Email layouts control the overall design of your email. You can add in various items as rows (such as headers and banner images), which gives you the flexibility to create content that best suits your brand. To choose default styling, such as font or colours, you would need to select a theme.
Before selecting your layout
You first need to consider what type of email you are sending before selecting the layout. Is it a newsletter? An order receipt?
Depending on what content you are creating, you need to select a message type of ‘Marketing’, ‘Notification’ or ‘Transactional’. ‘Marketing’ allows you to specify an opt in category. If a contact has this opt in category ticked (and they are in the group you are sending to) they will receive the message. If the email doesn’t require an opt in category, such as a transaction or notification, one of the other message types should be selected.
Different types of layouts
There are three default layouts in Horizon.
- Example – Marketing
- Example – Transactional
- Example – Notification
Please note that you should clone the layouts (the two papers icon beside the layout) before using them. You will then need to ensure any links or other personalisation’s are added.
Example – Marketing
This is the layout you are most likely to use. You should use this one for newsletters or any other email that requires the customer to be opted in.
The main design of the email layout is the same as the other example layouts. It’s the pre-header and the footer that are slightly different.
The pre-header ‘View in browser’ link will be visible.
The most important thing to note is the footer, which contains the unsubscribe and change your preferences links and the subscription reason. These links must be present for opted in contacts, to ensure they can update their subscription settings as needed. Without this, you risk customers reporting the message as spam, which would result in your email reputation being affected. Damaging your email reputation ensures your emails are more likely to go to the spam folder and can eventually lead to you being blocked from email domains altogether.
Example – Transactional
You should use this layout for transactions, such as order receipts or a hotel booking. These do not require the customer to be opted in.
The main design of this layout is similar to the other example layouts, however the ‘View in browser’ link is missing and the footer is different.
The footer contains details about your company, such as your address and privacy policy. This information should be provided to ensure customers can verify who you are and not mark you as spam.
Example – Notification
This layout should be used for Notification messages in surveys. This is used to notify a member of your team when a contact has filled in a survey.
The main design is similar to the other layouts, but like the transactional layout, the ‘View in browser’ link is not present. Horizon’s web address is the only text visible in the footer.
Creating custom email layouts
You can create your own custom layout. Alternatively, we can create them for you or you can ask a design agency to do this. For details on how to create a layout, see Creating an email layout
If you are interested in us creating a layout for you, please contact us
Updating layouts
If you update a layout, you will need to update any existing content for it to take effect. You’ll need to edit the existing content, then click ‘Refresh’ under the layout tab. This will pick up any new changes to your layout.