Create an email template
A template is a reusable message with placeholders that fill themselves in from the record it is sent about — a name, an amount, an appointment time. Write the message once, mark the parts that vary, and every send reads specific rather than generic.
Requirements: a role that can manage email templates. To send from one, a connected mailbox.
Templates are for the messages you send repeatedly — a booking confirmation, a follow-up after a job, a welcome to a new lead. Rather than retyping each one, you write it once with placeholders where the details go, and those details are filled in from the record at the moment of sending.
Steps
- Write the message as you would send it to one person, using a real example in your head rather than abstract wording.
- Replace the varying parts with placeholders — the customer's name, the appointment time, the amount, the job description. Everything else stays as fixed text.
- Write a subject line that works with the placeholders filled in, not just empty. "Your appointment on Tuesday" beats "Appointment notification".
- Preview it against a real record so you see the message as a recipient will, with actual values in place.
- Save it under a name describing when it is used — "booking confirmation", not "template 3".
What placeholders can pull
The values available come from the record the message is about, and from a couple of other places:
- Fields on the record itself — the appointment time, the amount, the status.
- Fields one step away through a link — if the record points at a customer, you can pull that customer's details too. One hop only: from an order to its customer, yes; from an order to its customer's account manager's phone number, no.
- The recipient's own details, resolved per person when the message goes out — which is what lets one send reach many people, each addressed properly.
- An unsubscribe link, for anything resembling marketing.
- The business name and the current date, for signatures and dated messages.
Writing templates that hold up
Two habits save embarrassment. Assume a field might be empty — a greeting that reads "Hello ," when a name is missing is worse than one that simply says "Hello". Prefer placeholders for fields that are reliably filled, and write around the ones that are not.
And preview before it goes anywhere near a customer. A placeholder pointing at a field that does not exist on that collection will not fill in, and the fastest way to catch it is to look at one rendered message.
Notes and limitations
- Placeholders reach one link deep — the record and what it directly points at, not further.
- Recipient details and the unsubscribe link only work when sending, not in other contexts.
- Automations started on a schedule have no particular record attached, so record placeholders have nothing to fill from — those messages need their records looked up by a step first.
- An empty field renders as nothing — write so the sentence still reads.
- Include an unsubscribe link in anything promotional; it is both good practice and what keeps your sending reputation intact.
Related
How email works overall is in email and the inbox; connecting the mailbox that sends is in connect a mailbox. To send a template automatically when something happens, see create and activate an automation and automation triggers.