Your marketing content is a reflection of your brand.
Having the option to create customized email templates in Constant Contact's Lead Gen & CRM lets you have full control on how your messages will appear in the inbox.
This article will detail how to create a custom simple or designer email template.
Article Contents
| Trial | ✓ | |
| Essential | ✓ | |
| Advanced | ✓ | |
| Ultimate | ✓ |
Email| Administrators | ✓ | |
| Company Managers | ✓ | |
| Marketing Managers | ✓ | |
| Sales Managers | ||
| Salespersons | ||
| Jr. Salespersons |
Regarding Email Creation
To create an email in Lead Gen & CRM, you must first start with a template. You can use either a created template or an existing template. Emails can only be created by using a template.
Be aware that simple and designer email templates are set, by default, to be 800 pixels wide. This size cannot be changed. However, these email templates are responsive by nature. Up-to-date browsers and email clients will automatically resize these templates to appropriate sizes that look appealing.
In addition, while Lead Gen & CRM does not have any specific image size requirements for email templates, consider it a best practice to keep image file sizes as small as possible. This helps to facilitate quick downloads.
Creating Templates in Lead Gen & CRM
You can create email templates as necessary.
To create email templates, click Email in the toolbar and do the following:
- Click Create>Create Email Template.
Click to enlarge.
- Enter a name for the template.
- Click Add Template.
Click to enlarge.
- Click
Send Settings in the left panel.
Important: When using the Send Settings option group, the Email Name will auto-fill into the Subject field. Be sure to change it, as the email name is for internal use only.
- Enter a title for the email template.
-
Optionally, enter a description for the email template.
Click to enlarge.
- Click
Content and Layout in the left panel. - Drag-and-drop the desired layouts or elements into the template.
Note: When using the Send Settings option group, the Email Name will auto-fill into the Subject field. Be sure to change it, as the email name is for internal use only.
Click to enlarge.
- Click
Theme Styles in the left panel and modify template fonts and colors as needed. - Optionally, click
More Options > View Code to edit the template's HTML code. - Click Save Template.
Click to enlarge.
Note: To remove a theme color in the Theme Styles menu, click the 
Erase icon next to the color box.
You can begin creating individual emails once you have saved the template. Refer to the following articles for more information how to create emails after you have created a template:
Other Information on the Email Designer
When using the Email Designer, consider the following:
- Certain styles will not be displayed in View Code mode. The email designer takes any of the styles in the HTML for Email Standard Styles, pulls them into the database, and removes them from the HTML. Do not be alarmed when these styles are removed from the HTML in the View Code mode.
- The email designer will look at the first <style> element in the <head> of the HTML and find the CSS for the relevant classes. If the styles are transparent, that means the color is not in the database. It is either in the email’s standard styles or in the head of the email. If that happens, the color will be set in the database. Though it no longer shows in the head, it will appear.
- Use these styles to ensure that your desired global styles are brought in by the email designer. If you make a template outside the Lead Gen & CRM application and import it, you will need to put styles in the head.
- With standard styles, inline email editor styles will override the email standard styles that CSS applied to the header of your email. Overriding the global styles inline is applicable on secondary styles that are exceptions to your primary styles.
- Tables are unavailable in in Simple and Designer emails. Tables are only available with Legacy emails. Legacy templates are no longer available for creation.