Email Templates

Templates let you save reusable email designs that you can apply across broadcasts, sequences, and opt-in form emails. Instead of writing the same layout from scratch each time, you create it once as a template and reuse it wherever you need it.

What Templates Store

Each template captures everything you need to send a polished email:

When you apply a template to a broadcast or sequence step, these fields are copied in as starting values. You can then customize them for that particular send without changing the original template.

Creating a Template

1. Navigate to Templates in the main menu
2. Click New Template
3. Choose your editor type: Rich Text or HTML
4. Fill in the label, subject, preview text, and body
5. Click Save Template

Rich Text Editor

The Rich Text editor gives you a formatting toolbar similar to a word processor. You can:

• Apply bold, italic, and other text styles
• Insert images and resize them inline
• Add hyperlinks to text or buttons
• Create numbered and bulleted lists
• Structure content with headings

This is the best choice if you want to focus on writing content without worrying about HTML markup.

HTML Editor

The HTML editor gives you full control over the raw HTML of your email. It includes syntax highlighting to make your code easier to read and edit. Choose this option when you need:

• Pixel-perfect layouts with custom tables or grid structures
• Advanced CSS inline styling
• Integration with HTML email frameworks
• Complete control over every element in the email

You can switch between a code view and a rendered preview to check your work as you go.

Using Templates in Broadcasts

There are two ways to use a template when creating a broadcast:

From the Templates page - Find the template you want and click Create Broadcast. This creates a new broadcast pre-filled with the template’s subject, preview text, and body content.

From the Broadcast editor - When creating a new broadcast, click Choose Template to browse your saved templates. Selecting one populates the broadcast fields with that template’s content. You can then edit the content freely before sending.

Either way, the broadcast gets its own copy of the content. Editing the broadcast does not change the original template.

Using Templates in Sequences

When adding an email step to a sequence, you can select a template to populate the step’s subject and body. This is especially useful for welcome sequences or onboarding flows where multiple channels share a similar structure.

To apply a template to a sequence step:

1. Open your sequence and click Add Step
2. Choose Email as the step type
3. Select a template from the dropdown
4. Customize the content for this specific step

Important: Sequence steps maintain a live reference to the template’s content at the time of creation. If you need to update the messaging for active sequences, edit the sequence step directly rather than relying on template changes.

Using Templates in Opt-in Forms

Opt-in forms can use templates for two types of emails:

• Confirmation emails - The double opt-in message sent when someone submits the form
• Welcome emails - The message sent after a subscriber confirms their subscription

When configuring an opt-in form, you can choose an existing template for either of these emails. This keeps your branding consistent across all your subscriber touchpoints.

Personalization with Liquid Variables

Templates support Liquid variables, so your saved designs can include dynamic content that gets filled in for each subscriber at send time.

Available Variables

• {{ subscriber.email }} - The subscriber’s email address
• {{ subscriber.first_name }} - First name
• {{ subscriber.last_name }} - Last name
• {{ unsubscribe_url }} - The one-click unsubscribe link (required for marketing emails)

Custom Data Fields

If you store custom data on your subscribers (plan type, company name, signup source, etc.), you can access those values in templates using any of these Liquid syntax options:

{{ subscriber.data.company_name }}
{{ subscriber.data["company_name"] }}
{{ subscriber['data']['company_name'] }}
{{ subscriber["data"]["company_name"] }}

All four forms are equivalent. Use whichever style you find most readable.

Default Values

Use the default filter to provide fallback text when a field is empty:

Hi {{ subscriber.first_name | default: "there" }},

Your {{ subscriber.data.plan_name | default: "free" }} plan is active.

This prevents awkward blank spaces when subscriber data is incomplete.

Managing Templates

Editing Templates

You can edit any template by navigating to Templates and clicking on it. Keep these behaviors in mind:

• Broadcasts that were created from a template are not affected by later edits to that template. They received a copy of the content at creation time.
• Sequence steps and opt-in form emails that reference a template may reflect changes depending on how they were configured. Review active sequences and forms after making significant template edits.

Deleting Templates

You can delete a template from the template detail page. Deleting a template does not affect broadcasts that were already created from it, since those hold their own copy of the content. However, if a template is actively used by a sequence step or opt-in form, you should reassign those to a different template before deleting.

API Access

You can create, read, update, and delete templates programmatically through the Broadcast API. This is useful for syncing templates from an external design system or automating template management as part of your deployment workflow.

See the Templates API documentation for endpoints, parameters, and example requests.

Best Practices

1. Use descriptive labels - Name your templates by purpose (“Weekly Newsletter”, “Product Update”, “Welcome Email”) so they are easy to find later
2. Include an unsubscribe link - Always add {{ unsubscribe_url }} to marketing email templates. It is required by CAN-SPAM and GDPR regulations
3. Test with real data - After creating a template, use it in a test broadcast and send a preview to yourself to verify that Liquid variables render correctly
4. Keep a small library - A handful of well-maintained templates is better than dozens of variations. Fewer templates means less to update when your branding changes
5. Preview on mobile - Most subscribers read email on their phones. Check that your templates look good at narrow screen widths
6. Use preview text - The preview text field gives you a second chance to grab attention in the inbox. Do not leave it blank

Ready to send your first templated email? Head to Creating Your First Broadcast to put your template to work.