A message that uses what you know about someone reads as written for them. Variables are how you do that without writing it individually.
In the editor, insert a variable and pick what it should stand for. The list isn't fixed — it's built from your own contact attributes, so anything you store about a customer can be used. Your project's name is available too.
That means the more you identify your users with, the more you can personalise. It also means the variables available reflect your own setup, not a generic list.
Each variable can carry a fallback, used when that contact has no value. Set it every time.
Write the fallback so the sentence still works: “Hi there” rather than “Hi [name]”. And prefer a first name over a full one — “Hi Anna Schmidt” reads like a database, not a person.
Links can carry them too, which is how you send someone to their own page rather than to a generic one — their dashboard, their invoice, their settings. The link is built per recipient when the message goes out.
Test that with a real contact before sending. A link with an empty variable in the middle of it produces a URL that looks plausible and leads nowhere, and nobody reports a broken link — they just don't click the next one.
A first name and something genuinely specific is plenty. Messages that recite everything you know — name, company, plan, signup date — read as surveillance rather than service, and the effect is the opposite of the one intended.
The useful test: would you say this sentence to the person if they were standing there? “Hi Anna, you're on the Pro plan since March” fails it.
