Placeholders

How to bind a Studio element to product data using expressions and placeholder chips, set up fallbacks, and configure advanced per-placeholder settings like content reuse, approval, and tagging.

Updated July 23, 2026

Placeholders connect the elements on your canvas to real product data — titles, prices, images, ad copy, reviews — so one template can generate a unique ad for every product in your catalog. This article covers binding an element, writing expressions, and the advanced settings that control exactly which content a placeholder is allowed to use. For the full list of available fields, see Available placeholders.

Binding an element#

Select a text, image, video, or audio element (shape and frame elements can't hold a placeholder directly) and open the Properties tab. A Binding section appears — press + to create a placeholder for that element.

Once a placeholder exists, its expression is an editable field that mixes literal text with placeholder chips — click into it and start typing, or use the chip menu to insert a reference to a product field. For example:

{{Title}} - Shop your gear at Renable! - {{Average review score}} of {{Review scale}} from {{Number of reviews}} reviewers

When the template renders for a specific product, this resolves into something like:

Seagate Game drive PS5 4TB - Shop your gear at Renable! - 5 of 5 from 4 reviewers

Removing a binding (the Remove action in the Binding section) deletes the placeholder from the element entirely; the element falls back to its static content.

Fallbacks#

Not every product has every kind of content. Add a fallback so the placeholder tries something else when its primary source is missing — click the ⋮ menu at the end of the expression field and choose Add fallback. For example, a placeholder can try the Short title field first, and fall back to the regular product Title if a short title isn't available. Fallbacks chain, so you can stack several in priority order.

Missing content#

When a placeholder can't find content anywhere in its fallback chain, that's "missing content." Missing content on a product usually means some required creative is absent for that product, and you'd typically want to pause that product from running in ads — done with an automation on the channel, not in the template itself (see Channel automations). Otherwise you risk publishing an ad that looks broken or incomplete.

Sometimes missing content is fine. You can allow it two ways:

  • Add a final, empty fallback (an empty expression at the end of the chain).
  • Click the placeholder chip and turn off "Require content for this placeholder" in the settings that open (this label reads "Fallback to the next placeholder..." instead, if the chip already has a fallback chained after it). Once it's off, the chip shows a small icon confirming it's OK for this content to be missing.

Advanced placeholder settings#

Click any placeholder chip to open its settings. These apply per-placeholder, so you can mix strict and lenient placeholders in the same template:

  • "Reuse the same {content} as other placeholders used" — on by default, so multiple placeholders of the same kind (for example two "Reason to buy" placeholders) all pull the same piece of content. Turn this off to give each placeholder a different item instead — it goes missing once the available content runs out. Useful for building a list of several distinct reasons to buy, images, or reviews.
  • "Only use content approved by a human" — restrict this placeholder to only use content a human has explicitly approved, giving you full editorial control over what AI-written or AI-selected content reaches ads. Approve content from a project's Content page — see Reviewing and approving content.
  • "Skip content flagged by quality checks" (images only today) — skip content that failed an automatic quality check. Flagged content is normally still used in your ads; turn this on when you'd rather this placeholder fall back than risk a poor result. Approving the content clears the flag and makes it usable again. See Reviewing and approving content.
  • "Only use images set as primary" (images only) — restrict to the single primary image your catalog feed designates for the product, ignoring any other gallery images or AI-generated alternatives.
  • "Use content from the project" — point the placeholder at content stored on the project instead of on the product (company taglines, brand reviews, and similar shared assets), useful as a shared fallback across all products.
  • "Only content with one of these tags" — restrict the placeholder to only consider content tagged with one or more specific tags. Content is only picked up by a placeholder that explicitly names its tag, which lets you, for example, prewrite seasonal copy with a prompt and activate it in a template only when you add that tag to the relevant placeholder (or automatically via an automation).
  • "Only content in these languages" — restrict the placeholder to content written in one or more specific languages.

Aimée can set bindings for you#

You don't have to build every expression by hand — you can ask Aimée, in the same chat drawer used everywhere in Studio, to bind an element to a specific field, add a fallback, or restrict a placeholder to approved content, and she'll edit the binding directly. See Working with Aimée.

Next steps#