Dynamic Fields (Variables & Data Types)
A variable in TexAu is similar to a dynamic field (also called sometimes custom attribute) in email marketing software to personalize your messages and much more.
For example, you can use TexAu to extract prospects' first name, last name, email address, or any publicly available personal details from their social media profile. Those are datapoints you can reuse everywhere in your automation.
You can use those custom attributes to generate dynamic content and create personalized experiences.
The goal is to serve relevant content tailored to your target user.
Not only can you generate dynamic content from variables, but you can also build a workflow automation sequence from those. That way, chaining variables in common between automation modules can form a workflow.
In short, TexAu collects data in each automation that you can use as the start of the next automation.
By definition, static content does not change over time. On the other hand, dynamic content (also called adaptive content) varies depending on the profile processed in TexAu.
Database-driven personalization plays a role in increasing conversion rates and decreasing bounce rates in your marketing campaigns.
You can generate dynamic content from data such as:
- a list of profiles, companies, website domains
- a Search URL on social media
- a CSV list from your CRM
- a Google Sheet
- a Form (Google Form, Typeform, etc.)
You can then reuse this data in TexAu as dynamic fields to personalize your outreach campaign. For example, it could be things like:
- Landing Pages: HTML code personalization via URL parameters, dynamic keyword insertion from ads.
- Dynamic Email Campaigns
- Personalized Messages: similarly, you would do a mail merge in google sheets.
- Image Personalization: generate dynamic text in an image
You can think of dynamic content like how Netflix or Amazon uses your data to personalize product recommendations. You can do the same in your campaigns based on the profile data you collect with TexAu.
There are three types of variables in TexAu:
- Platform variables
- Local variables
- Global variables
Platform Variables are the most common. This type of variable derive from all the platforms we support, like social media networks or websites:
Those variables can be:
- Characters and Strings (letters, and text): profile name, company name, etc
- Numeric data type (numbers): followers, likes, comments, page numbers, etc
- Floating-point data type (decimals)
- Boolean type (conditional routing and filtering)
Those variables are colored and show the platform logo they represent.
Local Variables are dynamic fields only available in the workflow where you created them.
You can use these Local Variables for various purposes:
- Linking to Google Sheet columns as input
- Linking to an attachment or webpage using a link shortener or direct link to the page
- Adding cookies
You can create a local variable in two ways:
- From the variable upper menu:
- From the "insert variable" modal in the automation module settings:
At the very end, when launching your workflows from Google Sheet, you will map that local variable to the Sheet column containing the data you want to process.
Let the "variable value" field empty when mapping your local variable to a Google Sheet or CSV data column. That's because we will take this value directly from the Sheet column itself.
Last, don't forget to set your Google Sheet permission as "viewer" (to read the sheet) or "editor" if you also want to write data on the sheet later (data enrichment).
For CSV, the process is similar: upload your CSV file, map the local variable and run.
Global variables are variables you can access from everywhere across TexAu.
That means you can use these variables in all your automation.
They mainly serve to integrate with other platforms by storing API Keys.
They can also store cookies, avoiding the need to add them one by one into all modules of a workflow constantly.
There are also two ways you can add these Global Variables.
Here is an example here with Hunter integration:
Example: Adding a Global Variable from the "Insert Variable" modal:
Ex 2: Adding Global Variables from your account preferences' "Variables" section:
Finally, you can also create and insert Global Variables in single automation too:
That way, you can reuse your API key everywhere in TexAu without the need to go back end forth to add them again and again. Handy!
In TexAu, all the variables labeling uses a naming convention called "Camel Case".
The name "variable" in TexAu comes from computer programming languages. Don't freak out! You don't need to code to understand what will follow. 😅
In short, that's a programming convention. 4 types of string cases exist:
- camelCase: the following word starts with an upper case letter
- PascalCase (like TexAu): both words start with upper case letter
- snake_case (Most email marketing software for custom fields)
- kebab-case
With camelCase, the first word is always lower case. Consecutive words have their first letter capitalized, with no space in between.
The majority of software use "snake case" instead, like the {{first_name}} variable present in most email marketing tools.
Exiting topic, right? If you don't know, now you know.
In automation workflows, understanding the type of variables you are dealing with is fundamental to linking automaton modules together and building an automation workflow.
The following are the primary type you will encounter. Some are labeled differently depending on the social network you are automating. Those will be standardized in a unified system later on.
These variables can define a target profile, profile friends, or followers on a social network.
- profileUrl
- firstName
- lastName
- fullName
- companyName
- jobTitle
- profilePicture
- birthDate
- companyUrl
- pageUrl
- link
- mapLink
These variables can define a company, institution, business page on social media, or a public business directory.
- postUrl
- hashtag
- textContent
- description
- imageUrl
- postDate
- website
- domain
- companyDomain
- companyWebsite
- url (supports Unicode characters and URL parameters)
- email
- verified
- phone
- followersCount
- followingCount
- followers
- likeCount
- commentCount
