Templates vs the smart generator
Every draft in HeyLinks comes from one of two places: the smart generator, which writes from scratch, or a template. Here's when each is used and how to control which one you get.
Updated July 15, 2026
The two ways a draft gets written
The smart generator writes each email from scratch for the specific page: it reads the page's title, the passage around the competitor's link, and the page type, combines that with your project setup, and produces a one-of-a-kind draft. A template is a pre-written email with your project's details filled in: the same proven structure every time, personalized with the basics.
- Written from scratch per page
- Quotes something real on their page
- Every draft reads differently
- The default for most prospects
- Needs the page details from qualification
- A structure you chose, filled in consistently
- Predictable: you know exactly what it says
- Works even without page details
- Pick one manually, or let HeyLinks fall back to one
- Around 10 built in, plus any you write
When each one is used
The generator is the default. For most prospects it produces the strongest email, because a note that visibly engages with someone's actual page gets read differently than a form letter.
Templates step in for three situations:
- Manual control. You want a specific play, in your exact words, sent consistently. Pick the template and that is what gets drafted.
- Leads without page details. Prospects imported from a CSV that skipped qualification don't have the page material the generator needs, so they get a template.
- The safety fallback. In the rare case a generated draft fails the quality gate, HeyLinks quietly uses a clean template instead, so nothing broken ever sends.
In Autopilot's advanced settings you can pick a specific template for the run or leave it on auto-assign and let HeyLinks choose.
The built-in templates and your own
HeyLinks ships with around 10 built-in templates covering the common plays, and you can write your own alongside them. Whatever you write becomes a first-class option: selectable when drafting, and available to Autopilot.
One quality gate for everything
Every draft passes the same quality gate before it reaches you, whether it came from the smart generator, a built-in template, or a template you wrote yourself. The gate checks for banned spammy words and makes sure the links are correct. Nothing skips the check, so the floor on quality is the same no matter where a draft came from.
Editing before you send
Every draft is fully editable in Draft emails before anything sends. Open any draft and change whatever you like: the subject, a sentence, the whole thing. You can also apply one of your templates to a generated draft, and switch back to the AI version any time if you change your mind.
And the golden rule holds everywhere in HeyLinks: nothing sends until you approve it. The generator and the templates only ever produce drafts. You produce the sends.