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Mail block editor

Build a marketing email from blocks instead of writing HTML.

Build a mailing from blocks​

Open Marketing, Templates, New template and keep the channel on email. The message starts in Build from blocks with a heading, a text block and the footer.

  • Add a block with the buttons above the list: heading, text, image, button, divider, spacer, articles. You can also drag a button into the list.
  • Pick a block in the list to set what it says. A text block takes markdown: bold, italic, links and lists are kept, anything else is sent as plain text. An image needs an https:// address and alternative text. A button needs its text and an https:// link; its colour starts as your theme colour.
  • Reorder by dragging the handle, or with Move up and Move down. The buttons work with the keyboard, and focus stays on the block you moved.
  • Preview shows the message as it will be sent, at desktop and at phone width. The server renders it, with the picked articles and your physical address in place.

The articles block is where the articles you pick under Articles appear.

Every marketing email has to say who sent it and how to stop receiving it. The footer always ends with your physical address and the unsubscribe link. You can write your own text above them, but you cannot remove them, so a template built from blocks always passes the compliance check. Fill in Physical address below the message: that is the address the footer shows.

HTML templates​

A template saved before blocks existed opens as HTML, as before. Write HTML turns a blocks template into HTML: the message stays as it is, but the blocks are not kept, and the form asks before it does this. Build from blocks is offered when the HTML body is empty.

Mail clients​

The message is a single column of 600 pixels built from tables with inline styles, which is what mail clients render most alike. Rendering in specific mail clients (Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail) has not been checked by hand yet; send a test mailing to yourself before a large send.

API​

  • POST /apps/pipelinq/api/templates and PATCH /apps/pipelinq/api/templates/{id} take editorMode (blocks or html) and blocks. In Blocks mode the server renders bodyHtml and bodyText from the blocks on every save.
  • POST /apps/pipelinq/api/templates/render takes blocks, articleIds and footerOverride and answers renderedHtml and renderedText (what a save stores) and bodyHtml and bodyText (what is sent, articles and address in place). Marketing managers and administrators only.