Using custom variables allows you to personalize the content of your candidate campaigns at scale. It is similar to using mail merge functionality you may be familiar with from other tools. In a recent research piece, we found that higher levels of personalization resulted in higher response rates - so the more customized your campaigns are, the better.
How to Create a Custom Variable
Custom variables are created from short text custom fields in your CRM database. Therefore, to build a custom variable, all you need to do is create a free text custom field. Adding a new custom field to your CRM can only be done by users who have Super Admin permissions.
1. Navigate to Settings and select Custom Fields on the left side panel.
2. Click the Create Custom Field button on the top right side on the screen to open the Create Custom Field modal. In the modal you will see the following fields:
- Field name: select a name for your custom field
- Assign to folder: categorize this custom field with other related custom fields
- User permissions: select which user permission levels will have access to view and edit this field
- Type: choose the short text option
You must populate the field name, user permissions and custom field Type in order to proceed.
3. Once you have entered the required information and selected Short text for the Type option, click Save. Your new field will be available for use in your People Grid, as well as on candidate profiles within the Custom Fields tab.
How to Add Custom Variables to a Campaign
Variables are candidate data points pulled from the candidate profile and added into campaigns to personalize each communication.
Standard variables that are offered in all campaigns include first and last name, company, title, primary email, university, or degree.
1. To add a custom variable into a Campaign message, navigate to the Campaign editor, add a text block to your email draft. In the available editing options, click on Merge Tags.
2. On the variables menu, select the custom field that you're looking for. These will include all standard fields as well as custom fields.
3. Once selected, you will see the variable appear in your campaign message with the option of adding in a fallback option - which will be used in case there is no relevant data for that candidate in your CRM. Simply type in a fallback option within the fallback speech marks fallback="[here]"%
e.g. a fallback you could create for the "Seniority" custom field could be fallback="experienced"%
4. The custom variable will now automatically pull the corresponding information from the candidate's profile into that data field for each recipient of this campaign message, to create a more personalized experience.
Previewing Campaign Variables
We recommend that users preview or send a test email before launching the campaign. Simply click on the Send test button to send a test of your message to yourself for review.
Note: when previewing a variable in a campaign, the fallback will always populate or will pull in the first name in the filtered list.