Marketo Email Editor 2.0 – Insights you should know!
What’s In It For Me?
- Risks involved when enabling the new email editor.
Ideal way to make the full use of the new editor.- Experience of marketers who have started using the new Email Editor 2.0
Since the launch of Marketo’s new Email Editor 2.0, I have seen many marketers talking about it in detail. Without a doubt, the new email editor makes editing emails easy for every “hands-on” marketer. Some of the interesting features in the new email editor include:
- Advanced Email Editor with Modules & Elements: The new editor makes it easy for you to manage different sections in your emails. If you have been using the guided templates for landing pages in Marketo, you would see many similarities in the new email editor. The editor allows you to add, remove, and reorder different sections in your email. And within each module, the elements help you edit colors, fonts, text etc.
- Template Picker: This includes some templates from Marketo’s own library. Some of us may find these helpful while others may not. Since many marketing teams need an email template designed as per their specifications, they would need new templates. With that said, Marketo templates can be really helpful when you need to try a new email layout without spending time on getting a new email template designed.
Built in Pre-Header Text: For those of us who have been using a code snippet in our emails to personalize the preview text in Gmail or Outlook, this is a helpful feature. Pre-header texts can help you improve your email open rates.
While you see everyone is thrilled about the new email editor from Marketo, here are some of the questions still hitting many marketing teams:
- Should we just turn on the new email editor and start exploring?
- What are the risks of the new editor?
- How can we edit our old emails in the marketing programs?
- What kind of templates do we need to make the full use of the new editor?
- What has been the experience of marketers with the new editor?
- When can we train and help our regional marketing teams with the new email editor?
These are some of the common questions I have been answering since the launch of the new email editor in the past few weeks. While working with different clients across the globe, here are some of my learning points:
1. Should we just turn on the new email editor and start exploring?
Depends on the size of your marketing team. If you are in a small group using Marketo in your company, and your fellow marketers are in the same room, you can turn it on and start exploring. However, if you are working with marketing teams in different continents or you have different workspaces, it is critical to get everyone on the same page before you enable the new editor. It can cause some discomfort to the marketing teams sitting far if they start seeing errors when trying to edit their old emails after the new editor is enabled.
Depends on the size of your marketing team. If you are in a small group using Marketo in your company, and your fellow marketers are in the same room, you can turn it on and start exploring. However, if you are working with marketing teams in different continents or you have different workspaces, it is critical to get everyone on the same page before you enable the new editor. It can cause some discomfort to the marketing teams sitting far if they start seeing errors when trying to edit their old emails after the new editor is enabled.
2. What are the risks of the new editor?
Did you hear that a fellow marketer was able to migrate to the new editor without a single glitch? Fancy that!
When the new email editor was launched, there were some bugs reported. You can see a detailed explanation by Gregoire Michel on the Marketo Community here. When we started migrating the assets, we did run into challenges with the old emails. Even after doing a thorough code review and updating the code of our existing templates, we had to reach out to the Marketo Support for some help. However,Marketo team has been able to iron out many of the issues.
The process and effort for migrating to the new templates depend on 2 factors – the number of old templates you want to continue using after the migration, and the quality of the code of your existing templates. If you want to use your existing templates in the new editor, you might have to get the whole template recreated to match the syntax that supports the new editor. Reach out to our team if you are willing to get an audit done for your existing templates before the migration.
Did you hear that a fellow marketer was able to migrate to the new editor without a single glitch? Fancy that!
When the new email editor was launched, there were some bugs reported. You can see a detailed explanation by Gregoire Michel on the Marketo Community here. When we started migrating the assets, we did run into challenges with the old emails. Even after doing a thorough code review and updating the code of our existing templates, we had to reach out to the Marketo Support for some help. However,
The process and effort for migrating to the new templates depend on 2 factors – the number of old templates you want to continue using after the migration, and the quality of the code of your existing templates. If you want to use your existing templates in the new editor, you might have to get the whole template recreated to match the syntax that supports the new editor. Reach out to our team if you are willing to get an audit done for your existing templates before the migration.
3. How can we edit our old emails in the marketing programs?
After you enable the new email editor, Marketo gives you an option to disable it and use the old editor. However, we do not recommend doing this unless you have a critical business need. While you can open your email in the new editor and try to make edits, you may see an error when trying to approve the email after the edits. If you get an error, something needs to be fixed on the template level. Unless the code on the template is updated, you would not be able to approve the email.
