Using Liquid To Form Grammatically Correct Sentences With Braze Arrays
Braze Arrays
Marketing Teams very often collect a list of things from their users. This could be a list of users’ favorite_brands, most_recent_items_viewed, or pet_names. Depending on how many items are in the list, teams will have to structure their sentences differently.
For example, a pet food company, like Chewy, might want to send these following messages:
We love Mocha!
We love Mocha and Nari!
We love Mocha, Nari, Cherry, and Choco!
Btw, Mocha, Nari, Cherry, and Choco are all names of my family dogs. You can see the use case for multiple sentences structures (1, 2, 2+) depending on how many pets a user might have.
In Braze, these lists of things are best stored using Braze Arrays. In this post, we’ll go over how to use Liquid to template each of the pet names from the Braze Array, considering the cases for 1 pet, 2 pets, and 2+ pets.
Use Case
Before we get our hands dirty with the Liquid code, let’s go over the use case and understand the problem. The pet food company would love to include a personalized message copy in their monthly newsletters that says “We love [PET NAME]”, but they’re having trouble forming the right sentence structure.
If they simply list out all the pet_names in the array, it looks like this:
We love Mocha, Nari, Cherry, Choco!
Not bad, but grammatically incorrect.
If they create a bullet for all the pet_names:
We love:
- Mocha
- Nari
- Cherry
- Choco
That’s just awkward.
Using Liquid, we can satisfy all the different grammar cases and completely customize how the final sentence will render based on the number of items in the pet_names array. Let’s get into it!
Array Examples
Let’s assume that under each user profile, we have a Braze Custom Attribute called pet_names, a String Array containing all the names of the user’s pets. Here’s a few examples below:
1 pet:
pet_names = [“Mocha”]
2 pets:
pet_names = [“Mocha”, “Nari”]
2+ pets:
pet_names = [“Mocha”, “Nari”, “Cherry”, “Choco”]
Pseudocode
Here’s a pseudocode structure for our Liquid logic:
If 1 item in pet_names, then:
- “We love {{pet_names[0]}}!”
If 2 items in pet_names, then:
- “We love {{pet_names[0]}} and {{pet_names[1]}}!”
If 2+ items in pet_names, then: (this is where Liquid gets a little crazy)
- For each item EXCEPT the last item in the array pet_names
- Add “, “ after each item
- Append the “[pet_name], ” string to a variable called pet_names_formatted
- Afterwards, append the very last pet_name manually, in this format: “and [pet_name]” to the variable pet_names_formatted
- Final result: “We love {{pet_names_formatted}}!”
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge fan of the Oxford Comma. That’s not just a personal preference decision: excluding the Oxford Comma adds another complex step to this use case 😅 For those who really want to exclude the Oxford Comma, I’ll link a new post with the instructions.
Liquid
Finally, the section we’ve all been waiting for. Below is the full Liquid code for this use case.
{% if {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}}}.size == 1 %}
We love {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}[0]}}!
{% elsif {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}}}.size == 2 %}
We love {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}[0]}} and {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}[1]}}!
{% elsif {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}}}.size > 2 %}
{% assign loop_count = {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}}}.size | minus: 2 %}
{% assign last_index = {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}}].size | minus: 1 %}
{% capture pet_names_formatted %}
{% for i in (0..loop_count) %}{{custom_attribute.${pet_names}[i]}}, {% endfor %}
{% endcapture %}
{% assign pet_names_formatted = pet_names_formatted | append: “and “ | append: {{custom_attribute.${pet_names}[last_index]}} %}
We love {{pet_names_formatted}}!
{% endif %}
Conclusion
We understand that this blog may have gone from 0–1 very quickly. We already see 5+ potential blogs explaining some of the concepts explained in this blog. For now, please feel free to experiment with the Liquid code and reach out to us with any specific questions, but stay tuned for more blogs on this topic soon!
Thank you!
Thank you for reading, and please reach out with any questions!
fornowmarketing.com
allan@fornowmarketing.com
