Use sections to create different kinds of content in your campaign.

The body of your email campaigns are made up of content sections. Use different content sections in different combinations to fit your brand and appeal to your audience.

This guide covers the different types of content sections you can add to both blast email campaigns and automated campaigns. For general information about creating email campaigns, visit Building email campaigns. For general information about creating automations, visit Sending automated campaigns.

Add a content section

You can add the following types of content sections to email campaigns by clicking a + icon anywhere between the campaign's header and footer. Click the links to learn more about each section type:

• Text
• Image
• Button
• Spacer
• Line
• Blog
• Product
• Discount

Text

Text sections have a variety of uses. Add longer blocks of text for newsletters, or use formatting to create headers to divide announcements.

After adding a text section:

• Click Write here... on the preview to add your text.
• Highlight text to format it or add a link.
• Highlight text and click |A| to change letter spacing. You can also do this in button sections.
• Use the side panel to style the colors and padding for the section and global fonts.

Tip: To combine text with an image, use an image section instead.

Heading styles

To use heading styles, click ¶ in the text toolbar after highlighting the text. You can choose from:

• Paragraph
• Medium Heading
• Large Heading
• Extra Large Heading

Paragraph styling is generally for body text or other larger blocks of text. Use the various heading styles to break up your campaign into well-defined sections.

I can't edit the text in a layout

Some layouts use images that contain text. The Hail layout, for example, has this image section:

This is an image file that has transparent areas. You can change the background color, which shows through the image, but you can't change the text or its color, which are part of the image.

If you need different text, delete this image and replace it with your own text or images.

Image

Add an image section to upload images to your campaign. You can upload up to four images in each image section.

To learn more, visit Images in email campaigns.

Button

Add a button section to create a button that links to a page on your site or an external URL. After adding a button section:

• Click Link in the side panel to add a link. If you don't add this, the button won't be clickable.
• Edit Button Label in the preview to change the button text.
• Use the other options to style the button. The font follows your global fonts.

Each button section has only one button. To add more buttons, add more sections.

Spacer

Add a spacer section to create white space. After adding a spacer section:

• Use the Height slider in the side panel to adjust the section padding.
• Click Background Color to set the background color.

Here are some suggestions:

• Use a spacer with a different background color to separate sections.
• Add white space or height to other sections by adding a spacer above or below, then giving it the same background color to create one seamless look.

Line

Add a line section to divide sections with a horizontal line. After adding a line section:

• Set the Length, Thickness, and Padding in the side panel.
• Click Style to choose whether the line is solid, dotted, or dashed.
• Set the color of the line and the section background under Colors.

Blog

Add a blog section to create teasers for published blog posts by pulling in content like excerpts and featured images. Blog sections display the first 200 characters of the excerpt or blog post.

After adding a blog section:

• Click Add Blog Post to choose up to seven posts. When selecting posts, they appear in chronological order even if you have multiple blog pages.
• Click a blog post in the right panel to add alt text. This only adds alt text to your campaign, not to the original blog post on your site.
• Click Manage to add, reorder, and delete posts.
• Click Details to display or hide featured images, post dates, author names, excerpts, and “Read More" links or buttons. You can also style the button colors here.
• Click Layout to choose the layout. Each blog section has one layout. To add more blog post teasers with different layouts, add new sections.
• For Side, List, and Numbered layouts, change the image width by clicking Image Size. Images always display full-width on Windows Outlook.
• Use the other options to style the padding, colors, and global fonts.
• Click the text in the preview to edit it directly. This won't affect the blog posts on your site.
• Hover over the image and click the pencil icon to open the image editor. This won't affect the post's image on your site.

After pulling in the blog post content, it's not synced with your blog. If you make changes to a blog post before sending your campaign, remove that post and then re-add it, or update it in the campaign manually.

Tip: You can also create campaigns with the full post.

Product

Add a product section to pull in content from items on your site's store page. After adding a product section:

• Click Add Product to choose up to seven products. When selecting products, they appear in chronological order even if you have multiple store pages.
• Click a product in the right panel to add alt text. This only adds alt text to your campaign, not to the original product on your site.
• Click Manage to add, reorder, and delete posts.
• Click Details to display or hide the product name, price, and description and Add To Cart links or buttons. You can also style the button colors here.
• Click Layout to choose the layout. Each product section has one layout. To add more items with different layouts, add new sections.
• For Side, List, and Numbered layouts, change the image width by clicking Image Size. Images always display full-width on Windows Outlook.
• Use the other options to style the padding, colors, and global fonts.
• Click the text in the preview, including on buttons, to edit it directly. This won't affect the products on your site.
• Hover over the image and click the pencil icon to open the image editor. This won't affect the product's image on your site.

After adding a product to your campaign, it's not synced with your site. If you make changes to a product on your site before sending your campaign, remove that product and re-add it, or update it in the campaign manually.

Discount

Add a discount section to add an active discount from your site or create a new discount code directly in your campaign.

Limitations:

• You can only add one discount per campaign.
• Currently, it's only possible to create percent off discounts that apply to any order. To use a different kind of discount, create it in your Discounts panel first, then click Use Existing Code in the discount section of your campaign.
• If you add a discount with an expiration date to an automation, the campaign may still send after the expiration date. We recommend only using discounts without expirations in automated campaigns to ensure your customers don't receive an inactive code.

After adding a discount section:

• Click Use Existing Code to select an active discount on your site. Inactive discounts or scheduled discounts won't appear. If you don't click this, you'll create a new discount with the following options instead.
• Edit the Discount Name. We recommend giving your discount a specific, recognizable name, as this helps when tracking and managing discount use.
• Edit the Discount Code. This is the code customers use when checking out on your site. 
• Under Promotion, set the percentage off. Discounts apply to any order on your site.
• If you're on the Commerce Advanced or Premium plan, you can limit the discount use to one per customer.
• Under Duration, set when the discount expires, or turn the Never Expires toggle on. All discounts start when you send the email.
• Use the other options to style the padding, colors, and global fonts.
• If you create a new discount, it will appear in your Discounts panel after sending it to recipients.

Add links

You can add links to:

• Text - In any section with text fields, highlight the text and click the link icon, then add the URL or click to open the link editor for more options.
• Image sections - In image sections, click Unlinked beside any image in the side panel, then add the URL or click to open the link editor for more options.
• Button sections - In button sections, add the URL in the side panel or click to open the link editor for more options.

You can link to your own site's content, external sites, email addresses, or phone numbers. For collections, such as store, blog, and events pages, you can link to specific tags or categories. To link to individual items, such as a product, post, or event, add an external link with the item's full URL.

Keep in mind:

• Text links follow global styles.
• Opened links include extra text (query parameters) after the URL for analytics tracking purposes
• It's not possible to link to files

Can I add videos to my campaign?

There isn't currently a way to embed videos. Instead you can:

• Add an animated .gif in an image section.
• Add a text link to a video on your site or a third-party hosting service, like YouTube or Vimeo.