5 Tips To Help You Build Stunning Templates In Klaviyo

Designing an email template is no walk in the park. It takes immense dedication, perseverance, and a considerable grip over your craft to be able to whip up a pixel-perfect template that would, hopefully, appease your subscribers. But, every now and then, there comes across a template editor that strives to make this process a lot less intimidating for you. One such member in this coveted pantheon is Klaviyo’s email template editor. 

Klaviyo, of course, is no stranger to email marketing folks. While it harbors an array of elegant features in its suite, the one that’s going to be under the spotlight today is its template editor. Klaviyo presents you with two options- the classic template editor and the new template editor to design your email campaigns. Of late, the new template editor has garnered eyeballs, thanks to the fresh slate of features it has brought to the table- Undo/Redo buttons, Autosave, Custom fonts, Sections, and Background images, to name a few.

But, here’s the all-important question- How do you craft awe-inspiring emails using these editors? That’s exactly what we are going to help you out with today. In this blog, we are going to discuss a few best practices using which you can create pixel-perfect templates in Klaviyo with ease. Excited to find out what’s in store? Read on!

Features In Klaviyo Email Template Editor

Before we learn how to build jaw-dropping templates in Klaviyo, let us understand the tools we have at our disposal to give shape to the same. Content, Styles, Preview And Test– these are three broad options available to you in Klaviyo’s in-built editor. Let us take a closer look at each.

Content

• Offers you “Blocks” and “Layouts”, using which you can build your email template from scratch. With the help of blocks, you can add text, images, CTA buttons, social links, spacers, header bar, and other elements to the template. Layouts allow you to configure and arrange said blocks. One of the most endearing aspects of these blocks and layouts is that they can be saved, cloned, or deleted with ease. Should you want to shift any section or block in your template, just click on it and drag it around.

• In the Klaviyo editor, one can easily access the content they have designed in other templates (provided they have saved it), even in the first email template.

• You can take two routes while adding products from your store to the email template- Static and Dynamic. Choosing the former lets you manually pick out the products you want to showcase in your email. On the other hand, upon selecting the latter, products will be automatically chosen from your website. This happens in accordance with some set parameters, such as the popularity of the product, the frequency with which they are browsed, and the like. 

Styles

Under the styles tab, you can utilize a host of styling options. Below, we have listed a few:

• Adding a background image
• Applying a background color to the template
• Selecting and implementing fonts of your choice (and modifying their attributes as well, such as font size, spacing, weight, and color)
• Defining horizontal spacing between individual letters and vertical spacing between lines
• Aligning text as per your requirement

Preview And Test

Your job in Klaviyo’s email template editor doesn’t end with designing the template, of course. Once done, you must scan it for bugs and also inspect how it is going to hold up across a variety of environments and devices. This, you can accomplish by using the editor’s Preview And Test feature.

There are two ways you can go about it:

1. If you are using a metric-triggered flow, click on “Preview data source” and select “Event”. After that, you’ll need to specify the event that will set the flow into motion.

2. If you are dealing with list-triggered, price drop, date-triggered, or segment-triggered flows, click “Search for a profile” and select one you deem fit. It’s not necessary that this profile be an existent contact on the list that’s going to receive said email. It could also be someone whom you think qualifies for it.

Now that we have addressed the editor’s different features, on to the next stop- tips and tricks.

1. Mindfully Curate The Email Header

The email header is a critical component of the template. Why? Because it is home to several essential elements such as the brand logo, navigation bar, social media links and, sometimes, social media links, even.

• Brand logo- The pillar of your brand identity, your logo is arguably the most tangible marker of your brand personality. Hence, it only makes sense to have it showcased extremely prominently in your template’s header. To ensure consistency, sync your logo’s placement in the email with that of your website. If on your page, the logo is sat on the extreme right, mete out the same treatment to it in your email as well.
• Social media links- We are in 2023, which means that omnichannel marketing is no longer a heady concept but very much a reality. Brands that have a solid grip over it, have risen head and shoulders above their competition. Leveraging emails to divert traffic to social media handles has become quite a common practice. One of the best ways to go about it is by placing links to your social media accounts in your email header itself. That way, your readers will instantly spot them as soon as they open the email. 
• Navigation bar- Besides links to your social media accounts, you can also add a bevy of other links in your template as well, like homepage, sales page, shopping cart, and products page. So, where do you place them? You guessed it- in the navigation bar. Klaviyo makes it very convenient for you to create anchor links in your template. All you have to do is add in a ‘#’ symbol and follow it up with a few descriptive words.

