Personalization: what we read before we write
A personalized email isn't a template with a first name pasted in. Before writing a single word, HeyLinks reads the page you're reaching out about. Here's exactly what it reads and how that shows up in the draft.
Updated July 15, 2026
What we read on their page
Every prospect in your pipeline is a real page that already links to a competitor of yours. During qualification we gather the material a thoughtful human would notice before writing to its owner:
- The title of their page, so the email can name the actual post instead of saying "your website".
- The exact passage around the competitor's link: the sentence or paragraph where they linked out. This is the heart of the personalization, because it lets the email point at the precise spot where your link belongs.
- What kind of page it is (a blog post, a homepage, and so on), so the ask fits the page.
- The contact's name, when we can find one, so the greeting is "Hey Maya" rather than "Dear site owner".
What comes from your setup
The other half of the email is you. When you set up your project, you tell us the things only you can know, and the generator draws on them for the "why my link belongs here" part:
- Their page title
- The passage around the competitor's link
- The page type
- Their name, when found
- What your site does
- Your one-liner
- Your story (why you built it)
- Optional stats worth mentioning
Each email is written from scratch out of both halves. It is not a fill-in-the-blanks template, which is why two drafts to two different sites never read the same.
An annotated example
Say you run retroarcadefinder.com, a directory of retro arcades, and one of your prospects is a Portland blogger whose post links to a rival directory. The tags on the right show where each line came from:
Notice the shape: the first half proves the sender actually read her post, and the second half is your story and your ask, in your voice.
The ground rules
Three rules hold for every draft, no matter the site:
- It only quotes what is actually there. The email points at real words on their real page. It never claims to have read something it didn't.
- One small ask. Add the link. That's the whole request. No bundles, no "while you're at it". If you've set a budget per link, the email can name it as a thank-you.
- No fake flattery. No "I'm a huge fan of your amazing content". The compliment, if any, is specific and earned, because generic praise is the fastest way to read as spam.
The quality gate
Before any draft reaches you, it passes through a quality gate: a strict check for banned spammy words, made-up claims, and the wrong links. In the rare case a draft fails, HeyLinks quietly falls back to a clean, ready-made template instead, so nothing broken ever reaches your Draft emails page, let alone an inbox.