Using variables is the easiest way to make your email templates more personalized and warm. They allow you to tailor the email content based on persona, job title, industry, vertical, location, etc., making your messages feel relevant and appealing to each recipient — at scale.
My very first email templates were super simple: they only had variables like {{FirstName}} or {{Company}} and that’s it 😅
Yet, the more I learned about sales development, the more complex and sophisticated my email templates became.
Eventually, I was able to single out the following types of variables that could be used in email templates:
General (default) variables
Intent variables
Research variables
If-else variables
Personalization variables (snippets)
Conditional (dynamic) variables
So, let’s see what each of the listed variables stands for and how to use them in your emails.
1. 👋 General (default) variables
This type of variables is very popular among the SDRs, BDRs and AEs, so you’ve probably seen some of them, e.g., {{FirstName}}, {{CompanyName}}, {{Industry}}.
These variables rely on the default data points that are super easy to find. As a result, it's almost impossible to impress a prospect with such personalization.
2. ⚡️ Intent variables
Intent variables rely on context to create relevance and personalisation at scale. These include {{Technology}}, {{Hiring}}, {{Company Growth}}, etc.
For example, I can search for companies that are actively hiring salespeople and use that information as an intent variable {{Job Opening Title}}. Here’s how it would look like in an email:
I’m reaching out to you because I’ve been reviewing {{Company}}’s website and noticed that you are hiring {{Job Opening Title}}
Depending on the context, the variable {{Job Opening Title}} will be replaced with the relevant information, e.g., an SDR, 5 SDRs, 2 new salespeople, 3 enterprise AEs, a VP of Sales and 5 SDRs, etc.
3. 🧐 Research variables
Research variables — {{Competitor}}, {{Department Size}}, {{Hobby}}, {{Technographics}}, etc. — introduce a whole new level of personalization at scale.
Since it's pretty hard to find this kind of information in bulk automatically, your prospects will know that you’ve done your homework and actually put some effort into adapting your email template for their unique case.
For example, every time I look up the prospects' tech stack, I'd save their CRM into a {{Technographics}} field to use in my outreach. As a result, my email might look like this:
Hi {{FirstName}}. Reason for my outreach is I noticed that {{Company}} is using {{Technographics}} as their CRM.
So each time, when I research prospects' tech stack, I'd save their CRM into a {{Technographics}} field, and it could be anything between Salesforce and other popular SMB CRM.
4. ⏫ If-else variables
If-else variables rely on the data fields that can be automated based on some other standardized variables.
For example, if you have the company size as a datapoint in your CRM or SEP, you can create a separate field and name it, let's say, {{Company Type}} and use it in the email template:
Since our company has already helped other {{Company Type}} like...
Considering the if-else logic, a {{Company Type}} variable could be:
1-5 employees → start-ups
5-50 employees → SMBs
50-500 employees → bigger companies
500+ employees → enterprise companies
As you can see, each time, we dynamically change our custom variable based on an additional data point — the company size. You can also use information about Industry, Location, or Job Title to do that.
BTW, my idea to personalize greetings based on prospects' location (that I’ve shared in my previous post - https://voleksiienko.substack.com/p/personalize-greeting) was also implemented using if-else variables. So make sure to check it out 😉.
5. 🎯 Personalization variables (snippets)
Well, this type of variables requires significantly more effort. To create custom personalization variables (or rather snippets), I typically spend 5-15 minutes per prospect.
Yet, this is the only surefire way to make your outreach 100% personal and thus much more effective.
How does that work? I manually create a fully personalized sentence as a variable called {{Personalization Snippet}}. Since it’s not automatically generated, you can use basically any information you can find to come up with a custom hook.
Here are just a few examples of what we use as {{Personalization Snippet}}:
Love your website design and the key message of your platform, sounds inspiring!
I found your company on ProductHunt - love the simplicity and necessity of your product for modern dev teams!
Loved the idea of your product. If you partner with Microsoft, you must be certain you are building a great product.
Congrats on your 8-years anniversary with Microsoft!
Noticed you are a Bill Gate's fan. Have you seen "Inside Bill's Brain"?
Noticed you are a PS fan. Have you already played "God of War 2018"?
Pro tip ⚡️: I usually add a {{Personalization Snippet}} variable before the greeting, so it’s the first thing a prospect sees upon opening your email (or even before that, in preview). Thus, it will make your email stand out from the crowd and quickly capture the prospect’s attention.
6. 🔀 Conditional (dynamic) variables
Conditional variables add an extra layer of personalization at scale. Whether it's a dynamic CTA that is adjusted based on time/day when the email is sent or liquid syntax - this helps make your email templates look more humane.
I’ve already shared some use cases and examples for this type of variables in my previous post - https://voleksiienko.substack.com/p/conditional-variables, so I won’t repeat myself here.
To wrap it up, here’s an email template featuring all of the listed types of variables:
Here are all of the variables, ‘decoded’ 😉:
{{Time of Day}} → conditional
{{noticed you are a PS4 fan...}} → personalization
{{Company}} → general
{{Job Opening Title}} → intent
{{Job Title}} → general
{{Title Responsibility}} → if-else
{{Title Plural}} → if-else
{{Industry}} → general
{{Company1}} and {{Company2}} → research
CTA(last sentence) → conditional
Thanks for your time, and hope you enjoy decoding sales development with me! Stay tuned ⚡️