Custom variables and updating them mid-campaign

Draft — written from product facts + domain knowledge; UI labels to be verified before publishing.

Custom variables are lead fields you define yourself: anything beyond the standard first name, last name, company, title and email. Typical examples are a one-line personalised opener, a pain point, the prospect's tech stack or a case-study link. Any column you upload with your contacts becomes a variable you can insert with Variables in the editor. This article covers how to create them, how to use them, and how to change their values after a campaign is already running.

Prerequisites

• A CSV where each custom field is its own column with a clear header (for example opener, pain_point, case_study_url).
• Values filled for every row, or a fallback planned for empty cells.

Steps

Create custom variables at upload

1. Go to Contacts → Upload Contacts and drag in your CSV.
2. Assign the contacts to a list (or create one) and choose how to handle duplicates: skip or merge.
3. On the column-mapping screen, map standard columns (email, first name, company). For each extra column, map it to a new custom field with the same name as the header.
4. Click Save and Continue.

Use them in a sequence

1. Open the campaign, select the step and click Variables.
2. Custom fields appear alongside the lead fields. Insert the one you want, for example {{opener}}.
3. Click Preview and page through two or three contacts to check the values read well in context.
4. Click Save.

Update values mid-campaign

1. Fix the values in your CSV (keep the email column unchanged, as that is the match key).
2. Go to Contacts → Upload Contacts, upload the corrected file into the same list and choose merge for duplicates. Merged fields overwrite the old values; contacts keep their place in the sequence.
3. To change a single contact, open it from the campaign's Contacts tab and edit the field directly.
4. Emails already sent are unchanged. Steps not yet sent use the new value at send time.

Tips

• Never leave a custom field blank. Either fill every row or write the copy so the sentence still works when the variable is empty, and use a fallback value.
• Keep custom values short (under 15 words) and lower-case unless they are proper nouns. They are dropped into the middle of your sentences.
• Write personalised openers as a complete clause ("saw you just opened a Berlin office") so the template can be "Hi {{first_name}}, {{opener}} — ...".
• Use one variable for the case study URL rather than pasting links into copy; you can then swap the link for all remaining sends with one merge upload.
• Test with a CSV of three internal addresses before uploading a thousand rows.

Troubleshooting

• The variable is not in the Variables list — the column was not mapped at upload, or was mapped to a standard field. Re-upload with merge and map it as a custom field.
• Raw {{tag}} in a sent email — the contact had no value and no fallback. Add the value and it will render correctly in later steps.
• Merge created duplicates instead of updating — the email column in the new file did not match exactly (extra whitespace, different case). Normalise the emails and re-upload.

Related articles

• Personalisation variables: lead, sender and context fields
• Upload contacts to OutreachFox
• Add leads to an existing campaign
• Spintext: randomise phrases so no two emails are identical