How to Create a Personalized Candidate Nurture Sequence with Keap’s Dynamic Tags

In today’s competitive talent landscape, a generic “hiring update” email simply won’t cut it. To attract and convert top candidates, your recruitment process needs to feel personal, relevant, and engaging. Keap, when combined with its powerful dynamic tagging capabilities, offers an unparalleled platform to architect sophisticated, personalized nurture sequences that keep candidates engaged and warm throughout their journey, even if they’re not a perfect fit right now. This guide will walk you through the actionable steps to leverage Keap’s dynamic tags to build an intelligent, candidate-centric nurture strategy, ensuring your talent pipeline remains robust and responsive.

Step 1: Define Your Candidate Segments and Nurture Goals

Before diving into Keap, clearly articulate who your candidates are and what you aim to achieve with each nurture sequence. Are you nurturing active applicants for specific roles, passive talent for future openings, or silver medalists who were strong but not selected? Each segment requires a distinct approach. For active candidates, the goal might be to guide them through interview stages or provide pre-onboarding information. For passive talent, it could be to keep them aware of your company culture and future opportunities. Documenting these segments, their pain points, and your desired outcomes will inform the entire structure of your Keap campaigns and the dynamic tags you’ll need to implement for truly tailored communication.

Step 2: Map Out Your Nurture Journey with Keap Stages

Visualize the candidate’s journey from initial interest to hiring, or even to a “talent pool” status for future consideration. Within Keap, this translates to setting up clear campaign stages or opportunity stages that reflect each touchpoint. This step is crucial for understanding when and how candidates will move through your nurture sequences. Consider different paths for various candidate types: one for high-priority applicants, another for general inquiries, and perhaps a long-term drip for future roles. A well-defined journey map ensures logical progression, prevents communication gaps, and allows you to strategically place your dynamic tag updates at key junctures, enabling hyper-personalization at every step.

Step 3: Implement Dynamic Tags for Precision Personalization

Dynamic tags are the engine of personalization in Keap. These are custom fields or tags that store specific pieces of information about a candidate, which can then be used to populate email content, segment lists, or trigger automation. Examples include “Desired Role,” “Skill Set,” “Interview Date,” “Recruiter Name,” or “Preferred Location.” Start by identifying all the key data points you collect or infer about a candidate during their interactions. Then, create corresponding dynamic tags within Keap. Crucially, ensure these tags are updated automatically through integrations (e.g., from an ATS, webform, or even an AI parsing tool via Make.com) or manually by your recruiting team, making the data live and actionable for your nurture sequences.

Step 4: Craft Engaging Content for Each Nurture Stage

With your segments, journey map, and dynamic tags in place, it’s time to write the content. For each stage of your nurture sequence, design compelling emails, SMS messages, or internal tasks that leverage your dynamic tags. Instead of “Dear Candidate,” use “Dear ~Contact.FirstName~.” Beyond basic name personalization, think about incorporating “We saw you were interested in ~Contact.CustomField_DesiredRole~,” or “Your interview with ~Contact.CustomField_RecruiterName~ is scheduled for ~Contact.CustomField_InterviewDate~.” This level of detail makes every interaction feel handcrafted. Focus on providing value, setting clear expectations, and showcasing your company culture, ensuring each piece of content moves the candidate closer to your desired outcome.

Step 5: Build Automation in Keap Using Campaigns

Keap’s campaign builder is where all the pieces come together. Design automated sequences that trigger based on specific actions or tag applications. For example, when a candidate applies for a specific role and receives the “Applied: Marketing Manager” tag, a campaign might automatically send an initial acknowledgment email personalized with the role name. Subsequent emails could be triggered by interview scheduling tags or even based on a time delay. Use decision diamonds within Keap campaigns to create branching paths based on dynamic tag values, ensuring candidates receive only the most relevant communications. This automation ensures consistency, frees up recruiter time, and delivers a seamless, personalized experience at scale.

Step 6: Test, Analyze, and Optimize Your Sequences

Launching a nurture sequence is just the beginning. Thoroughly test every path, email, and dynamic tag to ensure accuracy and a smooth candidate experience. Once live, regularly monitor your campaign performance. Track key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, reply rates, and conversion rates (e.g., interview acceptance, offer acceptance). Use A/B testing within Keap to experiment with subject lines, call-to-actions, and content variations. Gather feedback from candidates and your recruiting team to identify areas for improvement. Continuous analysis and optimization are vital to refine your personalized nurture sequences, ensuring they remain effective, engaging, and aligned with your evolving hiring needs.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Architecting Intelligent HR & Recruiting: Dynamic Tagging in Keap with AI for Precision Engagement