Email Templates
A template gives your campaigns a consistent look: colours, fonts, layout, and a footer. You write each campaign's content once, and the template wraps it.
Inside a project, go to Templates. Each template is shown as a card with its name, its type, and a Default label if it's the project's default.
Create a template
Select New template. The editor has the settings on the left and a live preview on the right.
Choose a type
| Type | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Styled | Postak's responsive layout. Pick colours and fonts; no HTML needed. The best choice for most newsletters. |
| Custom HTML | Your own HTML design. Put {{ content }} where the campaign content should go. |
| Plain text | A text wrapper, such as a greeting and signature, around {{ content }}. Plain-text campaigns that use it are sent without HTML. |
| MJML | Your own responsive layout written in MJML. Put {{ content }} inside <mj-text> where the campaign content should go. See MJML templates. |
Templates created in earlier versions of Postak may show the type Markdown (older). They keep working; you can switch them to one of the types above.
For Custom HTML, Plain text, and MJML, the template must contain {{ content }}. The editor warns you while it's missing, and the template can't be saved without it.
Settings tab
- Name: how the template appears in lists and in the campaign editor.
- Use as the default for new campaigns: see The default template.
- Footer (Markdown), styled templates only: text shown under every email, such as your organisation's address or a signature. Keep the unsubscribe link (
{{ unsubscribe_url }}) in it. If it's missing, Postak adds its own unsubscribe line so every email still has one. - Template body, custom HTML, plain-text, and MJML templates: your wrapper, with
{{ content }}for the campaign content.
Placeholders such as {{ contact.first_name }} and {{ unsubscribe_url }} work in footers and template bodies too. See Personalising your email.
Style tab (styled templates)
- Colours: page background, content background, text, links, headings, buttons and button text, quote border and quote text, dividers, and footer text and links.
- Text: the font and heading font (System, Sans-serif, Serif, or Monospace), content width, text size, line spacing, the three heading sizes, button corners, and footer text size. Each slider shows its current value.
Fonts are common ones that most email apps already have, so your email looks the same for most readers.
Live preview
The preview shows sample content (headings, a paragraph with a link, a button, a quotation, and a list) in your template, and updates shortly after each change. It uses a sample person, Jane Doe, for personalisation.
In styled templates, a paragraph that holds only a bold link becomes a button:
[**Read more**](https://example.org)
If the preview lists warnings, such as an unknown placeholder, fix them before using the template.
Select Save to keep the template.
MJML templates
MJML describes a responsive email with tags such as <mj-section>, <mj-column>, <mj-text>, and <mj-button>. Postak compiles it into HTML that works in most email apps.
A new MJML template starts with a simple layout: a white content area on a light background, with {{ content }} in it, and a small footer with the unsubscribe link. Change it as you like:
- The template must be a whole
<mjml>document. It can be up to 100,000 characters. - Put
{{ content }}inside<mj-text>(or<mj-raw>). Anywhere else, MJML drops it when compiling; the preview then warns you and Postak puts the content at the end of the email instead. - Campaigns written in Markdown, HTML, or Plain text can use an MJML template. Their content is turned into HTML and put where
{{ content }}is. Campaigns that use an MJML template are always sent as HTML with a plain-text version. - Campaigns written in MJML don't use templates; they are complete emails. See Writing in MJML.
- Problems show as warnings below the preview, with the line number.
<mj-include>isn't supported. - If the template has its own
<mj-preview>, it replaces the campaigns' Preview text. - Placeholders work in the template as in the other types.
The default template
One template per project can be the default. New campaigns start with it selected, so you don't have to pick it each time. You can still choose another template, or (no template), in the campaign editor.
To change the default, select Make default on a template's card, or tick Use as the default for new campaigns in the editor. The previous default stops being the default. The default template is listed first.
Changing the default doesn't change campaigns you've already created.
Clone a template
Select Clone on a card or in the editor to make a copy named "... (copy)". Use it to try a variation, such as a seasonal colour scheme, without changing the original. A copy is never the default.
Edit or delete a template
Select Edit on a card to change a template. Changes apply to every draft and scheduled campaign that uses it, and to the web view of sent campaigns that use it.
Changes to a template apply to emails that haven't been sent yet, including the rest of an A/B test that is still waiting for its winner. While campaigns that use the template are still sending, the editor says so above the template body, for example "Used by 1 campaign(s) that are still sending. Changes apply to emails not sent yet." If you're running an A/B test, wait until it's finished before changing its template, so the rest of your audience gets the layout you tested.
Select Delete to remove a template. If a draft, scheduled, or sending campaign still uses it, Postak won't delete it and tells you how many campaigns use it: choose another template for them first. Sent campaigns don't block deletion; their reports are kept.
Tips
- Test with real content: create a campaign with the template, check the preview as a few different contacts, then send a test to yourself.
- Check the email in the apps your subscribers use. Email apps differ, and some ignore certain styles.
- Choose text and background colours with good contrast so the email is easy to read for everyone.