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The Esendex Email Editor

Getting Started with the Esendex Email Editor

Email design with our intuitive drag-and-drop Email Editor is simple and the only tool you need for all your mailing needs. What can you create with our Email Editor? Take your pick:

  • Campaigns – Also known as a newsletter, a marketing email, a mass market email. Whatever name you pick, a campaign is sent to a list of subscribers.
  • Templates – Create and manage your own predesigned templates and use them for a multitude of purposes:
    • Marketing Templates – A template that reflects your brand and use it for future campaigns.
    • Transactional Templates – A template stored on the Esendex platform that can be used for all your transactional needs.

With the Esendex Email Editor, you can choose how to design your campaigns, emails and templates:

  • Responsive Drag-and-Drop Editor – Use the Esendex Email Editor’s wide range of content tools to design your header & footer, and different sections within your email body.
  • Use HTML – For anyone who is comfortable coding their emails with HTML directly.
  • Use MJML – Use the Esendex markup language MJML – the only framework designed to make coding responsive email easy. Save time and code more efficiently with MJML’s semantic syntax. (Please note that our drag-and-drop editor also generates MJML code.)

You can also preview your email on different mobile devices right inside the Editor.

One more thing – the Esendex Email Editor is a responsive email editor. That means your mailings will be rendered properly on a computer, smartphone or tablet regardless of the recipient’s email client.

Create Your Campaign

From the Campaigns page, click the ‘Create a Campaign‘ button.

email

The ‘Create a new campaign‘ page shows the different sections of your campaign.

As you complete each section, the corresponding checkmark will become green.

Once all sections are completed, you can then send your campaign or schedule it to be sent at a later time.

creating and sending emails

  1. Title: Give a title to your campaign to identify it in your reports. This is an internal name that only you will see.
  2. Language of Your Campaign: Choose the desired language.
  3. Contact list: Click the ‘Select recipients’ button to select your contact list. For premium plan users, create or apply a segmentation. For more information on segmentation, please read the FAQ: How to segment/filter contact lists
  4. Content: Now the fun part: designing your content with the Esendex Email Editor. Get started by clicking ‘Design email’ to select your campaign template.
    • Subject: The subject of your campaign as it will appear in your recipient’s inbox. (Please note: The subject limit is 100 characters, however for better open rates, keep your subject line to under 70 characters.)
    • From: Enter the name your recipients will see in the ‘from’ field and select a sending address from the drop-down list.

creating and sending emails

Let’s get started – click ‘Design email’ to select your campaign template.

Select a Campaign Template

On this page you can select from the following template options:

Select-a-Campaign-Template

  • Use a template from the gallery
    Choose from a number of beautiful predefined templates
  • Use one of my templates
    Your own set of previously created templates
  • Code in HTML
    Create a campaign using HTML or import your own code

html code

  • Code in MJML
    Create a campaign using MJML or import your own code

Mjml mode EN

Once you have selected a template, the next step is to design your email with the Esendex Email Editor.

Content Tools

This area covers all the content elements that will appear in your message (text, images, buttons, social sharing, etc).

Adding content is easy – just click on the content block and drag it to the desired area in your campaign. If you want to move that block, just drag and drop to the new location.

content tools

Click within the frame to customise the element using the toolbar that appears around the frame.

content tools

Text

test

Using the Text toolbar, you can easily format and customize your text block:

  • Adjust line heights
  • Align text
  • Set the background colour
  • Change Margins
  • Personalize your content using contact properties
  • Format your text (font, bold, italic, etc)

text

 

Divider

You can add a dividing line to separate sections or elements within a section (as per the example below). The Divider toolbar allows you to:

  • Set the background colour
  • Change Margins
  • Format the line (design, colour, weight)
  • Adjust the horizontal and vertical spacing

Button

button

There are many options available in the Button toolbar including:

  • Border Radius (set the roundness of the button corners)
  • Button border colour, weight, and style (solid, dotted, dashed, etc)
  • Set horizontal positioning and padding
  • Add a hyperlink
  • Font alignment
  • Adjust the margins
  • Personalize the text using contact properties
  • Format the font (font family, colour, bold, etc).

