New in Reply: Dynamic and Conditional Variables [September 2020]

Olivia Milton 24 Sep 2020

The days are getting shorter but the work here at Reply is still in full swing! And there’s another batch of product updates – hot from the oven – that we’re happy to share with you.

With the latest update, we’re adding one of the most anticipated features – dynamic and conditional variables to level up your personalization game and allow for even higher engagement with your outreach.

In this post, we’re going to show you how to make the best use of these new features as well as offer some inspiration to help you get the ball rolling.

So let’s see what’s inside.

Introducing Reply’s Dynamic and Conditional Variables

We’re firm believers in personalization at scale and have been experimenting with different tactics for years. So, if there’s one thing that we are particularly proud of it’s the level of personalization that Reply offers.

Although there are many ways to customize your outreach with Reply (i.e. by using personalized images or landing pages), variables have always remained one of the most popular tactics used by our customers; it’s a tactic that is equally easy to set up and very effective.

This made us think of the ways to offer advanced personalization experiences that can be achieved as easily as adding a variable to an email.

And that is how dynamic and conditional variables came into being.

With the latest update, there are three groups of variables available in Reply:

Contact
Team
Advanced

Now, let’s take a closer look at each one of them.

Contact variables

The Contact type variables are the most common and frequently used variables when creating email templates. They use the basic data about your recipients specified in their profiles (i.e. the contact’s First Name, Last Name, Title, Company, City, etc.).

With the latest update, we’ve also added a set of dynamic variables to this group, including:

Opens
Replies
Views
Last Touch

To put this into context, an email featuring the Opens variable will look like this: “I see you’ve opened my email {{Opens}} times.” When you send this email, the variable will be automatically replaced with the corresponding number of opens for each prospect. The same approach is applied to Replies and Views variables.

The Last Touch variable will include the specific date of the last touchpoint in the sequence, for example: “I wrote to you {{LastTouch}} last time.”

You can find more use cases and examples regarding this type of variable in this article.

Team variables

Team variables are used when working in a team. These include Sender and Owner variables, referring either to:

The person to whose email account is connected to the sequence (the sender)
The person who created the sequence (if the Team Edition feature is disabled) or the person who owns the sequence (if the Team Edition is enabled)

For example, here’s a template featuring the Owner’s First Name and Company variables: “Hi, my name is {{Owner.First.Name}}! I am the CEO of {{Owner.Company}}.” The same approach can be applied to the Sender variables.

You can find more examples of the Team variables here.

Advanced Variables

Advanced variables allow you to work with conditions. For example, you can combine different variables and use them as conditions and dates.

Using Advanced variables, you can create templates that will be 100% personalized for each contact with great attention to detail and, as a result, drive better engagement with your outreach.

As a powerful personalization tool, Advanced variables deserve special attention.

Understanding Advanced variables

Advanced variables include the following 3 sub-categories:

Conditional variables
Date variables
Fallback variables

To help you understand how it works, let’s go through each one of those.

Date variables

Date variables allow you to tailor your emails based on the day on which the email will be sent. Namely, the variable allows you to display a custom text, number, or date dynamically depending on the date your email will be sent.

As a result, using dynamic Date variables, you can either wish a prospect a productive week if your email goes out on Monday or apologize for disturbing a prospect on the weekend if it is sent on Saturday.

You can also use Date variables to talk about the specific time in your emails, for example:

We are planning a lot of updates in {{now_month}} → We are planning a lot of updates in September.

I’ll get back to you on {{days_from_now 2}} → I’ll get back to you on Thursday.

Date variables also allow you to include a tailored greeting to your emails. For example, Have a nice {{day_of_week}}! → Have a nice Wednesday!

As a result, a more complex example of the email template using dynamic Date variables can look like this:

Do you have 10-15 minutes for a quick chat {{#if is_monday}}today or this Tuesday{{/if}}{{#if is_tuesday}}today or this Wedesdгay{{/if}}{{#if is_wednesday}}today or on Friday{{/if}}{{#if is_thursday}}today or tomorrow{{/if}}{{#if is_friday}}later today or early next week{{/if}}{{#if is_weekend}}early next week{{/if}}?

Conditional variables

Conditional variables can be used to tailor your email templates based on specific conditions that should be presented in the “if/else” format.

Here’s an example to show how it works.

{{#if Phone}} Can I call you on this phone number {{Phone}} to discuss details? {{else}} Btw, what is your phone number? {{/if}}

In this template, we’re using the conditional variable that is based on whether the prospect profile includes a phone number or not.

This means the prospects with a valid phone number will see the “Can I call you?” message while the rest will automatically get the “what phone number can I reach out at?” email.

