Design an Email with the New Builder

Mailchimp’s new email builder gives you the tools to quickly design beautiful campaigns. Start with one of our stylish templates, mix and match content blocks, and customize it with your own images, text, and branding.

In this article, you’ll learn how to design an email with the new builder.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• The new email builder is a beta feature. It's available for regular email and customer journey emails with a survey action. The new builder is also available in the classic automations single abandoned cart emails and automated welcome emails.
• If you have a Mailchimp Store, a supported e-commerce store, or custom API 3.0 integration, you can use product content blocks and abandoned cart blocks with the new email builder.
• For best results, you should only promote products from the store that's connected to the audience that will receive your email.
• This article tells you how to use our new builder. For more information on our classic builder, check out Design an Email with the Classic Builder. To switch builders, check out Switch Your Default Email Builder.
• If you’ve previously designed an email in the classic builder, you can use the design in the new builder. For more information, check out Use Classic Emails in the New builder.

Choose a template

To help you get started, we’ll provide you with a Prebuilt basic template. You can begin to add content, or switch to a different Prebuilt template. Choose from the Saved tab to work with your saved templates. If you’ve designed an email with the classic builder, check out Use Classic Emails in the New builder.

To preview and switch templates, follow these steps.

1. In the new email builder, click Templates.
   
2. Choose the Prebuilt or Saved tab.
   
3. Hover over the template you want to work with and click Preview to see the layout.
   
4. When you’re ready to switch, click Apply.
   
5. In the Change Template pop-up modal, you can choose Continue with existing content or Start with a clean template.
   
   If you don't want to save anything you've added to your email, choose Start with a clean template. Choose Continue with existing content to fit the content you've added to your email into your template selection.

Nice work! Next you’ll choose a background color, then add and design your email’s content.

Choose email styles

Use options in the Styles tab to choose the default style options for the email, text, links, and dividers. After you choose your email’s styles, make more detailed choices in individual content blocks.

To choose default styles for the email, text, links, and dividers, follow these steps.

1. Click the Styles tab.
   
2. Click the Email drop-down, then choose the email’s default Background color and Body color.
   
   When you’re done, click the drop-down to close it.
3. Click the Text drop-down, then choose default font, size, color, attributes and alignment for each heading level.
   
   When you’re done, click the drop-down to close it.
4. Click the Link drop-down, then choose the default Link color.
   
   When you’re done, click the drop-down to close it.
5. Click the Button drop-down, then choose the default Button shape, Button color, Button border, and Button font.
   
   When you’re done, click the drop-down to close it.
6. Click the Divider drop-down, then choose the default Height (px), Style, and Divider color.
   
   When you’re done, click the drop-down to close it.

After you choose your styles, any new content you add to the email will match those style choices. Change the styles for your email at any time.

After you make style changes to Text, Button, and Divider content blocks, click Restore default styles to match the defaults in the Styles tab.

Use content blocks

Use content blocks to edit the layout of your email. Add or remove different types of blocks to easily customize and rearrange the content you want to share. Check out About Mailchimp's Email Builders to learn about each content block.

In this section, we'll go over how to add, move, remove, and duplicate your content blocks.

Add content blocks

Add content blocks to your email with the Add tab. Drag and drop the content block you want to work with directly into your design.

After you add a block, use the editing menu and toolbar to customize it to fit your design. You can also click an existing block to access its editing options.

Move, remove, or duplicate blocks

You can move most content blocks anywhere in your template, or remove them as needed. You can also duplicate a block to create an exact copy.

To move, remove, or duplicate your blocks, follow these steps.

1. Click the block you want to work with.
2. In the block toolbar, click and hold the drag icon to move the content block to a new place in your email design.
   
3. To delete the selected block, click the trash icon.
   
4. To make an exact copy of the selected block, click the duplicate icon.
   

Review suggestions

As you add content to your email, we’ll suggest ways to help you improve your message. If we find any issues, like a broken link or merge tag, we’ll mark them with an exclamation point icon.

Click the Optimize tab to see the types of issues, as well as the total number of issues of each type.

These numbers update as you resolve each issue. Toggle the sliders on or off to control which types of suggestions to show. To learn more about the Optimize tab, check out About the Content Optimizer.

Undo and redo changes

While you’re working on your email’s design and content, you can undo and redo any changes you’ve made.

To undo a change, click the undo arrow icon.

To redo a change that you’ve undone, click the redo arrow icon.

Preview and test your email

When you’ve finished designing your email, preview and test it to make sure everything looks right.

To preview your email, follow these steps.

1. Click Preview.
   
2. Click the desktop or mobile icons to see how your finished email design looks on those devices.
   
3. Click Send a Test Email.
   
4. Type the email address you want to send the test to. You can include optional instructions and a personal message.
5. When you're ready, click Send Test.
   
6. When you're done, click Exit Preview Mode.
   

Save your email design

When you’re finished designing your email, click Continue.

Nice! You’ll be taken back to the campaign checklist where you can continue to set up your email as needed.