Content button

Spacer

spacer

Add a blank space to separate elements or sections within your newsletter. With the Spacer Tool, you can:

  • Set the height of the blank space (in pixels)
  • Add a background colour (optional)

spacer

 

Social Sharing

social

Add your favourite social icons to your campaign such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Medium and Xing.

Click the ‘Configure links‘ button to open the Social Media Configuration modal where you can:

• Select up to 10 social media icons
• Modify the label text
• Share the online version of your marketing newsletter to your social media account* or set the link to go directly to your social media page.
• Create your own social icon by clicking ‘Add custom icon

To show and configure the text labels, click ‘Display labels‘.

social

* The online sharing option is currently available for marketing campaigns, and not for transactional and automation emails.

Click the block options (pencil) to configure the icon size, shapes and colour as well as the section background colour and padding.

social

HTML Block

HTML

You can add some HTML code directly into your newsletter. Drag the HTML Block to your campaign, then click on the button from the toolbar to open the HTML editor window and code away!

HTML

RSS Feed

RSS

Pull blog posts and other dynamic content into your campaigns with an RSS Feed.

Simply drag the RSS Feed tool to your campaign and add your RSS Feed URL link in the modal window. Then select the items you want imported by clicking on the drop-down list or searching by author or title.

RSS

Each imported item will appear as a section in your campaign where you can edit the content and image as normal.

The RSS content is retrieved only once upon import and will not be updated automatically. If you need to update your RSS content, just create a new RSS feed and delete the old one.

Every time you add an URL link to an RSS Feed, it will be stored locally at API Key level. The next time you add an RSS Feed content block to a campaign, you will have access to the last 5 feeds added.

Video

video

To add a video to your campaign, drag the Video tool to the desired location. In the popup modal, add your video URL.

video

Preview images are automatically generated for YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion videos. For all other videos, click ‘Choose image’ to add your own preview image.

Once the preview thumbnail is created, the default play button will be added. You can choose from several designs for the play button. (Please note, that the play button image will be automatically resized relative to the thumbnail size. Specifically, it will be 50% of the smallest edge (width or height) of the preview thumbnail.)

The last step is to add a simple description of the preview image in the ‘Image Alt Text’ field. This alt text will be displayed in the event your subscriber cannot view the image. Then click ‘Save Video’.

From the Video toolbar, click the ‘Video’ button to edit your video at any time.

video

Sections

Add a Section to Your Campaign

You can build your campaign by adding sections. Then you add different elements (text, button, images, …) to each section. A section can have 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns, with varying widths.

Click on the section layout you want, then drag and drop it into your campaign.

sections

Move a Section

Click in the section background then on the up or down arrows.

sections

Duplicate a Section

Click within the section to highlight it, then click the duplicate icon on the right side of the screen.

sections

Delete a Section

To remove a section from your campaign body, click within the section, then click the trash icon. Confirm the deletion by clicking on the red ‘x’ that appears.sections

You can also quickly delete a section or element, by dragging it to the content tools area.

sections

Conditional Sections

You have the option to display a content section to certain people by applying a segment. The segment can be based on the user’s existing contact properties or by their user activity.

For example, you may want to display a promotional section to your female clients only or offer a discount code to clients who have not opened your previous newsletters in the last 3 months.

Please take a few minutes to review your current segments. If you need a refresher, please review our Segmentation Guide.

Note: Conditional sections are available for Premium accounts only.

Click within a section to view its current conditional status. By default, all sections are shown to everyone.

sections

To apply a segment:

  • Click ‘Add Condition’
  • Click ‘Only show to recipients who belong to the segment’ and select a segment from the dropdown list.
  • Click ‘Save’

sections

To remove a segment, simply click ‘Edit‘ and select ‘Show to all recipients’.

