I imported a CSV with custom fields but my template variables show 'undefined' — what should I do?
This is a real bug — fixed Apr 30, 2026. Previously, if your campaign template referenced a custom variable like {{custom.Linkedinconnection}} and your imported CSV didn't have that column (typo, missing column, capital-letter mismatch), the campaign engine had two failure modes:
- Older behaviour: render the message with a literal 'undefined' and send it anyway (rude, and it kills reply rates).
- Later behaviour: mark the prospect as permanently failed, which couldn't be undone without us stepping in.
One customer hit this and lost 9 of 15 prospects before noticing. The fix is two-layer:
(1) Validate-at-launch — the campaign launch path now enumerates every {{custom.<name>}} reference in your template, intersects against the actual column set in your prospect data, and BLOCKS launch with an actionable error if any references aren't satisfiable. The error names the missing column AND lists every column that DOES exist in your prospect data, so you can immediately see whether you have a typo (capital L vs lowercase l, missing s, etc.) or a genuinely-missing column.
(2) Defer-at-send — if a template variable somehow still unresolves at send time (race: campaign launched against audience N, then audience N had a column dropped before the send fired), the prospect is now parked as 'waiting on a template fix' instead of being marked as permanently failed. The prospect re-enters the queue on the next campaign re-evaluation, so once you fix your template OR re-import the CSV with the corrected column, the affected prospects retry automatically — no manual un-burn needed.
How to fix this on existing prospects:
- Option A — edit your template to remove the missing variable. Save the campaign. Click Resume. Affected prospects retry on the next campaign tick.
- Option B — re-import the CSV with the column populated (or rename the column to match your template's spelling). Click Resume. Affected prospects retry.
- Option C — if you used a typo (capital L on Linkedinconnection but your CSV has lowercase linkedinconnection), the simplest fix is to edit the template to use the lowercase name, save, and click Resume.
No LinkedIn actions were attempted for the affected prospects, so there is no cost against your limits for retrying.