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Set Up a New Email Template

Create new email templates to get the right look for your email marketing content. You can modify the new template's HTML right from the editor, or paste in HTML you might have created and used in other email service providers.

In this article:

 

Create a new email template

When you create a new template, it is a clone of the "Simple" template. The Simple template is the default template included with any new email you create.

Go to Settings > Templates and click New Template to create a new email template.

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Give your new template a unique name and click Create Template.

You can modify the HTML under the "HTML" tab.

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Required shortcodes

You'll notice a couple of shortcodes that are included in the template HTML:

Email body shortcode

{{ email.html }}

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This required shortcode serves up the content you compose in the email editor, into the email body when it is displayed to its reader. Rather than adding written content directly into the template, it is best practice to let the shortcode insert the content for you. This allows you to reuse that same template for other emails.

Because this shortcode is essential to the presentation of your email content, you’ll get an error if you attempt to save the template without it.

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There can only be one instance of “{{ email.html }}” per template and we suggest designing your templates as single column layouts because of this.

 

Footer shortcode

{{ footer.html }}

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The footer shortcode includes your default HTML footer. You can view and edit your default HTML footer when configuring your basic email settings.

This shortcode dynamically inserts the email footer. By default, the email footer contains your postal address and unsubscribe link—both of which are required by law when sending commercial/marketing type emails. Learn more about CAN-SPAM.

The shortcode automatically pulls in the “Default HTML Footer” found in the “Basic Email Settings” section of your Drip account (located in account settings). If you'll be modifying the footer on an email-by-email basis, the shortcode will pull in the appropriate footer for the email it is currently attached to.

 

Adding shortcodes

If you’d like to add any additional shortcodes to your template, click View Shortcodes and make your selections from the shortcode modal. You’ll notice that the default email fields appear in there, as well as unique subscriber custom fields, and content snippets.

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Template “Actions” drop-down

You’ll notice an actions tab drop-down that contains a few different template features.

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Rename: Use this option to rename your template.

Duplicate: Create a duplicate copy of the template.

Set as default: This sets the template as the default template for all new emails in your Drip account. This is normally the “Simple” template’s functionality and can be switched using this setting.

Delete: This option deletes the template (cannot be undone).

 

Using your new template

Now that you have a new email template, it’s time to put it to use.

Go to the email that you’d like to switch up the template for, and click the Preview tab, then click Change seen towards the bottom of the email editor.

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Select the template you’d like to use from the drop-down.

It’s important to note that with broadcast and one-off emails, it only modifies that individual email. If you swap the template in an individual campaign, it will change for all emails in the campaign.