Pre-built Sections

A pre-built section can serve as a template that can be used and modified to meet the specific needs of the sender. Think of a pre-built section as a ready-made content block that provides a foundation for creating various types of emails or designs. This section already includes a combination of elements such as text, images, headings, buttons, and more, arranged in a visually appealing and coherent manner.

sections

The primary reasons for using pre-built sections in a template are as follows:

  • Time-Saving: Starting with a pre-built section saves time as it provides a starting point, reducing the need to create content or design from scratch.
  • Design Consistency: Using a pre-built section ensures a consistent and professional look throughout the template. This consistency is crucial for brand identity and recognition.
  • Structure and Layout: Pre-built sections offer a well-organized structure and layout, guiding the sender on how to present their content effectively.
    User-Friendly: Pre-built sections are designed to be user-friendly, allowing even those with limited design skills to create visually appealing templates.
  • Customisation: While the pre-built section provides a foundation, the sender can easily modify, rearrange, or add elements to tailor the template to their specific requirements.
  • Flexibility: Senders can adjust fonts, colors, images, and other visual elements to align with their brand or style preferences.
    Consolidation of Best Practices: Pre-built sections are often created based on design best practices, ensuring the template adheres to effective design principles.
  • Reusability: Once a pre-built section is modified to the sender’s needs, it can be saved and reused as a personalized template for future use.

By using a pre-built section in a template and customising it according to your needs, you can create visually appealing and well-structured emails or designs without the burden of starting from scratch. This flexibility empowers the sender to focus on their content and messaging while leveraging professionally designed elements to enhance the overall quality and impact of their communications.

Saved Sections

Tired of creating and updating the same header, footer or key sections in your campaigns and templates?

You can stop duplicating your efforts and start saving your important campaign/template sections with Saved Sections.

sections

Saved Sections allows you to save a part of your campaign or template (content, color, formatting) for use in your future Marketing, Transactional and Automation mailings.

All sections are saved into a Saved Sections Gallery where you can :

  • Save your sections from the Email Editor to a Saved Section gallery
  • Drop a saved section into a template or dynamically link* a section to many templates at once
  • Work on draft versions to update sections without impacting the templates they are linked to
  • Edit and publish changes to your sections, updating all templates they are linked to, with a single push of a button!

Regular vs Dynamically Linked

There are two types of Saved Sections:

  • Regular Saved Section
    Copy your Saved Section to your template or campaign. Any changes made to Saved Section in the Gallery will not be reflected in your template.
  • Dynamically Linked Saved Section
    Link your Saved Section to your templates. When changes are published on a Linked Saved Section in the Gallery, all linked templates are automatically updated. Use the Link mode for sections that are used in many of your templates such as headers and footers.

sections

Draft Sections and Published Sections

A Saved Section can be in Draft mode or in Published mode:

  • Only Published Sections will appear in the ‘My Saved Sections’ menu in the Email Editor and can be added to your marketing template, transactional email, or included in an automated workflow.
  • A Draft Section cannot be used in templates and will not appear in the ‘My Saved Sections’ menu in the Email Editor when designing your campaigns, templates, or automated workflows. Once you are satisfied with your section design and content, simply publish it to have it appear in ‘My Saved Sections’ in the Email Editor.

Section statuses can be seen in the Templates → Saved Section Gallery.

sections

Please note, linking sections to templates is only available on Premium Plans.

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Create a Saved Section

There are two ways to create a new Saved Section:

  • Use the Section Builder to design a new section
  • Save a section from an existing template or campaign via the Email Editor

 

Using the Section Builder from the Saved Sections Gallery

Go to your Saved Sections Gallery which can be accessed from any Templates page.

sections

To design a new section, click on ‘Create a saved section‘.

Sections

Enter a name for your new Saved Section, an (optional) description and then click ‘Create‘ to continue.

Design your new section using the Section Builder, which is a mini version of the Email Editor.

sections

Once your section is ready for use, just click on ‘Save & Publish to gallery‘.

sections

And that’s it – your first section has been published.

sections

Click ‘Back to my sections’ to return to the Saved Sections Gallery to see your newly published section. It can now be used in your campaigns, transactional emails and automation workflows. 🙂

Keep reading to learn how to create a section from an existing template/campaign in the Esendex Email Editor, or jump to how to use My Saved Sections.

 

From an existing Campaign / Template via the Esendex Email Editor

You can also create a Saved Section from an existing Campaign or Template. Within the Email Editor, select the section that you want to save, then click on ‘Create a saved section‘ from the menu.

section

In the pop-up window, enter a name for your saved section and (optional) description.

Alternatively, you can also quickly save a section by dragging it to the Content Tools area, on the left of the builder.

section

Once you choose the name and click on ‘Save’, the section will be added to your Saved Sections Gallery. And it will also be automatically linked to the template you created it from.