If you want to use your existing templates after the migration, you should get a code review done for the templates to ensure they are seamlessly supported in the new email editor.
After you enable the new email editor, Marketo gives you an option to disable it and use the old editor. However, we do not recommend doing this unless you have a critical business need. While you can open your email in the new editor and try to make edits, you may see an error when trying to approve the email after the edits. If you get an error, something needs to be fixed on the template level. Unless the code on the template is updated, you would not be able to approve the email.
If you want to use your existing templates after the migration, you should get a code review done for the templates to ensure they are seamlessly supported in the new email editor.
4. What kind of templates do we need to make the full use of the new editor?
You can continue using your existing email templates once they are made compatible with the new email editor. Additionally, I would recommend getting a master email template created. Here’s an example of a master email template.
A master email template is designed to cover different modules which a marketer might need when designing a new email for a campaign. Using the master email template, you can easily hide, un-hide, or re-order the sections you need in the email. With a single master email template, you can limit the number of email templates created in your Marketo instance. Your different marketing teams from different regions can simply use the master email template to get an email layout as required, without asking for a new email template.
Most of us may feel that a marketer will have to turn off all the elements they don’t need in the email when using the template. An easy way is to create an email using the master template with all sections turned off and the marketing team can simply clone the email and turn on the sections they need.
You can continue using your existing email templates once they are made compatible with the new email editor. Additionally, I would recommend getting a master email template created. Here’s an example of a master email template.
A master email template is designed to cover different modules which a marketer might need when designing a new email for a campaign. Using the master email template, you can easily hide, un-hide, or re-order the sections you need in the email. With a single master email template, you can limit the number of email templates created in your Marketo instance. Your different marketing teams from different regions can simply use the master email template to get an email layout as required, without asking for a new email template.
Most of us may feel that a marketer will have to turn off all the elements they don’t need in the email when using the template. An easy way is to create an email using the master template with all sections turned off and the marketing team can simply clone the email and turn on the sections they need.
5. What has been the experience of marketers with the new editor?
Yes. We have implemented it for many of our customers. For some customers, we have implemented this in Marketo Sandbox to streamline the transition process without making any updates directly on the production instance of Marketo.
Here’s an observation of Jason Antony from the TRI Pointe Group for whom we created a few master email templates for different group brands.
Also, it includes the feedback from Amy Bui from PICS Auditing.
Moreover, Marketo will stop supporting the old email editor after a few upgrades for the old email editor. When that happens, you will have to migrate to the new editor. I recommend you start the migration process now.
Yes. We have implemented it for many of our customers. For some customers, we have implemented this in Marketo Sandbox to streamline the transition process without making any updates directly on the production instance of Marketo.
Here’s an observation of Jason Antony from the TRI Pointe Group for whom we created a few master email templates for different group brands.
Also, it includes the feedback from Amy Bui from PICS Auditing.
Moreover, Marketo will stop supporting the old email editor after a few upgrades for the old email editor. When that happens, you will have to migrate to the new editor. I recommend you start the migration process now.
6. When can we train and help our regional marketing teams with the new email editor?
The regional marketing teams using the same workspace or different workspace should be able to start using the new editor when you enable it. You may have to train and support them for using the new editor.
While the learning curve for the new editor is not steep, it can take a few days for the team to start using the new editor effectively. I would recommend getting a new master email template and then a detailed instructions document which you can pass on to your teams.
The regional marketing teams using the same workspace or different workspace should be able to start using the new editor when you enable it. You may have to train and support them for using the new editor.
While the learning curve for the new editor is not steep, it can take a few days for the team to start using the new editor effectively. I would recommend getting a new master email template and then a detailed instructions document which you can pass on to your teams.
Marketo Email Editor 2.0 is really promising, but there are areas which need to be improved. Stay tuned for more details on possible bugs and ideas related to the editor.
Need help with migration to the new editor? Reach out to us at [email protected]
Need help with migration to the new editor? Reach out to us at [email protected]
About the Author - Rachit Puri
As an experienced marketing automation professional with over 6 years of hands-on experience in demand generation, marketing operations, and inbound marketing, Rachit has enabled numerous results-driven marketing initiatives throughout his career.
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