts folder. Simply edit the date and time, and GMass will send it then.

Pros

• User-friendly interface.
• Can quickly integrate with your Gmail inbox.
• Can create email lists instantly with Gmail account searches.
• Supports downloading your campaign reports as CSV files.
• Can easily import contact list from a Google Sheets file.
• Can send email attachments.
• Connect it with Zapier to automate email sequences.
• Available as a powerful Gmail add-on for Android devices.
• Powerful Salesforce integration.
• Active customer support team.

Cons

• The desktop version works only with Google Chrome.
• GMass works only with Gmail and G-Suite accounts.

Pricing

GMass has three pricing plans:

• Individual:
  • Standard: $25/month
  • Premium: $35/month
  • Professional: $55/month
• Team:
  • Professional: starts at $145/month for a group of 5 and includes all features.

Customer Ratings

• Capterra – 5/5 (270+ reviews)
• G2 Crowd – 4.8/5 (290+ reviews)

2. Bananatag

Bananatag is an email automation tool that works with Gmail and Outlook. It gives you detailed analytics to break down your campaign’s engagement.

Key Features

• Sleek drag-and-drop interface.
• Real-time email open and link click notifications.
• Powerful schedule and snooze feature to manage emails effectively.
• Email attachment tracking to see how recipients use your attachments.
• Reports that can be exported as CSV or XLS files.
• Can sync data to various CRM software like Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Zoho.

Pros

• User-friendly interface.
• Can create custom email templates.
• Gives you detailed insights into your email deliverability.
• Track emails on mobile devices without using an app.
• Available as Chrome and Firefox extensions.

Cons

• Notifications come in as separate emails. This can clutter your inbox if there’s a large mailing list.
• The tool doesn’t work for company email addresses (email IDs that end in @company.com).
• The free version only tracks five emails per day.

Pricing

Bananatag is available in three pricing plans:

• Free: automated email open tracking for up to five emails/day.
• Pro: $12.50/month – track up to 100 emails/day with link tracking, detailed reports, and scheduling features.
• Team: $25/month per user – includes Pro + track up to 200 emails/day + team management features.

Customer Ratings

• Capterra – 5/5 (6 reviews)
• G2 Crowd – 4/5 (20+ reviews)

3. Hubspot Sales

Hubspot Sales is a powerful cold email outreach tool that helps you track and engage your leads in real-time. It also helps you create email templates to save tons of time when composing emails.

Key Features

• Real-time notifications for lead engagements.
• Can easily import contact details to personalize emails.
• Built-in activity stream that logs the email interactions of your clients and customers.
• Predictive lead scoring to help you prioritize potential clients.
• Detailed and customizable email reports.
• Seamless Salesforce integration.

Pros

• Powerful lead nurturing features.
• Can automate the activities of your sales team.
• Can schedule emails and follow-ups in advance.
• IMAP integration support.
• Works with email providers like Gmail and Outlook.

Cons

• Initial set up can be complicated for novices.
• No mass emailing features. You can build an email sequence, but you need to hit the send button for each email.
• Their paid plans with additional features can be costly.

Pricing

Hubspot Sales comes in two pricing schemes:

• Professional: $450/month – includes Starter + sales automation for 300 workflows + Salesforce integration.
• Enterprise: $1500/month – includes Professional with sales automation for 500 workflows + lead generation and team management + API access.

Customer Ratings

• Capterra – 4.5/5 (2000+ reviews)
• G2 Crowd – 4.3 /5 (600+ reviews)

Conclusion

While Woodpecker is a good email service, it isn’t a perfect solution. It’s expensive, can’t handle attachments, and forces you to switch between inboxes for your reports.

Why settle for that when there are better tools available?

While all three tools on the list are powerful, GMass has several advantages. It gives you powerful cold emailing and tracking features at a fraction of the cost! So why not download the Chrome extension today and try it out?

Ajay Goel

Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.

twitter.com/PartTimeSnob