Note: Creating a saved section from the Email Editor does not save any section locking settings you may have set.

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Using Saved Sections in the Esendex Email Editor

You can view and insert your Saved Sections from the Email Editor.

sections

 

Insert a Saved Section into a Campaign (Regular Mode only)

Saved Sections can only be copied as a regular section into your marketing campaigns, with no link to the Saved Section Gallery. Any changes made to the section in your campaign are local only (Dynamically Linked Sections can only be added to a template and will be covered in the next part of this guide).

To insert a section into your marketing campaign, click on Drag & Drop Sections → Saved and drag-and-drop a section into the campaign.

sections

Insert a Saved Section into a Template (Regular or Linked Mode)

With templates (marketing, transactional, automated), Saved Sections can be copied in as a regular section, or as a dynamically linked section.

Click ‘My Saved Sections‘ to view all your currently published sections. Then simply drag-and-drop the desired section into your template.

sections

For Premium Plan Users, the Saved Section will automatically be added to your template as a Dynamically Linked Section.

sections

 

Unlink a Linked Saved Section within a Template

Dynamically Linked Sections within a template can be unlinked and changed to a Regular Saved Section, allowing you to make changes to that specific template only.

To unlink a Saved Section within your template in the Email Editor, select the section and click on the ‘Unlink‘ option.

sections

Please note: Once you unlink a section, you cannot change it back – there is no option to re-establish the link. If you change your mind, simply delete the (now) Regular Section and insert the Dynamically Linked Section back into your template.

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Apply & Remove Labels to a Saved Section

Use labels to better organize and manage all your saved sections in the Gallery.

For example, use labels to identify section types (header, footer, social media), themes (holidays, locations, client groups), and much more.

labels

Apply and remove labels for any saved section in the gallery by selecting Options → Apply Labels.

labels

For detailed information on how to create, edit, and delete labels please visit the Label Management Section in our Template Management Guide.

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Edit Existing Saved Sections

Edit a Saved Section in the Gallery

From your Saved Section Gallery, select Options → Edit

sections

Make the section changes in the Section Builder, and then either save the changes as a Draft or Publish them.

sections

Please note: Once you publish the changes, any linked sections in other templates will be updated automatically.

sections

 

Edit a Saved Section via the Esendex Email Editor

A Regular Saved Section in your campaign or template can be edited as normal within the Email Editor.

sections

To edit a (Dynamically) Linked Section from the Email Editor, click on the ‘Edit’ option to be redirected to the Section Builder.

sections

Make the changes to the section. Then save the changes as a Draft, or Publish the changes to have them propagate to all other linked templates.

sections

Then click ‘Return to my template‘ to go back to the Email Editor.

 

Dynamic Linked Sections and Downgrading from Premium Plan

If you create Dynamically Linked Sections while on a Premium Plan, and then downgrade to a Essential or Free Plan, the links between sections and templates will become dormant. And any changes made to an existing Linked Section will not be reflected in the linked templates.

If you upgrade again to a Premium Plan, the dormant links will become active again, and you are free to create new Linked Sections.

Global Style Settings

With a couple clicks, easily format the text styles of all your paragraphs, headers and hyperlinks within your newsletter or template.

To access the global text styles, click on the ‘Settings‘ tab.

style settings

As the name suggests, the “Global Style” option will set the font family and color for all the elements listed (Headers, Paragraphs, Links) as well as the newsletter header and footer.

style settings

You can then further customize the styling for each of the Headers, Paragraph and Link elements.

style settings

And lastly, if you want to have a different text style for a certain header or paragraph in your campaign, simply style the text as usual with the section toolbar.

style settings

Import Custom Fonts

Add custom Google fonts or hosted web fonts to your marketing newsletters, transactional and automation templates using the Email Editor.

Please note, the import custom font feature is only available on Paid Plans.

Custom fonts are saved per template. Fonts added in one template/newsletter are not automatically added to newly created ones or if you pick another template from the gallery.

Tip: Duplicate or export your template/newsletter to carry over your custom fonts.

