Design your email

You can design email messages in campaigns and journeys with Attentive's drag-and-drop email editor. 

Open email editor for a campaign message

Follow these steps to open the email editor for a campaign message:

1. From the Campaigns page, create a new campaign or edit an existing campaign.
2. Click Use drag-and-drop-editor.
   
3. If this is a new message, select a template on the Select an email template page. 
   
   After you select a template, the email editor appears.
   

Open email editor for a journey message

Follow these steps to open the email editor for a journey message:

1. From the Journeys page, create a new journey or edit an existing journey.
2. Click the Send email message step you want to design.
3. Click Edit content.
   
   If you're adding a new Send email step to the journey, click Use drag-and-drop editor.
   
   The email editor appears.
   

Add content blocks to your email

Whether you're editing an email message for a journey or campaign, you can build and design your email by dragging content blocks from the CONTENT tab, dropping them into your email, and then customizing each block in the panel on the right. You can also rearrange and delete blocks in your email. 

The following content blocks are available:

Title

Add H1, H2, or H3 headers to your email. Configure settings in the panel on the right to change font (family, weight, and size), text and link color, text alignment, line height, letter spacing, and more.

Paragraph

Add body text to your email. A rich text editor appears as you type. Configure settings in the panel on the right to change font (family, weight, and size), text and link color, text alignment, line height, letter spacing, and more.

List

Add a bulleted or numbered list to your email. A rich text editor appears as you type. Configure settings in the panel on the right to change font (family, weight, and size), text and link color, text alignment, line height, letter spacing, and more.

Image

Add a .gif, .jpeg, or .png file to your email. Select Browse files to upload an image or enter the image's Url in the panel on the right.

If formatting is incompatible with mobile or desktop devices, we recommend hiding it for that type of device.

Button

Add buttons to your email to encourage action from your customers. In the panel on the right, select a. Link type to configure what happens when subscribers click the button (e.g., open a web page or send a text message). You can also change font (family, weight, and size), text and link color, text alignment, line height, letter spacing, borders, padding, and more.

Divider

Add a dividing line between two content blocks. Click the Transparent toggle to use it as a small spacer. Otherwise, customize the pattern, size, color, and alignment in the panel on the right.

Spacer

Divide your content with a blank white space. You can adjust the height of the spacer in the panel on the right.

Social

Add social media icons with links to your brand’s social media pages. For each social media icon you include, add a Url. You can click and drag to reorder icons, click Delete to delete an icon, or click ADD NEW ICON to add a new social media icon. You can also configure icon alignment, spacing, and padding.

HTML

Add a block with custom HTML. To design your entire email in HTML, see Design your email with HTML.

Video

Add a YouTube or Vimeo video to your email. Paste the URL of the video in the Url field. Subscribers will see a video preview, which takes them to the actual video URL when clicked.

Icons

Add icons if you need to add small images. For example, to encourage subscribers to review a product, you could add star icons that link to your review platform.

Menu

Add a horizontal menu. For each menu item, include a link, the text you want to appear in the menu, and a title for the linked page. Specify the link type and targeting goals for each item in the dropdown menus.

Dynamic image

Add the image of the product that triggered a journey (e.g., a browse abandonment or cart abandonment journey). See Add dynamic product images to your triggered email for more information.

Product catalog

If you have product data stored in Attentive (via the Shopify integration or Product Catalog API) you can add associated products to any campaign or triggered email message. See Add a product from your catalog to your email for more information.

Product recs

If you’ve integrated your product catalog, you can add product recommendations to your emails. When you add a product recommendation, our machine learning tool suggests products to subscribers based on their shopping history in the past three months, including not just purchase data, but also product views and items they add to their shopping cart.

Dynamic products

You can add multiple dynamic products to your email. You can configure the number of products you want to display, the layout, the number of columns, and which product details to show. See Add multiple dynamic products to your email for more information.

Move and delete content blocks

Each content block lives inside of a row. The editor highlights each row as you hover over it with your cursor.

• Move a row: Click the four-way arrow to drag and drop a row to a different part of the editor.
• Move text or content: You can click and drag content blocks from one row to another.
  
• Delete content: Click on the blank space outside of the row or content block you'd like to delete, then click the trash can.
• Undo a change: Click the undo button in the bottom-left corner of the editor to undo your most recent change.
• Restore previous version: Click the time button in the bottom-left corner of the editor to see previous versions of your email. Select the version you want to restore.

Add rows

Rows allow you to further customize how your email appears.

1. In the drag-and-drop editor, click the Rows tab.
   
2. Optionally, select a filter in the drop-down to select a premade, saved, or synced row. Otherwise, drag and drop the row format that you want to apply. Filters include:
   
   • Email basics: Headers, footers, navigation bars, announcement bars, and dividers
   • Content blocks: Evergreen content, text blocks, and image blocks
   • Reviews / Press highlights: Rows structured for testimonials, quotes, and press reviews
   • Customer service / Value props: Informative content including shipping / return information, FAQs, and links to contact your customer service team
   • Payments: Banners and logos for your accepted payment methods 
3. In the ROWS tab, configure backgrounds, borders, layout, and column structure.
4. From the CONTENT tab, drag and drop content blocks to fill the sections of your rows.

Save a row

Saved rows allow you to design and manage sections of emails—like headers, footers, or promotional spaces—that you can add to multiple emails. For example, you can create a saved footer row that includes all of your company’s contact information. By using a saved row as your footer, you can quickly add this information to your emails and ensure this information is consistent across all of your emails.

Follow these steps to save a row:

1. Click into a row, then click the save icon. (If you don't see the save icon, click to the right or the left of the content in the row.)
   
   The Save row window appears.
   
2. In the Save row window, complete the following:
   
   • Enter a row Name.
   • Select a Category. Keep in mind that the Category determines where you can find the row in the email editor when you add a row to an email.
   • Choose the Standard row Type. If you’d like to create a synced row instead, see Create and use synced rows.
3. Click Save.

Add an offer

You can add an offer to an email in order to send dynamic discount codes and auto-apply links associated with that offer.

1. In the top-right corner of the editor, click Add offer. 
2. On the Attach an offer window, select an offer.
3. Click Add. The name of the offer appears in the top-right corner of the editor.
   

After you’ve created an offer, you can add discount codes and auto-apply links associated with that offer. 

See Add an offer and include a discount code in your email for more information about offers in emails.

Remove an offer

1. Click the offer name in the top-right corner.
2. On the Add Offer window, click the X to the right of the offer name.
   
3. Click Remove offer to confirm.

The name of the offer is cleared from the upper-right corner of the email editor and removed from your email.

See Add an offer and include a discount code in your email for more information about offers in emails.

Configure settings

From the SETTINGS tab of the editor, you can customize the width of your email for desktop and configure overall alignment, background colors, default font, and link color.

Preview and send test emails

In the email editor, you can preview how your emails will look to your subscribers. You can also send test emails to yourself or others on your team. If you use dynamic content to personalize emails, you can also preview emails with actual subscriber data. For more information, see Preview and send test emails.