Playbooks work best when instructions are simple, structured, and easy for AI to follow. This article shows how to write better Playbooks and improve message quality in your sequences.
What Playbooks can do
Playbooks help shape the content of your messages:
Control tone, style, and length – Decide whether messages should be friendly, formal, short, or detailed.
Set subject line rules – Define how subject lines look across your sequence, including length, style, and personalization.
Use personalization points – Include standard or custom variables like {{FirstName}} or {{Company}}. You can also use personalization points that are most relevant for your audience.
Follow templates for steps – Guide AI to create messages for specific steps using your preferred structure (e.g., Email #1, Follow-up Email).
Include links – Specify when and how to include hyperlinks to calendars, websites, or resources.
Generate follow-ups until someone replies – AI can continue shaping follow-ups in the right tone until a prospect responds.
What Playbooks cannot do
✘ Create entire outreach sequences – They only control message content, not sequence structure.
✘ Control LinkedIn actions – AI cannot open profiles, send connection requests, or automate other LinkedIn actions. You can add LinkedIn steps to the sequence, but the Playbook cannot guide the AI to perform them.
✘ Research contacts – AI cannot gather prospect information, so it's highly recommended to include variables and personalization points.
✘ Filter who to reach out to – Audience selection must be done beforehand. Playbooks cannot exclude prospects based on the job title or location, for example.
✘ Attach files – AI cannot include attachments.
✘ Manage replies – Once a prospect replies, Playbook instructions no longer apply. You should set up Replies handling instructions separately.
Essential Playbook elements
A well-built Playbook should include two main parts: general instructions for all steps and step-specific instructions.
General instructions for all steps
These apply to every message your Playbook generates:
Overall guidelines – Tone, style, length, and general approach.
Do / Don’t lists – Instructions for what AI should always do and avoid. Very important: always add instructions to Do’s and Don’ts sections for best results. Do not write any instructions outside the Do’s and Don’ts sections.
Subject line rules – Guide how subject lines should be written across the sequence.
Step-specific instructions
Apply to individual steps like Email #1 or Follow-up Email #1:
Step type names – Use AI-friendly names, so instructions apply correctly. For example, use “email follow-up #1” instead of “2nd email”, as AI understands “follow-up” better. Here are some examples:
✅ first email / initial email / email #1
❌ 2nd email ✅ email follow-up #1
❌ LinkedIn follow-up ✅ LinkedIn Connect / InMailStep-specific Do / Don’t lists – Instructions customized for that specific message/email.
Frameworks & examples – Use templates with variables to guide AI and include examples of what a good message should look like.
Step-specific subject line instructions – Add a unique subject line for a specific step if needed.
Do's and Don'ts
Place anything that's not a template into Do's and Don'ts sections.
❌ Goal
Think deeper and step by step. The goal of this cold outreach is to find investment and acquisition opportunities for our search fund. Thus, we're reaching out to business owners, decision makers with an offer to book a call or a no-obligation conversation and have a chat about their company, their long-term strategy, and the next chapter of a great company. The most important part is to write a well-thought-out message that will resonate with a prospect, will make them think about the content for a while, impress them in terms of its flow, and will make them want to reply back.
✅ Do
Think deeper and step by step. The goal of this cold outreach is to find investment and acquisition opportunities for our search fund. Thus, we're reaching out to business owners, decision makers with an offer to book a call or a no-obligation conversation and have a chat about their company, their long-term strategy, and the next chapter of a great company. The most important part is to write a well-thought-out message that will resonate with a prospect, will make them think about the content for a while, impress them in terms of its flow, and will make them want to reply back.
Keep lists under 10 items; break long instructions into shorter points.
Start Don'ts with Don't for clarity.
Example:
❌ Don'ts:
Come up with fake personalization and fake case studies.
✅ Don'ts:
Do not come up with fake personalization and fake case studies.
💡Tip: If AI ignores an instruction:
Move it to the top of the list;
Repeat it in step-specific Do's/Don'ts;
Add CRITICAL: before it.
Example:
Don'ts
CRITICAL: Do not come up with fake personalization or fake case studies.
Variables and Hyperlinks
Use {{double braces}} for standard Reply contact variables.
Use [brackets] for longer instructions, like [Your Value Proposition].
Example:
✅ Hey {{FirstName}}!
Thanks for accepting the invite!
Saw [Hobby, Trigger, Signal or Observation or Job Title]. Speaking of [Relevant Info to Observation], we are building a [Tool, Service, Product, Company, Startup etc.] to help [Your Value Proposition + Unique Selling Point + Creative Offer to Solve Pain Point].
Would love to get your thoughts/feedback on it!
To add hyperlinks, include them using this format:
✅ <a href="link">Text</a>.
AI will shape it as a clickable link.
Multi-language support
Playbooks support multiple languages. You can write the instructions in English or another language, and then tell the AI which language the messages should be generated in. For best results, always include message examples in the target language – this helps the AI understand the tone, style, and phrasing you want.