How Spintax and Liquid Syntax Supercharge Cold Emails 

In a world where inboxes are flooded with cold emails, the difference between ignored and engaged often comes down to one thing: personalization.

But personalization doesn’t mean manually writing each message. That’s where spintax and Liquid syntax come in—two powerful tools that let you send messages that feel personal without burning hours on every campaign.

In this article, we’ll walk through what these syntaxes are, how they work, and show real data and examples of how they can dramatically improve your cold outbound results.

What Is Spintax?

Spintax stands for "spinning syntax." It’s a format that allows you to insert multiple variations of a word, phrase, or sentence in a single template, which your sending tool can then randomly choose from. This is done using curly braces and pipe characters:

{Hi|Hey|Hello} there, {{first_name}}!

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That line can generate:

• Hi there, John!
  
  
• Hello there, Sarah!
  
  
• Hey there, Alex!
  
  

Why use it? Because sending the exact same email 1000 times increases your risk of getting flagged as spam. Spintax makes each email slightly different without sacrificing message clarity—keeping both algorithms and recipients engaged. You should use 2-3 spintax variations in every email to reduce your spam footprint.

Technical Note: Most cold email platforms parse spintax at the point of sending. If you’re using SuperSend, you can simply write {Hi|Hey|Hello} in the body, and we’ll randomly select one of the options for each recipient.

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Example 1:

{Hi|Hello|Hey} {{first_name}},

Just wanted to {follow up|check in|circle back} on my last note.

Can produce:

• Hi Sarah, Just wanted to check in on my last note.
  
  
• Hello Mike, Just wanted to follow up on my last note.
  
  
• Hey Julie, Just wanted to circle back on my last note.
  
  

Example 2:

We're {helping|working with|partnering with} companies like {{company_name}} to {automate workflows|streamline outbound|boost reply rates}.

Can produce:

• We're helping companies like Acme Inc to streamline outbound.
  
  
• We're working with companies like Beta Corp to automate workflows.
  
  

Spintax helps keep your outreach feeling fresh—even at scale.

What Is Liquid Syntax?

Liquid syntax is a powerful templating language that lets you insert logic into your emails. It supports conditional statements, loops, fallbacks, and more. Think of it as smart mail-merge on steroids.

Use Case: You want your email to adapt based on each recipient's job title, industry, or any custom field in your lead list.

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Example 1 (Conditional Subject Line):

{% if job_title == "CEO" %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, let's talk about scaling your business.

{% elsif job_title == "Marketing Manager" %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, let's boost your campaigns.

{% else %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, quick idea for you.

{% endif %}

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This ensures your subject lines speak directly to your lead's role.

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Example 2 (Personalized Body Copy):

{% if industry == "finance" %}

We've helped fintech teams automate investor outreach and improve compliance tracking.

{% elsif industry == "SaaS" %}

We work with SaaS companies to reduce onboarding time by up to 40%.

{% else %}

We're helping fast-growing teams streamline their outreach.

{% endif %}

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SmartReach.io and Lemlist both use Liquid-style personalization to change subject lines and messaging based on job titles, industries, and even product usage.

Technical Note: Liquid works off of variables in your contact list—like job_title, industry, or custom_field_1. At SuperSend, you can use any column in your lead sheet as a variable in your Liquid syntax.

Real Stats: Personalization Pays Off

Here’s what the data says about personalized emails:

• +26% open rate with personalized subject lines (Campaign Monitor)
  
  
• 6x higher transaction rates for personalized emails (Experian)
  
  
• 57% more opens & 82% more replies with dynamic personalization (Hunter.io via Mailtrap)
  
  
• Lemlist campaign: 111 replies from a single hyper-personalized email campaign
  
  

"Simple first-name merge tags don’t cut it anymore. Liquid syntax and spintax let you scale true personalization." — Lemlist Blog, 2025

Before & After: What It Looks Like

Before (generic email):

Hi {{first_name}},

I thought you might be interested in our tool that helps companies save time.

Want to book a call?

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After (spintax + Liquid):

{Hi|Hey|Hello} {{first_name}},

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{% if industry == "finance" %}

I saw you’re in finance—we've helped other banks and funds streamline deal flow and improve investor communication.

{% elsif industry == "real estate" %}

I noticed you're in real estate—we help firms improve response rates on cold investor outreach.

{% else %}

We work with ambitious teams to cut cold outreach time in half.

{% endif %}

{Open to a quick chat?|Does that sound useful?|Curious to hear your thoughts?}

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Another Before (generic subject):

Subject: Quick question for you

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After (dynamic subject line):

{% if job_title contains "VP" %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, here's something for your GTM playbook

{% elsif job_title contains "Founder" %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, are you still scaling outbound?

{% else %}

Subject: {{first_name}}, quick idea for your team

{% endif %}

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How SuperSend Supports It

At SuperSend.io, we built support for both spintax and Liquid syntax into our platform from day one:

• ✅ Use spintax ({Hi|Hello|Hey}) to randomize greetings, sentences, CTAs
  
  
• ✅ Use Liquid ({% if %} logic) to conditionally change subject lines, body text, and more
  
  
• ✅ Preview all variations before sending
  
  
• ✅ Combine with fallback values to avoid blank fields (e.g., {{first_name | default: "there"}})
  
  

Whether you’re sending 10 emails or 10,000, you can keep things personal at scale.

Final Tips

• Don’t overdo it: 2–3 spintax chunks per message is plenty
  
  
• Use Liquid conditionals for segments (title, industry, persona)
  
  
• Always preview your emails to catch syntax issues
  
  
• Use fallback values to avoid merge fails
  
  
• Pair with AI (like ChatGPT) to brainstorm spintax and Liquid variations
  
  
• Track reply rates by segment to fine-tune your personalization logic
  
  

TL;DR

If you're doing cold outbound and not using spintax or Liquid syntax, you're leaving replies (and revenue) on the table. These tools help you:

• Bypass spam filters
  
  
• Improve engagement metrics
  
  
• Personalize at scale without writing every message manually
  
  

Want to try it out? Start a campaign with SuperSend today.