Early February Adobe brought the new Email Designer to Marketo. The UI of this new designer is a much welcomed improvement to what we have been used to. There are lots of things in there to be enthusiastic about. The way fragments can be stored as independent ‘modules’ for re-use and the high level of flexibility in being able to lock content are already great features. Not to even start about the fact you can create your own templates without much in terms of html experience. Yet, there are questions to be answered with the current release.
So, what is available right now?
- In Marketo instances that have migrated to the new Adobe IMS, any user can be granted access to the new Email Designer. With that access, you can create and edit both email templates and emails using the new UI.
- You can do this inside Design Studio, in a separate folder from where your existing emails and templates live. You can also create emails using the new Email Designer inside Email Programs.
- In the new editor, you can set up your email or template from scratch or use an existing template from the library with an easy drag ‘n’ dop interface.
- Using structures and content elements, you build out your lay-out. Inside a template, you can lock specific parts of the lay-out so users of that template are restricted in what they can edit. You can lock the layout, lock styling and conrol what can be edited for the entire template, individual structures or content elements.
- Specific (combinations of) structures you would use repeatedly, you can save as fragments. These are comparable both to snippets and modules. Compared to snippets they are different in the sense that you can make certain parts editable in the individual email (similar to the current functionality of variables). Compared to modules they are stored independently, so you can have a library of fragments users can add to their emails.
- You can use links and tokens pretty much in the same way as you would today, but with some cool improvements. When selecting a token, you will get a pop-up window where you can select the type of token and within that the specific token you want to use. So it is really clear which tokens are available to you. When adding links to an email, there is an overview window that will show you all the links you have in the entire email, so you can validate in one central place whether they are all configured correctly.
- With the integration of Adobe Express and the introduction of the AI Assistant, generating and optimizing content is brought to the next level.
Main current drawbacks
That all sounds pretty good, right? So why are people underwhelmed? Well, there are some features not available at the moment which make the usability less than optimal. Most importantly:
- You cannot use the new emails in Default programs, Event programs or Engagement programs.
- Dynamic content and velocity scripts are not supported.
- Anyone with access to the new Email Designer can create and edit templates as well as build emails. So there is a lot of freedom to deviate from brand guidelines and go rogue with designs.
Ok, so that does put a damper on the enthusiasm. But fear not. All of these issues are going to be addressed and soon. In Q2 and Q3 this year, new features will be rolled out in pretty quick succession. Those new features will tackle all of these concerns and go much further.
What you can expect in the next few months:
- Availability in all program types (coming soon!).
- A new version of dynamic content which is more flexible than the current one as it is no longer dependent on segmentations.
- Handlebar replacing velocity script.
- Differentiated permissions for template designers and email builders.
- Introduction of themes: brand styling sets that can be defined and applied across your entire email or template, ensuring brand compliance throughout.
- Backwards compatibility with existing emails and templates. The new Email Designer will be able to use existing emails and templates and edit them with the same easy drag ‘n’ drop interface.
- A surprise I hadn’t even heard about yet is the possibility to import an image and let Marketo convert it into html code you can edit in the new email designer.
- Approval workflows. Build your email and submit it for review and approval to the right team. They will be able to provide feedback and approve the final versions right there inside Marketo.
With the capabilities already there and these enhancements, I honestly think that by the end of summer we should have a real powerful new interface for generating email content at scale. And right on the back of that, the beta program for the landing page editor leveraging the same capabilities is already underway. Granted, it was about time, but looking at the new capabilities I dare say it was worth the wait.
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