What is Spintax?

The biggest problem with mass email outreach is, to be honest, the mass. 

Even if you follow all the best practices like avoiding spam words and crafting value-laden subject lines, email service providers (ESP) don’t like seeing the same exact message sent to hundreds of addresses.

One technique to quickly and easily overcome this challenge is Spin Syntax – Spintax for short.

What is Spintax?

Spintax, also known as “spinning syntax” or “spin syntax”, is a clever way for marking up emails by providing alternative word choices. You can then feed the email template into an email tool like AiSDR.

The software will then mix and match the variations to create unique emails that won’t set off spam detectors.

Spintax example

If that sounded confusing, here’s an example. 

Let’s say you want to tell your customers about your company’s new blog. You might write use Spintax to create an email template that looks like this:

Your email tool will read the word options you provide and use them to each email so that it’s unique. The more options you give, the more unique every email becomes.

No more tailoring multiple templates. Just craft one email, mark it up with alternative phrasing, and voila! Cool, isn’t it? 

How does Spintax work?

In most cases, you implement Spintax by using curly brackets {} to group synonyms or alternative phrases. Each word or phrase is then separated by a vertical bar |. 

However, the exact syntax you use will depend on how your email tool supports it, but here’s the main idea:

1. Write “{spin}” or add an open curly bracket before the synonyms you want to use.
2. Add your synonyms separated by a vertical bar “|” (e.g. {significant | substantial | big} ). 
3. Write “{endspin}” or add a closing curly bracket when you’re done listing synonyms.

You’re not limited to single words. You can even use phrases, such as {How are you? | What’s up? | How’s the weather?}. 

Once you’ve created your Spintax template, you’ll be able to whip up dozens of relatively unique emails with one click.

Why is Spintax useful for outreach?

Although Spintax isn’t as effective at converting as high-level personalization, it still comes with its fair share of benefits for cold outreach.

Higher email uniqueness

Email servers can be pretty strict about seeing too many similar messages in a short time. If they do, your deliverability can take a hit as they’ll see it as spam.

Spintax helps you create unique versions of your emails, keeping them fresh and avoiding spam filters. You can even use Spintax to simplify and ease the headache of manually warming up a mailbox.

Efficiency

Why spend hours writing unique emails from scratch or sifting through mediocre templates when you can use Spintax to leverage one fantastic template? 

One Spintax email lets you generate dozens of unique messages from a single template. It’s a huge time-saver that lets you focus on other high-value work.

Consistent tone and messaging

Using Spintax helps maintain a consistent tone and messaging in your communication. Since you already have many versions of the same message, you can be certain your emails adhere to your company’s tone of voice and wording.

A/B testing

Spintax can also help you with A/B email testing. Since every Spintax template contains 3-4 different options, you can easily track and see which wording and style seems to resonate most with your audience, allowing you to double down on words that work.

Enhanced creativity

Experimenting with different phrases and sentence structures using Spintax can spark creativity. It encourages you to think of various ways to convey your message, which can lead to more engaging and compelling content.

Guardrails for AI email writers

AI has a tendency of overusing certain words. Spintax allows you to clearly state which words you find acceptable, which would give AI a clearer picture of what you want written. 

After all, since you’re already uploading an email template for AI to base its writing on, why not mark it up with words you want? 

How to use Spintax

Now that you’ve got an idea about how Spintax works, it’s time to roll up your sleeves, grab a Starbucks, and get started on your ‘Spintaxed’ email template.

Check if your email tool supports Spintax

Not all email tools support or have a Spintax feature, so it’s better to double-check with the provider to confirm that the tool will understand it. Otherwise, your leads will receive some very odd-looking messages.

Write your base email content

Here’s the easy part: Proceed like you’d normally do when drafting an email. 

Settle on a goal, and then simply write the email like you would normally write it. Or you can pick your favorite template if you have one.

Just make sure that the email will have value for your audience.

Identify keywords and phrases

Keywords help you create eye-catching and relevant subject lines that boost your open rate. 

They also ensure leads can easily find your email among hundreds of others in their inbox when necessary. So make sure to add them to the base text before inserting any Spintax. This guarantees they’ll be in every email. 

Insert your Spintax variations 

Now, it’s time to insert your alternative words and phrases. 

You can put them in all the key places, but make sure you don’t accidentally break sentences, which is probably the biggest trap. 

Usually, sales and marketing specialists use variations for the:

• Greeting
• Introduction
• Key features
• CTA
• Signature

Still, you’re not limited to these options. Just walk through the different Spintax options to check that all variations flow normally.

You wouldn’t want broken language, would you? 😅 

Check the output quality

Building on the previous point, make sure your Spintax works as intended. 

One missed vertical bar or bracket can result in gibberish emails going to leads. If a sentence sounds awkward, doesn’t fit, or has content that’s not supposed to be there, tweak your Spintax until it’s fixed.

Measure success

Track email metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and response rates to see what’s working and what needs tweaking in your Spintax. This helps you refine your Spintax so that leads receive better emails and are more likely to engage.

Spintax mistakes to watch out for

Spintax is a simple technical approach that yields big benefits. To get the most out of it, here are some best practices. 

Avoid over-spinning

First things first, don’t go overboard with Spintax! 

While it’s tempting to create as many variations as possible, over-spinning can cause your content to sound unnatural and weird. (Think Joey from Friends when he used a thesaurus.)

Stick to a reasonable number of variations to keep your text sounding human.

Use options with the same tone of voice and style

When selecting synonyms, make sure they match the tone and style of your original content. 

If your writing is casual and friendly, keep it that way with your synonym choices. 

For example, if you’re saying “awesome,” stick to similar words like “great” or “fantastic” instead of “commendable” or “satisfactory.” Otherwise, you might end up with terms like “commendable vibe.” 

Avoid overusing synonyms

While you’ve probably heard of “strong rain” and “strong wind”, have you ever heard of “strong snow”?

Don’t stuff too many synonyms into a single sentence as you’ll increase the risk of words not collocating. Instead, focus on a few keywords or phrases to spin to keep your text clear and engaging.