To add a custom font, click on the Font Family drop down list from within a text element, and select ‘Add a web font‘.

custom fonts

At this point you choose to add a one of over 800 Google Web Fonts or link to a hosted web font via a CSS file.

custom fonts

 

Add A Google Font

Start typing a Google Font name. Once you select a font from the predictive list, the preview window will display the new font. You can also change the text in the ‘your font’ preview section (up to 15 characters).

google font

The preview section also displays a fallback font.

While some major email clients do support custom web fonts (Apple Mail, Android Mail, iOS Mail, Outlook 2016 OSX…), be aware that some others don’t, such as: Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Outlook 2003. In these cases, the fallback font will be displayed instead of the Google font.

Once you selected a custom font, click ‘Add font‘.

All custom fonts will be added to the top of the font list in alphabetical order.

google font

Fanatical about fonts? Check out Google fonts to learn more about typography.

 

Add Other Web Fonts

To add your own custom web font, enter the URL to the CSS file that contains the web font information. A new drop down list will appear showing all the fonts found in the CSS file. Simply click on the font you want to import and then click ’Add font’.

custom fonts

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Personalising Content

You can customise your newsletter text and subject field by adding your contact properties. Select the text frame where you want to display the personalised content. From the menu bar, click on ‘Variables‘.

content

Select the desired contact property.

content

Then enter text in the ‘Default value‘ box. If your contact does not have a “firstname”, the default text that will appear instead.

content

content

 

Manage your Mobile View

You can arrange how the columns in each section of your message will appear on a mobile device: Stacked (default) or Side by Side.

mobile view

To change a column display, click on the section background then click on the ‘Selection Options’ icon.

mobile view

Check the ‘Keep multiple columns on mobile’ options to display columns side by side. A small blue icon will appear in the section indicating the columns will be shown side by side on a mobile device.

mobile view

Click on ‘Preview & Test’ to view how your columns will look side by side.

Responsive Design (Fullwidth vs Boxed)

Our tool allows you to build responsive design newsletters. This means that your newsletter can respond and adapt accordingly to the width of your viewing screen. Your campaign will look awesome whether you view it on a computer/laptop, mobile phone or tablet.

The Setting Tab gives you two options for responsive design:

  • Fullwidth: Your campaign width will automatically adjust to the width of the viewing screen.
  • Boxed: The main campaign body width is static, regardless of the viewing screen.

responsive design

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Preview Your Campaign

To preview your campaign click on the Preview & Test → Preview Email.

preview

preview

Email Preview

Currently in our Email Editor we provide the possibility to test how a template or campaign will look like on different devices (screen sizes). This Preview gives view only of the responsiveness of the design, however each email client has its specifics.

The problem with email is that every inbox – Apple Mail, Outlook, Yahoo!, Gmail and all of the others – render the same email very differently. While we’re doing our best to offer the best result on all email clients, we have no control over the rules defined by those clients. For example, even Gmail will not render Google fonts and there’s nothing anyone can do about it (except Gmail, of course)!

Because of this, it’s very important to test your email across all of the email clients your audience is using to make sure they’re seeing your message the way you expect them to.

To help you do this, we have just launched a new feature that will help you preview your email exactly as is it will be displayed when read by your contacts.

Discover our “Email preview” feature HERE.

Send a Test email

You can send a test email (campaign) up to 10 recipients at any time.

To send a test campaign, click on the Preview & Test → Send a test mail.

test email

 

Save Your Campaign

save your campaign

To save your campaign, select ‘Save my email‘ or ‘Save and exit‘.

To save your campaign as a template, select ‘Save as a template’.

Let’s step through saving your campaign as a template:

The first time you save a campaign as a template, you will need to enter a template name. You can overwrite the default template name or enter a new template name.

For this example, a new template name will be entered. Then click ‘Confirm’ to create your new template.

save campaign

To view your new template, click on ‘Back to template selection’ from the main menu, then click ‘Use one of my templates‘.

save campaign

Send Your Campaign

Once you have worked your magic to create an amazing campaign, and you’re ready to send your campaign, click ‘Review & Send‘ from the Email Editor design window.

send campaign

Back at the ‘Create a new campaign‘ page, you can review all sections and make any changes.

Once all the sections are complete (each section has a green checkmark), you have the option to schedule your campaign up to 60 days in advance or send it immediately.

send campaign

Congratulations on sending your first campaign.

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