Create beautiful messages in a drag-and-drop editor for a wide variety of email sends: newsletters, product announcements, promotions, welcome series, or order confirmations.

Templates are the blueprints for all messages, and Email Composer is the easiest way to build them and to craft the content that will be sent to your recipients. Its drag-and-drop interface enables you to produce a well-designed message with a number of built-in features:

• No knowledge of HTML is required, but custom HTML is supported
• Design messages for desktop or mobile environments.
• Open-tracking is automatically turned on; no need to embed a beacon
• Add special links with the click of a button, including links to user-specific unsubscribe pages and to web views of email content.

If this is your first time building templates, or you're building a new type of template for the first time, be sure to discuss your plans with your Customer Success Manager. Your CSM can ensure you are using best practices for template design and email strategy.

How it Works: An Overview

Within the interface, email templates created with Email Composer are labeled as Visual Templates. They can be selected and used by our system in the Campaign workflow, Lifecycle Optimizer, and the API. Email Composer provides drag-and-drop formatted rows and content blocks for you to build your template from scratch. You can also use a formatted template available in the Idea Gallery. To build a new template: create a new Visual Template, configure the template settings, and then add rows and content blocks.

Create a New Template

1. Select Templates from the Messaging menu.
2. Hover over the New Template bar to open the template menu. Select Visual Template from the list to open Email Composer.
3. Select the default template name, delete it, and enter a unique name for your template.

Configure Template Settings

For more information on individual template settings, see Template Settings.

1. Set a Subject Line and Preview Text:
   1. Click "Not Set" under Subject Line and Preview Text to open the editor.
   2. Enter your preferred Subject Line and Preview Text.
   3. Click Apply to add them to your template.
2. Set a From name and email address:
   1. Click "Not Set" under From to open the editor.
   2. Enter your preferred From name, From email, and Reply-to email.
   3. Click Apply to add them to your template.
3. Click the gear icon next to the From options. This opens the Template Settings editor.
   • In the first tab, select your General settings.
     • • Optional: If your account has Teams enabled, you can restrict this template to certain teams.
         • To add a team, click the gray bar and select a team. Repeat to add more teams.
         • The template is visible and usable by all employees in your account if you don't select teams.
   • In the second tab, select your Content and Personalization settings.
   • In the third tab, add advanced Zephyr configurations to filter or sort the data feeds used in the template

Add Rows and Content Blocks

For more information on template structures and content blocks, see Template Structures and Blocks.

1. Drag rows onto the composer screen to create your template structure.
2. Drag content blocks into the rows to add content to your template.

Send a Template

Your template will be referred to by the Template Name you set throughout the platform.

1. For a one-time send, create a Campaign and select your newly created template.
2. To send as-needed, based on user status or behavior, use one of the following methods:
   • Select the template in a Lifecycle Optimizer flow.
   • Have a developer use the API (from your server) or JavaScript functions (from the user's browser) to send the template in response to certain actions.