You know things about your leads that no web search will find: how you met, what they said last time, which tool they use, the demo link you built for them. Up to 12 extra columns in your CSV can feed that into research and drafting, so the email starts from what you know.
Why use your own columns
Web research finds what's public. Your own notes find what's personal, and they land more often: a note you wrote about a lead is always about the right person. They're cheaper too. Reading a notes cell costs 1 credit, where a web research target costs 5 per company.
Required and recognised columns
| Campaign | Required | Also recognised |
|---|---|---|
first_name, company, email | last_name, title, company website (a website, domain or url column), linkedin_url, phone, industry | |
linkedin_url | Names, company, company website, title and email |
Headers don't need to match exactly: "First Name", "fname" and "Work Email" are mapped for you, and you can correct the mapping by hand. A file can be up to 10 MB, and each drafting run takes up to 500 rows. Everything else in the file is an extra column you can use.
Step by step
- Prepare the fileKeep
first_name,companyandemail, then add your extra columns with clear headers and one value per cell. - Upload and mapUpload the CSV. On Review data, check that Field mapping has the required fields.
- Turn on your columnsUnder Use your other columns, switch on up to 12 columns.
- Choose how each column is usedPick Research it, Background context, Branch the pitch or Insert it in the email, and add an instruction if you want to steer it.
- Check the sampleOn Approve sample, confirm each column shows up the way you meant before drafting the whole list.
- Export with your columnsOn the export screen, keep Include the columns you mapped ticked so your columns come back out.
The Use your other columns panel
On the Review data step, below Field mapping, Use your other columns lists every column that isn't mapped to a standard field. Each row shows the header, how many rows are filled (for example "312/500 filled"), a couple of sample values, and the kind of data SimpleSend detected:
- link: the values are mostly URLs.
- label: a handful of short values that repeat, such as a tool name or a tier.
- text: anything else, usually free-text notes.
Click the dot next to a column to turn it on. That alone is a complete setup: a text column becomes background context about the lead, a link column is passed to the drafter as a page you pointed to, and a label column becomes something to branch the pitch on. Values such as "n/a", "none", "-" or "TBD" count as blank. You can turn on up to 12; at the limit, turn one off to use another.
Four ways to use a column
Once a column is on, Use it for decides what it does. The detected kind picks the default, and you can change it.
Research it
SimpleSend reads the cell against your brief. On a link column, the link reaches the drafter as a page you pointed to (a podcast episode they appeared on, a case study, a talk); on email campaigns SimpleSend doesn't open the page itself yet, while drafted LinkedIn campaigns do read it. On a text column, it pulls hooks and context from the note. Fresh web research still leads the message unless you change the priority (see More options).
Background context
The default for text columns. The note is read as context about the lead (how you know them, how they felt, what they asked) and shapes the opening, but it isn't treated as the hook. Use it for CRM notes, meeting notes and anything you'd tell a colleague before they wrote to this person.
Branch the pitch
The default for label columns: "if the cell says X, pitch Y". Click + Add a branch and write a rule per value, for example "If Spreadsheets, lead with the hours saved on manual reporting". The values in your file are suggested as you type. Leads whose value matches no branch fall back to your value props.
Insert it in the email
The value goes into the email exactly as written, with no research. Choose where it goes under Put it:
- As the call-to-action link (the default): the cell becomes this lead's CTA link, such as a personal demo page.
- Only where I put the token: paste the token shown, such as
{{demo_link}}, into one of your brief's templates, and the value replaces it. - Wherever it reads best: the drafter places it.
Which emails is First only by default, because the same link in every email reads as automated; switch to All if you need it. Leads with an empty cell get the sentence without it, never a broken link.
More options
| Option | Choices |
|---|---|
| Priority | Fresh research leads (recommended), Always open on this, or Never open on this. |
| If the cell is empty | Research the web instead (the default), or Skip it for that lead. |
| Can we mention it? | For text columns: Decide per note (recommended), Yes, it's safe to reference, or internal notes only. |
On Decide per note, SimpleSend works out which facts are safe to say to the recipient and which are for your eyes only, and anything private is checked against every draft before you see it. Under each column, a line tells you what happens to blank rows, such as "88 blank → those leads draft exactly as they would today".
What it costs
| Use it for | Credits |
|---|---|
| Research it, on a text column | 1 per lead with a value |
| Research it, on a link column | 0 on email campaigns; from 3 per lead on drafted LinkedIn campaigns |
| Background context | 1 per lead with a value |
| Branch the pitch | 0 on email campaigns |
| Insert it in the email | 0 |
Blank cells cost nothing, and a link that can't be fetched costs nothing either. Compare that with a web research target at 5 credits per company.
Examples
| Column | Sample value | Use it for | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
how_we_met | Joined our May webinar; asked how pricing works for 20 seats | Background context | The email opens as a follow-up to the webinar, not a cold intro. |
podcast_episode | https://example.com/podcast/ep-42 | Research it | Researched against your brief for a point worth mentioning. |
current_tool | Spreadsheets | Branch the pitch | "If Spreadsheets, lead with hours saved; if Acme CRM, lead with the native sync." |
demo_link | https://example.com/demo/northwind | Insert it in the email | Becomes this lead's call-to-action link in the first email. |
interested??
follow up
Columns in the brief and saved briefs
The columns you turn on appear in the Brief step as research targets, under What to look for. Each one has a Source: Research the web, A column or Both. A column entry reads the column; Both reads the column when it's filled and researches the web when it isn't. You can also add a column-based entry straight from the brief.
Saved briefs remember columns by name. Load one with a new file and its entries bind to a column with the same header, even if the columns are in a different order. If the file has no matching column, the entry is flagged so you can pick the right one; otherwise it falls back to web research.
Getting your columns back out
On the export screen, Include the columns you mapped is ticked by default and lists the columns it will add. Each comes out under a snake_case version of its header ("How We Met" becomes how_we_met), after first_name, last_name, company, email and title and before step_1_subject.
Columns in a sequence
Importing a CSV straight into a sequence works differently. On a sequence's Leads tab, every extra column becomes a merge tag such as {{current_tool}} (the 12 best-filled are ticked by default), inserted as written with no research. Columns named like step_1_subject and step_1_body become each lead's own wording for that step. See Launch Your First Sequence.
For cleaning the file before any of this, see Email List Formatting and Data Hygiene.