Using templates

Note:

Working with Gong Engage requires an Engage seat.

Who's this for? Reps

Respond to prospects and customers quickly and professionally using Gong templates. Use company templates or create your own, adding variables so that you respond to clients in context. Use templates for call scripts, LinkedIn messages, and emails sent via Gong, which means you automatically track opens, link clicks, and more.

When you use templates, they’re already composed for you, so you just need to tweak them for the particular situation. Templates ensure that you don’t forget something important, like action items, next meetings, or relevant questions. They also make it easier to respond to specific use cases without having to reinvent the wheel. For example, you might want to send an email or use a call script that includes objection handling, mentions hobbies or sports teams, or refers to a holiday.

There is no limit to the number of company and personal templates you can have within Gong Engage.

Currently, opportunity variables cannot be used when building flows or templates. Opportunity variables can only be used when writing a one-off email to a contact from Pipeline.

Types of templates

• YOUR TEMPLATES: These are the templates that you’ve created. If you duplicate any company templates and save them with changes, they’ll be here too.

• COMPANY TEMPLATES: These templates are available to everyone in your org. They can only be edited by people who are authorized to do so through their permission profile, but anyone can duplicate them and save them as their own templates.

• INFLUENCER TEMPLATES: Get inspiration from the best in the business with these ready-to-use templates from industry experts. Use them as is or edit them and save them as your own, like you would with company templates. They're available in your templates library, so you can start applying and customizing them right away.

  You can modify an influencer template once you've saved it to 'your templates', or once you've selected it while writing an email.

  The metrics you see for each influencer template are calculated based on your whole company's usage, not personal usage.

How to access templates

There are 4 ways to access your templates: via My settings, Gong-recommended to-dos that allow you to write emails, through Company settings, or via Templates under Engage. 

• Via My Settings: Go to My Settings, scroll down to the Email section, and click Manage your email templates here.

• Via any Gong-recommended to-do: Click the envelope icon on any Gong-recommended to-do to open the email composer. Click TEMPLATES at the bottom left corner of the email to open the mini template manager. Navigate through the templates here or click MANAGE TEMPLATES.

• Via company settings: Go to Company settings and click Email templates.

• Via Templates: Go to Engage > Templates

How to use templates

There are 3 ways to use templates.

• Connect template by default: You can connect any template to a Gong-recommended to-do via the Connect template to AI to-do field at the top of the template. Once the template is connected, it will be displayed by default with that to-do.

• Within the email composer: When you click Write Email from a to-do, you'll open the email composer. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see a Templates button. Click this button and you'll see a list of all of your templates. Choose any template and it will replace the current email content.

• When creating or editing a flow: For any type of flow step you’re working on, you’ll see a Use a Template button. Click here to search for and browse templates you might want to use. Choose any template and it will replace the current content.

Tip:

Variables in Gong are grouped the same way they're grouped in your CRM. To avoid errors, use templates with variables that align with the entity you're reaching out to. For example, if you're emailing a lead, make sure you're using the "Lead First Name" variable instead of the "Contact First Name" variable.

Currently, opportunity variables cannot be used when building flows or templates. Opportunity variables can only be used when writing a one-off email to a contact from Pipeline.

Create a template

Go to Engage > Templates. Click + New template to create a new one.

You can also create a new template within a specific folder by clicking + next to the folder name.

The template body size can be up to 3 MB. Body size does not include attachments, but it does include in-line images and GIFs. The total size of a template including attachments can be up to 20 MB.

Edit a template

Note:

Only Gong technical admins and business admins (or people who can manage general business settings) can edit company templates. These templates are available to everyone in your org, so any changes made to them can affect everyone.

Open templates via a Gong-recommended to-do, the Company settings, or by going to Engage > Templates. Choose the template you want to edit from the panel on the left and edit. You can change the text, apply rich text formatting, add variables and emojis, and more. Note that currently, opportunity variables cannot be used when building templates.

Note that variables, which populate automatically based on the recipient or account information, are different from placeholders. A placeholder can be any text between curly brackets, intended for the person using the template to replace it with the relevant information before it goes out. We'll let you know before the email gets sent if there are any missing variables or placeholders still left in the email.

You can also add in-line images to your email templates. Simply drag and drop an image or gif into the body of your email template.

Add attachments to a template

You can add attachments to templates by clicking on the paperclip icon. The maximum size attachment for templates is 20 MB.

When adding an attachment to a template that hasn't been saved yet, you'll be prompted to save the template first in order to add the attachment.

Search for a template

Looking for a template that can help you handle a specific use case, like objection handling? Or maybe you'd like to find a template that refers to a specific holiday. You can search for templates that contain specific words using the search field in the top left corner. Search for any word in the name, subject or body of the template.

Share a personal template

Once you’ve created a personal template, you can share it with your teammates to be viewed in their template libraries and used for sales engagement. You can share a specific template with another team member or an entire team, or share a templates folder with another team member or an entire team.

To share a single template:

1. Click themenu next to the template you want to share

2. Select Share

3. Select the name of the team member or entire team you want to share with

To share a folder:

1. Click themenu next to the folder you want to share

2. Select Share

3. Select the name of the team member or entire team you want to share with

Only the owner of a folder can add content to a folder they share.

If you’ve shared a template that you no longer want to be shared, you can un-share it through the same process.

The ability to share templates, as well as the ability to duplicate personal templates into company templates, are managed through your permission profile. If you don’t have access to share templates or duplicate personal templates to company templates and you think you should, talk to your admin.

Admins can view all personal content of the users in their org, while managers can view all personal content of the users reporting directly to them. Admins and managers cannot edit other team members’ content.

See templates that were shared with you

To see templates that have been shared with you, go to Engage > Templates and open the Shared with you folder in your templates library. You cannot edit content that was shared with you but owned by someone else. To modify a template that was shared with you, duplicate it and save it to your templates. You can also archive and restore templates that were shared with you, depending on whether you want to see them in your library.

You can use templates that were shared with you when drafting an email or building a flow email step. Archived content is not available for use.

Connect a template to a to-do

You can connect any template to a to-do and it will be shown whenever that to-do prompts you to write a message. The template is automatically populated with the variables related to that to-do, such as the recipient’s name, the meeting title, and more. See a full list of the variables available in your templates.

Preview a template

See how a template is going to look in an email. To do this:

1. Go to Engage > Templates

2. Select the template you want to preview from the list on the left

3. At the top right of the template window, click Preview

   Note:

   If the template contains variables, variable data doesn't populate in preview. When you select the template while composing an email draft, variable data will populate

Track template usage

To see stats and info for a specific template, click the folder where the template is saved. Note that these stats do not include template usage in flows. You can see the following data for each template:

• Sent: Number of times messages were sent using this template.

• Opened: If a template was used in a message that was sent to 5 recipients and it was opened by 1 recipient, we count it as opened.

• Clicked link: If a template contains 1 or more links, and at least 1 recipient clicks one of them, we count it as a clicked link.

• To-do connection: This shows which to-do the template is connected to.

• Last modified: This shows the last time the template was saved, and who saved it.