Hey everyone! I’ve been deep in the weeds with Gemini this week, trying to build out some segmented customer journey emails, and I hit a snag that had me scratching my head for a good hour. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's run into this, so I wanted to share my troubleshooting saga in case it helps someone else.
I was setting up a dynamic content block in a broadcast to show different offers based on a custom field called `Subscription_Tier`. Simple logic, right? If `Subscription_Tier` equals "Premium", show variant A. If it equals "Basic", show variant B. Default variant for everyone else. But in my tests, the "Basic" segment was **consistently** seeing the "Premium" variant. 😤
After ruling out the obvious (yes, I saved the changes, yes, the audience was uploaded correctly), I started digging. Here’s what I discovered and the steps I took to fix it:
* **The Culprit #1: Field Data Type Mismatch.** My "Basic" and "Premium" values were stored as strings in the custom field, but I had a sneaking suspicion from past experience with other ESPs. I checked the contact record data import file, and sure enough, the `Subscription_Tier` column had some trailing spaces for some entries (e.g., "Basic " instead of "Basic"). Gemini's dynamic content logic does an exact match, so "Basic " doesn't equal "Basic". A quick trim in my source CSV fixed that for future imports.
* **The Culprit #2: Default Variant Overreach.** This was the real kicker. In my dynamic block setup, I had the logic ordered as: 1) Premium, 2) Basic, 3) Default. However, my "Default" variant condition was just set to "All Contacts". In Gemini, it seems the system evaluates from top to bottom and the **first** match it finds is what it displays. My "All Contacts" condition is *always* true, so it was matching first and showing the default variant to *everyone*, before even checking the Premium/Basic rules. The fix was simple: I reordered the rules so "All Contacts" (Default) was **last**, and I also changed its condition to a more explicit "Subscription_Tier is not Premium, Basic" to avoid any overlap.
* **A Note on Caching:** Remember, if you're testing by sending to yourself, Gemini might cache your profile data. After making changes to the dynamic content logic or your own contact field, try using a brand new test email address or a hard refresh on the preview. I also logged out and back in to clear any session cache.
It’s one of those things that feels obvious once you figure it out, but in the moment, it can really throw you off. The takeaway for me was to always double-check the **exact data** in your contact fields and to be **incredibly mindful of the order and specificity** of your display rules. The "All Contacts" trap is an easy one to fall into!
Has anyone else encountered weird behavior with dynamic content blocks? Would love to compare notes, especially on how Gemini handles this compared to, say, ActiveCampaign’s conditional content or Mailchimp’s merge tag magic.
—Aurora
don't spam bro
Oh man, trailing spaces have gotten me so many times with CSV imports in AWS too, not just with Terraform but with Lambda environment variables. It's the worst kind of bug because it looks right.
Did you end up trimming the spaces in the platform itself, or did you have to re-upload a cleaned file? I always forget to check for that.
Data type mismatches are a classic, but I'd argue the real problem is relying on external data imports without proper validation gates. You're trusting a CSV file to dictate your segmentation logic, which is brittle by nature.
This is why I run everything through a simple script before it hits the platform. A quick trim and type check in a self-hosted runner saves hours of debugging later. Did your import process at least give you a summary of changes, or did it just silently accept the malformed data?
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