Last year, we partnered with Litmus to bring you Inbox Preview, and now they’ve got a new tool that can help simplify your email building process.
ESP Syncing allows you to sync the emails and templates you’ve created in Litmus Builder directly to your Mailchimp account. Instead of having to manually copy and paste code, template changes made in Builder will automatically be reflected in the templates you have saved in Mailchimp. Not only does this eliminate a step in the creation process, but it also ensures that you’re always using the most updated versions of your templates.
Here’s a look at the feature from our friends at Litmus:
Not familiar with Litmus Builder? Let’s take a quick look at how it can enhance your Mailchimp experience.
Made for developers
While our drag and drop editor is helpful for people who aren’t totally comfortable with development work, Litmus Builder is a great tool for those of you who code your own emails. Builder is a robust, web-based text editor that was built with email developers in mind, so it’s set up with tons of things that help make your job easier.
If you’ve ever had to inline CSS manually, you know how quickly that can become overwhelming. It’s hard to keep track of exactly which properties you’ve added to which sections of a template, and it works in direct opposition to the programming principle of DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Builder automatically inlines CSS for you, so you can style your emails using classes and ids, allowing you to keep your CSS neatly in the head of your document.
Keeping it consistent
Builder also allows you to save pieces of frequently used code as snippets and partials. These 2 things serve very similar purposes but with one key difference: Partials can be updated on the global level. Basically, this means that if code saved as a partial is updated, the changes will be reflected across all templates utilizing that partial. This works really well for things like headers, footers, and reset styles because now instead of having to manually update code in every template that uses a particular block of code, you can make the update in one place.
Snippets, on the other hand, are used on a single email basis and make it easier and faster to insert commonly used code. Snippets are helpful for storing bits of code that you use frequently, like buttons or ghost tables. For more examples, check out some of the Litmus community’s favorite snippets.
Snippets and partials help keep your code organized and uniform, but having multiple people working inside of a template can still make code consistency difficult to achieve. Builder keeps a timeline of any and all changes made to your code, so it’s easier to keep up with previous versions of templates and work collaboratively. The timeline feature shows who has made changes and when, and gives you the option to revert any of those changes.
Syncing the right way
This sync only occurs one way: Changes you make in Litmus Builder will show up in Mailchimp, but changes made to a template or campaign inside of Mailchimp will not update your code in Litmus. So make sure that you’re editing code in the correct place.
If you’d like more details or you have any questions about using Builder, check out Litmus’ Help Center.