How to create email templates

A template is a design you save once and start new emails from. It keeps your emails consistent and saves you rebuilding the same layout every time. You can start campaigns, automated emails and recurring emails from your templates.

Where templates live

Go to Marketing > Templates. The page has 2 lists:

Personal holds the templates saved in your account, whoever on your team saved them.
Action holds ready-made designs from us, which you can filter by Category.

Creating a template

On Personal templates, click New template. A blank template called "New Template" opens straight away in the editor.
Build the design. It's the same editor you use for campaigns and automated emails, so everything in How to create an email applies here too.
Click Save in the editor's top bar.
To rename the template, open Options, choose Change name, type the new name and click Update name.

Merge tags in a template

The text toolbar has Merge tags while you edit a template too, so you can drop in a contact's first name or other contact details. It offers the tags every email shares: the ones about the recipient and the contact. Tags that belong to an action, such as a voucher code, aren't there yet, because a template doesn't hand anything out. Add those once you've started the campaign or automated email and attached the action.

Using a template

Click a template on Personal templates to preview it. The preview has 3 buttons:

Use template as starts a new Campaign or Automated email from the design and opens it in the editor.
Edit opens the template so you can change it.
Close closes the preview.

A template under Action offers Start automated email only.

You can also pick a template while creating an email. Click Add campaign under Marketing > Campaigns, or Add automated email under Marketing > Automated emails, and choose from:

My templates, which starts with Start fresh, a blank design, followed by every template saved in your account, newest first.
All templates, the ready-made designs, which you can narrow down by Themes and Categories.

Select one and click Use template. When you set up a recurring email, its Design step offers the same 2 lists.

If a template you expect isn't under My templates, look under Marketing > Templates > Personal. Anything listed there shows up in the picker too.

Starting an email from a template copies the design. Editing the template afterwards doesn't change emails you already built from it, and changing an email doesn't change the template.

Copying and deleting a template

Open a template and click Options:

Copy makes a duplicate called "(template name) (copy)" and takes you back to the list.
Delete removes the template once you confirm with Delete. This can't be undone, but emails you already built from the template keep their design.

A tip before you save

Check the design in both Desktop preview and Mobile preview before saving it. A template gets reused for months, so a layout that breaks on a phone breaks in every email that starts from it.

You can also turn an email you're already working on into a template without rebuilding it. See How to save an email you're currently designing as a template.