The Visual Editor in the Zeta Marketing Platform enables marketers to focus more on content and less on writing, maintaining, and fixing HTML.

The templates created with the Visual Editor are responsive by default and should render correctly in all popular email clients. The first step in creating a new template is to choose your starting point. There are a number of pre-built templates and examples to choose from as well as the option to start from scratch in the Basic Designs. Once you choose a template to work with the editor will load in and you're able to give the template a name. Templates in the Visual Editor are built using Rows and Content is added to those rows to create the email.

The Visual Editor also has a number of default settings in the Settings tab on the right side of the editor. Start by setting the global default options in the settings tab and then continue to build out your template.

Rows

Rows are used to define the general structure of your email, help break up the template, and enhance the flexibility of settings that need to be set for specific parts of the email.

Rows allow up to four columns of content and in mobile, these columns always stack left above right. Stacking can optionally be disabled, but this may lead to undesirable rendering. Additional row properties are available by clicking into the row outside of the highlighted content area.

Column properties are also available here. These options can be used to adjust background colors for specific rows, add or remove padding, and adjust borders. Once the overall structure of the template is configured using rows, it's time to start working on content.

Content

To add a content block to your email, click and drag it into the appropriate row. To see further options for the content block, click on the block in the email template. 

There are eight types of content available in the Visual Editor, as listed:

Content Types

Details

Text

  • The text content block is used to add copy to the email.

  • Clicking on the placeholder text gives further options to change font size and color among other options.

  • Linking text can be done by highlighting the text that needs to be linked and then clicking the chain link icon to insert/edit a link.

  • Special links, like webview and unsubscribe, can also be added in a similar fashion using the Special links option.  

Image

The image content block is used to add images to a template.

  • Upload an image by clicking and dragging it onto the grey placeholder or by clicking browse.

  • Clicking browse will open the image library for the visual editor.

The image library allows images to be:

  • Uploaded

  • Stored

  • Organized into folders and reused as needed

Simply click Insert next to the image you want to add to the template. The Zeta Marketing Platform also gives marketers access to thousands of free stock imagery to be used in content without attribution and for no additional cost. Just click Search Free Photos.

Enter the relevant search term and click Import on the photo that will be used in the content. To close the image library, click the round X icon in the top right of the UI. After an image is added, additional options for the image content can be seen by clicking on the image. These options are where the width can be adjusted and links can be added.

Button

The button content block is used to add a CTA to a template.

Divider

The divider content block is used to add a divider or negative space to content in a controlled manner.

The line can be:

  • Transparent

  • Solid

  • Dotted or dashed and the color can be set in the content options.

Social

  • The social content block is a quick and easy way to add social icons to content.

  • The icon style can be switched between 20 different styles depending on the desired look and feel.

  • Icons can also be reordered and the specific URL can be set in the content options.

HTML

The HTML content block is used to add any custom content to a template that cannot be achieved using the five other content blocks.

The following tags are allowed:

a, abbr, acronym, address, area, b, bdo, big, blockquote, button, caption, center, cite, code, colgroup, dd, del, dfn, dir, div, dl, dt, em, fieldset, font, form, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, i, ins, kbd, label, legend, li, map, menu, ol, optgroup, option, p, pre, q, s, samp, select, small, span, strike, strong, sub, sup, table, tbody, td, textarea, tfoot, th, thead, u, tr, tt, u, ul, var

The following attributes are allowed:

  • general attributes: style, id, class, data-*, title

  • a: href, name, target

  • img: align, alt, border height, hspace, src, vspace, width, usemap

  • table: align, bgcolor, border, cellpadding, cellspacing, width

  • tbody: align, valign

  • td: align, bgcolor, colspan, height, rowspan, valign, width

  • tr: align, bgcolor, valign

  • tfoot: align, valign

  • th: align, bicolor, colspan, height, rowspan, valign, width

  • thead: align, valign

  • li: type

  • map: name

  • area: alt, coords, href, shape, target

Spacer

The spacer block is used to add space between blocks.

Menu

The menu block is used to add a simple, text-based navigation element.

Clicking on a menu block would show more options to configure the menu items and click actions.

Collaborative Editing

Reach out to your account team to get this feature enabled for your ZMP instance.

The visual editor supports collaborative editing with multiple users in real-time. Campaign Content. Collaborative editing is not supported at the template level.

When a user joins the editing session the editor will display a colored block containing the user's initials on the bottom left of the screen. The color of the block indicates the color others will see when that user has content selected. As additional users join, additional blocks will be added indicating the number of users that have joined along with their selector color.

There is a hard limit of 20 simultaneous users in the same editing session, but we recommend keeping it to 10 or less to help prevent confusion and ensure performance.

Commenting

As users are making edits to content, changes will be reflected in real-time to all other users in the editing session. Users can comment on any content block or row. to help team collaboration. Users can also create new threads on new or existing comments and resolve and reopen capabilities.

Saving

The Visual Editor will Autosave ensuring that your changes are always saved as you work.