Definition
Snippet
A placeholder like {{first_name}} in a template, replaced for each recipient with data from their record, with a fallback if empty.
A snippet is a variable inside an email template. When the message is generated for a particular prospect, the snippet is replaced by that prospect’s value: their first name, their company, their city, or any custom field you imported. A fallback is the text used when the value is empty, so that “Hi {{first_name}}” does not go out as “Hi “ when the name is missing.
Snippets matter because they are the mechanism behind every personalised cold email sent at any scale. Used well, they let a sequence mention the reader’s plant, product line or region as naturally as a hand-written note. Used badly, they produce the tell-tale signs of automation: a lower-case company name, a greeting with the placeholder still showing, or a sentence that only works grammatically when the field is filled. The discipline is to check the data before the send, to write fallbacks that read as full sentences, and to prefer fields that carry real meaning over cosmetic ones.
In Seegnals snippets take the {{field}} form and draw on standard and custom fields from your CSV, with fallbacks. Renaming a custom field updates every sequence that uses it. Before the first send, prospects missing a field that a snippet needs are held in the To check queue, where you fill in the gap or skip them.