How to use a Google Map field address in emails & success messages

ACF’s Google Map field stores its value as a JSON-encoded string with multiple keys (address, lat, lng, zoom, place_id, etc.). When that field is referenced via a merge tag in an email or success message, the raw escaped JSON gets rendered — not what you want.

Register a custom merge tag that resolves to just the slice of the payload you care about (the address, in the example below):

add_filter( 'af/merge_tags/resolve', function ( $output, $tag ) {

    if ( $tag !== 'google_map_address' ) {
        return $output;
    }

    $value = af_get_field( 'google_map' );

    if ( empty( $value ) ) {
        return '';
    }

    // The value is an escaped JSON string — un-slash, then decode.
    $value = json_decode( wp_unslash( $value ), true );

    return $value['address'] ?? '';

}, 10, 2 );

Use the merge tag in the notification’s content (or success message) as {google_map_address}.

Other useful keys on the same value: lat, lng, name, place_id, street_number, street_name, city, state, country, post_code. Register additional merge tags following the same pattern for any of them you need.