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Email Template

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Engage Premier End of Life

Engage Premier features, including Channels, Broadcasts, content templates, and Subscriptions, will no longer be available after December 15, 2025.

Use Twilio Engage to build personalized email templates to store and use throughout marketing campaigns.

Build an email template from scratch using the Drag and Drop Editor or the HTML Editor. Include personalized content in the subject line, preview text, and email body to engage with users based on their profile traits and actions.

Build an Email template

Navigate to Engage > Content and use the Email Templates page to preview and edit existing templates.

To configure an email template, click Create Template.

Select Email, and click Configure.

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You must first connect a SendGrid subuser account to your Segment space to build email templates in Engage. Visit the onboarding steps for more information.

Configure the email template.
1. Add a template name for internal reference.
2. Add an internal description.
3. Enter the sender email address. You can optionally include profile traits.
  - Emails can only be sent from verified domains.
4. Enter the sender name.
5. Indicate if you want replies sent back to the initial sender. If not, add a "reply to" email and name, or include profile traits.
6. Add email addresses to receive a blind carbon copy of your email.
7. Add preview text and the subject line. Use merge tags to personalize the email template with real-time profile traits.
Select the design method to build your email template:
- Drag and Drop Editor is a drag and drop WYSIWYG tool with customizable content blocks.
- HTML Editor contains both a code and visual editor from a single view. This editor provides complete HTML editing access with error flagging.
Design the email template, then click Create Email Template.

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Engage content validation

For all content editors in Engage, you'll see alerts for any issues in your template, such as invalid profile traits or incorrect liquid syntax. Engage both flags template issue(s), and displays recommended next steps. While you can save these templates, you must fix any issues before using them in Engage campaigns.

Test the Email template

You can send test emails before you include a template in marketing campaigns.

Select the email template you want to test on the Templates screen.
From the Template Settings page, click Test email.
If your template has profile traits, enter a trait value for the test email. This ensures that your merge tags work as expected.
- To test a default value, leave the profile traits field blank. Default values must be assigned in your merge tags. For example, loyal customer would be the default for the following merge tag: {{profile.traits.first_name | default: "loyal customer"}}.
- To test traits with arrays, you must input the array in JSON format. For example, ["item1", "item2"] or [{"itemName": "shoes"}]. If you don't use JSON format for arrays in the test message side sheet, your template might not render as expected.
Enter recipient email addresses for the test message.
- Profiles that you send test messages to must have a userId in Segment.
Select Send test email.

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You can also test email templates directly from a Send an Email step in Journeys.

Dynamic sender using merge tags

Engage supports dynamic sending using merge tags. Personalize email content by adding real-time profile traits in merge tags to the following fields:

Subject line
Preview text
Message body
From sender
Reply to email

As you configure the template, click Merge Tags and select the profile traits to include. Engage inserts the merge tags based on cursor placement.

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For all merge tags, you must add a default value inside a single quote. For example: {{profile.traits.traits | default: 'Default'}}
Only use variable tags in liquid sytax.

The following table contains a description and some best practices for all fields in the email template. Asterisks indicate required fields.

Field	Description
Template Name*	The email template name.
Description	A description for the template.
From sender*	The email address users will see in the from field of the email campaign. For the profile trait and default value, use a valid username. For example: - `default: 'jsmith'` is valid - `default: 'j smith'` is invalid
Sender name*	The name users will see next to the sender email.
Reply to email*	The email address that will receive any replies users send. You can use different Sender and reply-to email addresses. Email recipients will see this address if they reply to your campaign. The profile trait and default value must be one of the following: - A valid email address - A valid username for the email address (the input field needs to end with a valid domain for the email address)
Reply to name*	The name users will see next to the reply-to email address.
BCC	Email address that will receive a blind carbon copy of your email campaign.
Preview text	A brief message that displays next to the email subject.
Subject*	The email subject.

You can also add merge tags in the heading or body text as you design an email with the Drag and Drop or HTML editors. Engage supports liquid templating to create dynamic content in the email design editor.

Use liquid statements with an image URL

If you're using the image content module in the Drag and Drop Editor, you can't use liquid statements in the Image URL field. To use liquid statements with an image, Segment recommends using an HTML block with the following syntax:
<img src="{{profile.traits.imageLink | default: '<insert your default URL here>'}}", where profile.traits.imageLink is an example profile trait representing personalized image links for each recipient.

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To learn more about profile traits, visit Segment's Computed Traits and SQL Traits documentation.

Include unsubscribe and manage preference links

When you build an email template, you'll need to include links that your customers can access to unsubscribe and manage their email preferences. You'll find both in the Special Links dropdown menu of the Insert/Edit link window.

Unsubscribe links

When you build email templates, it's your responsibility to include an unsubscribe link in your message. Add unsubscribe links to an email template from the Drag and Drop or HTML editors.

When a recipient clicks on an unsubscribe link, they'll see a confirmation page and the recipient's subscription state is updated.

Learn more about User Subscriptions in Twilio Engage.

Manage preference links

The manage preference link lets your customers opt in and out of email groups on an individual basis instead of unsubscribing from all your campaigns.

For more information, see subscription groups.

Arrays and objects in Broadcasts

Segment doesn't support profile traits in object and array datatypes in Broadcasts, but you cam use them in Journeys.

Next steps

View some email deliverability tips and tricks from SendGrid.
You can also use the Templates screen in Engage to build SMS templates.

FAQs

Do updates to an email template automatically apply to Journey steps using it?

When you add a template to a Journey step, it becomes a copy specific to that step. Changes made to the original template won't update the Journey version, and edits made in the Journey step won't affect the original template. This keeps your Journey changes separate while preserving the original for reuse.