2. Build A Master Template

Churning out emails regularly and staying on top of your production volume is important, sure. But, you know what’s even more important? Maintaining consistency. You might be hitting up your audience with a variety of marketing emails, but they’ll fail to create an impact if no two of them seem to be originating from the same source.

The easiest way to ensure consistency? Create a master template and save it. Once that is done, all you have to do is slice and dice different components of it as per the requirements of a particular campaign. Klaviyo’s editor gives you the choice of crafting saved blocks, which makes this all the more easy. Analyze the elements you want to standardize and save them as a block in your master template. Your logo, headlines, and CTA buttons are some elements you can consider for the same. This also makes it easier for you to leverage dynamic content in your campaigns- using different types of content for different audience segments- and amp up your personalization game.

3. Pay Attention To Your Layout

Your email can contain a ton of important and insightful information and still get overlooked if all of it isn’t structured tastefully. This is why, your email layout plays a pivotal role in determining its readability. Content, when arranged tastefully, incentivizes your subscribers to engage with it, thereby doing a whole world of good to your conversions. Klaviyo’s template editor is an extremely user-friendly platform. So, feel free to let your imagination run amok. The editor’s diverse suite of functionalities will never fail to actualize your vision.

Most brands these days can be seen adopting the single-column layout, and rightfully so. Compared to their multi-column counterparts, single-column layout emails aren’t just easier to read but also render significantly better across mobile devices. They also help you steer clear of issues such as overlapping columns, shifting images, and overflowing text, which the multi-column layout invites. Lastly, single-column layout emails can easily be navigated by screen readers as well, thereby making your information accessible to everyone. However, if you do have to use a multi-column layout, try using split blocks while dealing with two-column sections and columns block for three-column sections; this will help enhance the visual appeal of the end product.

4. Embrace White Space

For your emails to grab attention, they need to be legible, indisputably so. To make that possible, every single element in your email must have ample breathing space. And to actualize that, in turn, you need to make white space the hallmark of your templates. 

Apart from lending harmony and sophistication to your design, white space also doubles up as a visual pointer for your readers- it helps them navigate from one element to another. The driving philosophy behind using white space is not just to present information to your audience but to deliver it in such a manner that they feel rewarded while engaging with it.

5. Be Judicious With CTAs

In a bid to shoot up their conversion rates, brands often pepper their emails with way too many CTA buttons. However, all that ends up doing is increasing the cognitive load of the email. At all times, your priority should be to design your email so that it is easy for your subscribers to scan through it. 

10 seconds– that’s the amount of time people spend on average on a brand email. So, the more cluttered your email is, the lesser your chances of making an impact. As per your CTA button, one is sufficient, should you design it keeping the following points in mind:

• The physical attributes of your CTA button- size, shape, color- are incredibly crucial, for they determine its visibility and, subsequently, the chances of it being easily spotted by the reader. Be very mindful while chalking out these parameters.
• Place your CTAs right. Now, there are no hard and fast rules for the same. Some prefer placing it above the fold, making sure that the subscriber notices it as soon as they open the email. Some place it below the fold; the motive behind this call is to introduce the CTA button only after the reader has entirely gone through and understood the offerings within the email.
• Avoid using generic CTA phrases- “Click Now”, “Try Now”, “Join Us”, and the like. Always attempt to use action words; this will help you offer clarity to your audience. Ideally, aim to coin your CTA such that it gives subscribers an idea about where they’ll be led to upon clicking it.

In Klaviyo, you can use the “Button” option under the “Blocks” section to customize your CTA as you deem fit. 

Wrapping It Up

The Klaviyo email template editor is a highly sophisticated tool, allowing you to create exquisite templates from scratch, all in a matter of a few clicks. We hope the insights shared above help you make the most of this powerful tool.