Starting with the problem of blank emails
I opened Gmail one morning and noticed three of my automated sales emails had gone out completely blank. Like, subject line was there, sender info was fine, but the body was literally empty. My first thought was that my Zap had failed in Zapier, but when I looked at the task history every single step showed green checkmarks. Classic ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ moment.
So here’s the thing beginner me would have wanted to know: ChatGPT will happily generate text on command, but if you don’t anchor your prompt in a consistent structure, sometimes you’ll end up with text that gets cut off mid sentence or formatted in a way Gmail doesn’t render. For example, I had it output HTML once and Gmail stripped out the style tags altogether, leaving what looked like a funeral program instead of a sales email. When I switched to plain text output, the messages landed fine but they felt dry and robotic. That’s when I started building templates.
Creating reusable ChatGPT email templates
I didn’t know this at first, but ChatGPT doesn’t “remember” how you want things structured unless you repeatedly include the same instructions. What fixed my blank email issue was building a template that handled the intro, the persuasion piece, and the call to action in one consistent block.
Here is the exact skeleton I keep handy in Notion:
– Greeting line (make it casual but not too friendly)
– Reference to their role or problem
– A short one sentence story or joke
– A clear offer with simple language
– Call to action that gives them two easy choices
When I paste that into ChatGPT and say “Fill this out for [product] and [audience],” it always comes back structured the same way. That alone eliminated the formatting errors where Gmail crushed my paragraphs into a wall of text. 🙂 It’s basically like forcing ChatGPT to color inside the lines.
Fixing broken personalizations
The first time I tried adding variables like [First Name] and [Company], ChatGPT sometimes forgot to keep the brackets exactly as I typed them. Instead of spitting back [First Name], it would replace it with a sample name like “John.” If you’ve ever sent out a campaign and realized 40 prospects all got addressed as John, you know the panic sweat I’m talking about.
My workaround: I stopped asking ChatGPT to generate the placeholders. I keep my placeholders consistent, like {{name}} and {{company}}, then manually map them in my email tool. That guarantees the merge fields line up instead of getting overwritten. If you’re using Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign, they use double curly brackets anyway, so ChatGPT doesn’t overwrite them if you tell it “do not change variable formatting.” Simple but lifesaving.
Tuning the persuasion tone
One of my mistakes early on was asking ChatGPT to “make this more persuasive.” It came back sounding like a late night TV infomercial. Too many exclamation points. Too much urgency. Nobody is buying cybersecurity SaaS because some AI told them “Call now before it’s too late!!!”
What’s worked better for me is giving ChatGPT concrete examples of the tone I want. I’ll paste in a short sales email I’ve actually written myself, then say “rewrite new version in the same tone but with this different offer.” That way, it’s copying my voice versus inventing one. A lot of times the small tweaks it adds, like adjusting sentence length, makes the copy feel smoother without pushing into cheesy territory. 😛
Using numbered lists sparingly
I noticed ChatGPT loves making numbered or bulleted lists, but when I pasted those straight into Gmail drafts, sometimes the indenting turned into weird hyphens. Also, the emails started reading like instruction manuals instead of friendly messages. I wanted to avoid looking like I was giving someone homework.
So I started telling ChatGPT, “Write this as a single flowing paragraph, not as a list.” The way I set it up now, only the call to action has some form of bullets, like:
– Yes, I want a quick call
– No, not now
That’s the only place I keep it structured, and it converts well because the person can literally just reply with “Yes” and I’ll know what they mean.
Testing across email clients quickly
This part nobody told me but matters way more than you think. A perfectly fine looking email inside Gmail sometimes explodes when viewed in Outlook. I once had an Outlook user send me a screenshot where my carefully spaced intro stacked into one giant blob. From that day on, I always tested by sending drafts to both my Gmail and my Outlook address. If you don’t have Outlook, even a free Microsoft account with their webmail works as a testing ground.
That habit alone saved me from sending hundreds of unreadable blobs. Outlook is especially hostile to funky spacing or hidden Unicode characters ChatGPT slips in.
Stacking with automation platforms
Once I had stable templates, I set up an integration from Airtable into Zapier, then Zapier into Gmail. Airtable holds my prospect list and a column for their industry. Zapier triggers on new rows and sends the name and industry into ChatGPT to generate the body before pushing it to Gmail. On a good day, it works smooth. On a bad day, Zapier decides the task is “held due to too much output.” That happens when ChatGPT writes an email that’s longer than expected.
My fix is setting a token limit in the prompt: “Write no more than 120 words.” That little detail stops Zapier from choking and makes the email tighter and less rambling. No one wants a cold email essay.
Adding curiosity hooks without spam
The last thing I’ll say is about subject lines. ChatGPT can overdo it with curiosity hooks, creating subjects like “You won’t believe this trick.” Spam filters love to pounce on that. Instead, I’ve started asking it to use plain language based on real context: “Quick question about your security software” works ten times better than some clickbait line. Beginners often overlook this, but email deliverability is half the fight.
I learned the hard way after one entire campaign got buried in spam because ChatGPT suggested “Don’t open this unless you want growth.” Yeah, turns out Gmail thought that looked suspicious. My friend actually replied, “Dude, are you ok?” 😂
If you want more on testing deliverability, a good resource is mailchimp.com since they have detailed breakdowns of what triggers spam filters.
When templates break anyway
Even with all these guardrails, sometimes ChatGPT gets creative and still messes with the template. I had one campaign where it decided to insert a random Dr Seuss style rhyme in the middle of a sales pitch. It looked like, “Whether you rent or whether you buy, our platform makes limits fly.” I laughed, then immediately turned off the Zap because, well, not the brand tone I was going for.
That’s just part of using AI live in a workflow. Things will break in hilarious ways. The only way I’ve managed this without losing sleep is by always sending test emails to myself first and not scheduling automations at 3am anymore. Some nights I still risk it, but I’ve gotten burned enough that I know better now