Understanding the text email builder

Overview

Text emails are a great way to connect personally with your contacts.

Read on to learn about Sendlane's text email editor.

Text email builder versus visual builder

Use cases

The visual builder is intended to create high-quality, visually stunning marketing emails, while the text editor is intended to create personal, text-focused emails.

Use the text builder to create emails that strengthen a personal connection to your brand. Welcome emails, company history, requests for feedback, apology messages, and thought leadership are great candidates for the text email editor.

Visual builder exclusive elements

Elements like the abandoned cart and other dynamic blocks are unavailable in the text editor. We recommend reserving text emails for messages not solely focused on inviting contacts to make a purchase.

Footer

Your company name and business address (as set in the sender profile used for the email) and an unsubscribe link appear in the text email builder's footer as the last line in the email. This line cannot be edited.

Create a text email

Creating text emails is the same for automations and campaigns. You must create a text email within the campaign or automation builder; text emails cannot be created directly from the email template center.

Available styling

The following styling options are available in the text builder:

• Brand fonts

• Text color, size, alignment, and formatting

• Ordered and unordered lists

• Images*

• Tagged links

• Emojis

• Personalization and templating syntax**

• Coupons**

• Custom data**

• HTML editing

*When you upload an image, you can change its size in the visual editor only upon upload. After you've saved your image, use the HTML view to adjust your image's size further.
**Click the thunderbolt icon in the menu bar to access these features.

To create a text email:

1. Create a campaign or automation

2. Fill in your campaign or automation's general, audience, and advanced settings

3. Click Create Email

4. Click Start From Scratch

5. Click Text Builder

6. Compose your email

7. Click Save & Continue

8. Continue scheduling your campaign or activating your automation

Convert a text email to HTML

Text emails can be converted to HTML, but HTML emails cannot be converted back to text.

To convert a text email to HTML:

1. Click the gear icon

2. Click Convert to HTML

3. Click Convert

Save a text email as a new or existing template

The visual builder, HTML builder, and text builder all use the same method of saving as a template.

You must create a text email within the campaign or automation builder; text emails cannot be created directly from the email template center.

To save a text email as a template:

1. Click the gear icon

2. Click Save as New Template

3. Enter a descriptive name for your template

4. Click OK