Tutorial: Generate & Refine Variants

This tutorial walks you through generating variants for an existing template, refining them using chat, and approving them for experimentation.

Video walkthrough

Coming soon — a short video covering variant generation and refinement.

Before you start

• You need a saved template with variables, fields, attributes, and themes configured. If you don’t have one yet, follow Create Your First Template.
• Confirm your experimentation method in Configure → Integration (Internal Experimentation recommended).

Step 1: Open the variant creator

1. Open your template and go to Studio.
2. In the Variants component, you’ll see the control copy pulled from your ESP.
3. Click the + button in the top-right corner of the Variants component.

Step 2: Configure generation inputs

A creation modal opens. Select the inputs that should guide variant generation:

Input	What it does
Themes	Guides tone and framing (e.g., urgency, friendliness). Uses themes from your template setup.
Attributes	Generates variants targeted to specific segments (e.g., subscription_tier = premium).
Fields	Includes personalization tokens in copy (e.g., {{ firstName }}).
Additional Context	Free-text instructions (e.g., “Keep subject lines under 40 characters”, “Focus on free shipping”).

Select one or more inputs, then click to generate.

Step 3: Iterate in chat

After submitting, a chat experience opens on the right side of the screen. This is where the AI generates variants and you refine them.

Things you can do in chat:

• Compare variants side by side
• Edit with natural language: “Make this more concise”, “Increase urgency”, “Try a question format”
• Generate additional variants: “Give me 2 more like the second one”
• Approve variants directly from the chat

Tip

See the Prompting Guide for tips on writing effective prompts that produce better results.

Step 4: Review variant grouping

Once created, variants appear in the Variants list on the left side of the screen. They’re automatically grouped by:

• Shared themes (e.g., all urgency variants together)
• Shared attributes (e.g., all premium-tier variants together)

This grouping helps you understand how variants relate and how they’ll be evaluated in experiments.

Step 5: Edit variants (3 options)

Option A: Remix (AI-assisted edits)

For targeted changes to a specific part of a variant:

1. Open the variant and click Remix in the email preview, or
2. Right-click a specific section of the email body and select Remix
3. Enter a prompt (e.g., “Make this more urgent”, “Shorten the CTA”)

Option B: Visual Editor (manual edits)

For full manual control:

1. Open the variant
2. Click the pencil icon in the top-right corner of the Body component
3. Edit copy directly in each section

Option C: Open in Chat

For conversational editing:

1. Click the three-dot (⋯) menu on any variant
2. Select Open in Chat
3. Enter natural language instructions

Step 6: Approve variants

When a variant is ready:

• Click the green “Approve” button on individual variants
• To bulk approve: hold Shift, select multiple variants, and click Approve

Approved variants are eligible for experimentation and traffic splitting.

What’s next

• Read the Analytics Dashboard — understand how your variants are performing
• Set Up Auto-Tune — let JustAI optimize traffic automatically
• Prompting Guide — improve your variant generation prompts