The short version
Export the Smartlead preset, upload it, put {{video_link}} in the sequence.
No API key, no connection to authorise. The CSV comes out in Smartlead’s column names, including company_name, so the import maps itself.
- Nothing to connect
- Your mailboxes, your warmup, unchanged
- One credit pool across every client
One row, one page
This is what the variable
actually resolves to
Every row in the export carries its own video_link. At send time your sequence swaps {{video_link}}for that lead’s page, and this is the page.
| first_name | company_name | video_link |
|---|---|---|
| Maya | Fernwood | /p/maya-fernwood |
| Tom | Northbeam | /p/tom-northbeam |
| Priya | Otterly | /p/priya-otterly |
Three rows shown. A real export has one per lead, and four more columns.
Maya at Fernwood
Maya, I went through your site this week and made you a short walkthrough of the one thing I'd change first.
For
Maya
Setup
Four steps, once per client
01
Record once per offer
Not once per client and not once per lead. If you run one offer, record one video. If you pitch two genuinely different things, record two. That recording is reused for every lead you ever send it to.
02
Export the Smartlead preset
Pick Smartlead on the campaign export. The file comes out in Smartlead's own column names, including company_name rather than company, so the import needs no renaming.
03
Upload per client campaign
Smartlead keeps campaigns and mailboxes separate, and so should this. Build one Personade campaign per client list, export each one, and upload it to that client's Smartlead campaign.
04
Use the variable in the sequence
Drop {{video_link}} into step one. Smartlead swaps in a different page for every lead as it sends, from whichever mailbox that campaign rotates through.
What is in the file
Smartlead’s column names, not ours
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
email | Who it goes to |
first_name | Also spoken aloud in the video |
company_name | Their company |
website | Their site, if we found it |
linkedin_url | Their profile, if we found it |
video_link | Their page. Map this one as a custom field |
thumbnail_url | Their poster frame, play button baked in |
Worth knowing if you also run Instantly: that tool expects company where this one expects company_name. Pick the right preset and you never have to think about it.
The email
Short, and let the page explain itself
The page opens with their name and company as the headline, so the email does not need to sell the video. It only needs to make clicking feel reasonable.
If you want the thumbnail visible in the body, Personade gives you the HTML. It wraps thumbnail_url in a link and keeps a plain text link underneath, because some clients strip the anchor around a pasted image.
Plain link
Hey {{first_name}}, I made you a short video, it makes sense about five seconds in: {{video_link}}
With the thumbnail
<a href="{{video_link}}">
<img src="{{thumbnail_url}}" width="480"
alt="A video for you" />
</a>
<p><a href="{{video_link}}">Watch the video</a></p>If you run this for clients
Most Smartlead accounts are not one person’s
One recording covers a whole client list
The economics only work because you never film twice. A hundred prospects for one client is one recording and a hundred credits, not a hundred afternoons.
Your face, or your client's
Whoever will actually turn up to the call should be the person on camera. If you sell for the client, that is you. If you sell as the client, record them once and use that.
Deliverability stays where you built it
Personade never sends. Smartlead keeps rotating your warmed mailboxes exactly as it did before, and nothing about your sending setup changes.
There is a longer version of this argument on the agency page, written for winning the client rather than serving them.
Questions people ask about this
Can I run this across several clients from one account?
Yes. Build a separate Personade campaign per client so the analytics stay separate, then export each one into that client's Smartlead campaign. Credits come out of one shared monthly pool, so you do not need a plan per client.
Do the column names match Instantly's?
Almost, but not quite, which is why there are two presets. Smartlead expects company_name where Instantly expects company. Pick the Smartlead preset and the file is already correct; exporting the wrong one means fixing a header by hand.
Does Personade send through my mailboxes?
No. Personade builds the videos and pages and gives you a CSV. Smartlead does all the sending, rotation and warmup exactly as it does today. We are never in the sending chain, so your domain reputation stays yours.
Is the video different per lead, or only the landing page?
The video itself. Personade writes a short opening for each lead, speaks it in your cloned voice, and lip-syncs it onto your real footage. The demo never changes, only the greeting. Some tools personalise a thumbnail and a page around one unchanged video; this is not that.
What happens to leads with no email address?
They are left out of the sending export and counted in the summary, so a campaign never silently ships fewer rows than you expected. The same goes for any lead whose video has not finished rendering yet.
Can I use it on a follow-up step instead of step one?
Yes, and for a cold list it often works better there. Step one earns attention with text, then the video lands on step two as the reason to look again. Same variable, same link, no extra credits.
Running Instantly as well? The same workflow, with its own column names. Or see how the videos get made.
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