# How do I personalise every email with the AI opener?

> Put the ai_opener tag at the top of your email. Warmerly writes a one or two sentence opening line per lead from your campaign brief and the lead's website.

Source: https://warmerly.com/docs/help/ai-opener

Put the tag `{{ai_opener}}` where the first line of your email should go, for example on its own line right after the greeting. When the email sends, Warmerly writes a short opening line for that specific lead, based on your campaign brief and a summary of the lead's website. You keep the rest of your copy and your call to action exactly as you wrote them. Each opener uses one AI credit.

The opener is one or two sentences with no greeting and no call to action. Warmerly avoids the usual cold-email giveaways such as "I noticed" and "hope this finds you well", and does not open with compliments about the recipient's work.

## What it needs

The Sequence tab shows a small checklist under the editor as soon as a step uses the tag. Each row links to where you fix it:

1. **A campaign brief.** Open the campaign's **Settings** tab and fill in **Personalisation brief**: **Who you are (sender context)**, **What you pitch / core value**, **Your ideal customer (ICP)** and, optionally, **Tone**. Save it. The row's link is **Write it**.
2. **Research on the leads.** Warmerly reads each lead's website and keeps a short summary. On the **Audience** tab, the **AI research** panel shows how many leads are researched. Click **Generate** to research the leads that need it, or **Regenerate all** to redo them. You can open the **Review** list under the panel to read and edit what it found. Any lead not researched yet is researched at send time. The row's link is **Run it now**.
3. **Credits.** One AI credit per personalised email. The row's link is **Top up**, which goes to **Settings > Usage & limits**. Allowances per plan are in [Plans and limits](https://warmerly.com/docs/plans-and-limits).

## Steps

1. On the **Sequence** tab, click **Insert variable** and choose `ai_opener`, or type `{{ai_opener}}` on its own line after your greeting.
2. Write the brief (Settings tab), then run the research (Audience tab).
3. Use **Preview** on the step and pick a lead to see a sample opener. Preview writes a real opener and can use a credit each time you click it. It is representative, not the exact words a recipient will get, because the sent email is always written fresh.
4. Launch the campaign.

## Which website does it read?

The website at the domain of the lead's email address, unless the lead has an explicit research URL. That matters when the email domain is not the business's site: a lead on a shared hosting address would be researched against the wrong site, and a lead on a free personal email provider has no site to research, so it cannot be personalised and is skipped. Leads added through the API can carry an explicit research URL (see the [Campaigns API](https://warmerly.com/docs/campaigns)). For imports, check whether the import screen offers a Website column to map. Summaries are kept for 30 days.

## What happens when the opener cannot be written

Warmerly will not send an email that should have had a personal opening line and does not, because it would open on a blank line with no personalisation, which is worse than no email. So:

| Problem | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| The lead's website cannot be read (some sites block automated visits, roughly 5% of a typical list) | That lead is marked **Skipped**. Everyone else carries on. |
| No campaign brief, no credits left, or the AI service is unavailable | Sending for the whole campaign is held. Leads stay queued and nothing is lost. When you fix the cause (write the brief, top up credits), sending resumes by itself. |
| The AI leaves a fill-in-the-blank placeholder such as "[Tool Name]" | That opener is thrown away, and the credit is refunded. |

If no opener is generated, the credit is refunded.

## The launch check

Starting a campaign that uses `{{ai_opener}}` runs extra checks:

- **No brief** blocks the launch. Fix it on the Settings tab.
- **More than 20% of your queued leads have no research** shows a warning you can accept.
- **A live test of the AI service** runs when you press Start, and blocks the launch if the service is not answering. It uses a negligible amount of AI usage.

## Upcoming emails in the conversation view

When you open a lead's conversation on the Audience tab, upcoming emails that use the tag show the marker "written when this actually sends". They never spend a credit just for being looked at.

## Common problems

**Leads are Skipped.** Their sites could not be researched. Set a research URL or remove them.

**Sending is held and nothing goes out.** Check the three rows under the sequence editor: the brief, the research and the credits.

**The opener sounds generic.** Sharpen the brief and the tone field, then review the summaries for the leads in question and edit any that are wrong.

## Related

- [Merge tags and custom variables](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/merge-tags)
- [How do I write an email sequence?](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/email-sequences)
- [Campaign audience and the lead conversation view](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/campaign-audience)

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