The same approach can be applied to practically any condition you can think of, for example:

Recipient’s title – {{#if Title == ‘Marketing Director’}} We have an offer for you! {{else}} It may be interesting to you. {{/if}}
Number of opens – {{#if Opens >5}} I see you are interested in our product. {{else}} Check out our new product! {{/if}}

Fallback variables

If you don’t have enough data about some contacts, Fallback variables come in handy – allowing you to replace the missing info with another text or variable.

For example, in case there’s no first name specified in your contacts, the variable will replace it with the specified word.

As s result, the greeting using this variable “Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}}” will be displayed as “Hi Mark!” or “Hi there!”

You can also use the prospect’s last name if you don’t know their first name and replace the missing company name or industry with “your company” and “your industry” accordingly.

Dynamic and Conditional Variables in action

Now, let’s put our dynamic and conditional variables into action with some proven email templates (that you can steal).

Template 1. Outbound

Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}},

I know you’re very busy as {{Title | ‘a manager’}}, but I’ve been wanting to have a quick chat about bringing [Insert Product or Service] to {{Company | ‘your company’}} because I think it could really help you improve [Insert Sector] and increase [Insert KPI].

Best,
{{Sender.FullName}}

Template 2. Outbound

Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}},

How’s your {{day_of_week}}?

I’m reaching out to you because I noticed on your Linkedin profile that you are working at {{Company}}. Given your role as {{Title | ‘a manager’}}, sounds like you might be interested in [What your Product to Service does].

In short, {{Sender.Company}} has helped other companies in {{Industry | ‘your industry’ }} industry, such as [Company 1] and [Company 2]. Our platform [how you helped those companies].

{{FirstName}}, any thoughts?

Do you have time to connect {{#if is_monday}}today or tomorrow{{/if}}{{#if is_tuesday}}today or this Thursday/Friday{{/if}}{{#if is_wednesday}}today or this Friday{{/if}}{{#if is_thursday}}today or this Friday{{/if}}{{#if is_friday}}today or early next week{{/if}}{{#if is_saturday}}on Monday or Tuesday{{/if}}{{#if is_sunday}}tomorrow or this Tuesday{{/if}}?

Best,
{{Sender.FullName}}

Template 3. Outbound

Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}},

How is your {{today}}?

{{Owner.FirstName}} from {{Sender.Company}} here – [5-7 words what your company does]

I’m here to tell you about a service that helps [Pitch your product or service]. That means {{Company | ‘your company’}} sales team shouldn’t [what pain-point your product or service solves].

Does it make sense for you as {{Title | ‘sales leader’}}?

Best,
{{Sender.FullName}}

Template 4. Inbound

Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}}.

My name is {{Owner.FirstName}} and it is my pleasure to welcome you as our trial user.

I understand you are looking to [what your product to service does]?

If so, you’ve come to the right place. I’d be happy to share some best practices on how to [short product or service pith].

Let’s connect for 10-15 minutes for a quick chat over Zoom here. {{#if Phone}} If so, can I call you on this phone number {{Phone}} to discuss details? {{else}} Btw, what is your phone number? {{/if}}

Thanks in advance.

Best,
{{Sender.FullName}}

Template 5. Recruiting

Hi {{FirstName | ‘there’}}

My name is {{Sender.FirstName}} and I am [Your Title] at {{Sender.Company}}. I found your profile on LinkedIn while looking for the top engineers with software development experience. I was impressed by your background and decided to drop you a note.

You probably don’t often see CEOs reaching out to potential candidates to discuss career opportunities. But our company’s success so far is based on finding the best people and putting them together to work on fun, challenging, and exciting projects. That’s why I focus a lot of my personal time on recruiting the greatest talents for our company.

We might have a position of software engineer to tell you about.

Is it worth a chat some time {{#if is_monday}}later this{{/if}}{{#if is_tuesday}}later this{{/if}}{{#if is_wednesday}}this{{/if}}{{#if is_thursday}}this{{/if}}{{#if is_friday}}today or early next{{/if}}{{#if is_weekend}}early next week{{/if}} week, {{FirstName}}?

Best,
{{Sender.FullName}}

Ready to take the new Variables for a spin?

Now to the fun part – let’s add those variables to your emails!

You can do that in 4 easy steps:

Choose an existing step or create a new email step in your sequence.
In the template creation pop-up, create your template or use an existing one.
Click the Insert Variables button.
Choose the variable type and specific variable from the drop-down menu. The selected variable will be added to your template.

And don’t forget to check how the email will look like to your recipients before hitting ‘Send’. You can do that using Preview mode in the email template editor.

See this article for more information.

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We hope you enjoy these new updates and that this update will give a boost to your outreach efforts helping you build deeper, more personal relationships with your prospects.

Can’t wait to bring you more updates soon!