The solution? Upload your media directly to the number in cambodia CMS, and then add images to your template from your CMS. The best way is to do this in bulk, where you’re able to upload all media used in your emails and set metadata, even using variable tags to build sophisticated metadata.
It raises the question - why would Salesforce allow you to upload images straight to the email template but then not let you use them in email sends? Whether intended or not there is an answer; placeholder images. You can be confident when building a template that the email can’t go out with a placeholder image, if you upload the image directly to the template. The user would have to replace that image with the campaign asset, hosted in the CMS, before setting the email free into the wild.
3. Make your email templates available to use
Salesforce CMS has taken us a long way in enabling media for use in sales activity, as well as for us marketers across different assets. From Summer ‘22 we’ll even be able to use media and email templates in Salesforce Engage, for further control over messaging, and look and feel of marketing collateral in sales teams.
Visibility and control are key in the CMS, and that’s why you’ll need to make your email templates available in a public folder if you’d like other members of your team to make use of them.
Screenshot of Email Templates All Templates screen in Email Builder
You’ll also be able to use your new email templates in automations in Account Engagement (Pardot), such as in Engagement Studio Programs, but again only if you explicitly make them available for automations. This is done in the Email Content window, after you’ve created Email Content using your initial template, by selecting the arrow dropdown and enabling ‘Activate for Automation’.
Screenshot of Email Content example in Email Builder
4. Reporting on emails when using Einstein Send Time Optimisation
After getting my email set up, signed, sealed, and delivered using Einstein Send Time Optimisation (ESTO), there was a moment of mild panic when I couldn’t find it in the ‘Email Sends’ list.
This is because we were still inside the time window for ESTO, and so the email will not show up until the window has lapsed and all emails have been sent. At that point, you’ll see full results and metrics as expected, with additional insights powered by Einstein.
However, the email DOES show in the classic Pardot email send report, as you would traditionally access under List Emails and the likes. This is good to know as it prevents marketers from losing track of whether the email has gone out or not, and accidentally re-sending - you just need to know where to look!
5. Beware of rogue text formatting
As a no-code marketer, one of my biggest headaches is text formatting going rogue in the template, and the HTML view quickly becoming chaotic. Even experienced developers are often baffled by how the code seemingly rewrites itself following an innocent copy-and-paste job, and so marketers like me need to take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen.
As the new drag-and-drop builder doesn’t yet facilitate custom fonts, we do still have to rely on custom code for styling and formatting. The best way to navigate this when editing an existing template is to add text to the HTML view, replacing the chunks of copy between code snippets, as opposed to adding it to the visual editor. This way, the text won’t need to be restyled and you won’t be left with annoying formatting issues, like line heights and margins being inconsistent.
It’s also really easy to clone existing modules in an email, so it may be more practical to make a clone and work from there, to protect the integrity of the original formatting.
While I’ve explicitly discussed where you could go wrong with this new tool, it must be said that the drag-and-drop email builder contains some fantastic new features that will only make life easier for both experienced and fresh email marketers. We can now quickly build sophisticated and smooth-looking email templates, which previously would have been impossible without extensive HTML and CSS experience.
Need more support? Our on-demand training pitstop 4 ‘The life of an email marketer' covers everything an email marketer needs to know when navigating Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), from file and template storage to compliance, and practical use of the drag-and-drop builder.