Email templates: marketing vs. transactional

When choosing between marketing and transactional email templates, you must consider both your personalisation needs and unsubscribe features.

Here's an explanation of these email template options:

Marketing templates¶

Marketing email templates:

• Are ideal for emails focusing on individual personalisation such as first name, surname, or location, etc. These are called Contact Properties.

  See Personalisation.

• Include a mandatory unsubscribe link in the footer, which you can replace with a link to your preference centre

• Are primarily used for promotional activities with simple personalisation using the individual contact properties, like a newsletter or birthday campaign

Transactional templates¶

Transactional email templates:

• Are suited for emails requiring more than basic personalisation, incorporating transactional data variables like last purchase or holiday destination.
• Have an optional unsubscribe link.
• Are typically used for contractual activities

Sub accounts¶

To manage these templates, Apteco offers two account types:

• Promotional – Allows opt-outs and supports both marketing and transactional templates
• Contractual – Only allows transactional email templates. This prevents recipients from unsubscribing because Apteco automatically adds an unsubscribe link to marketing templates, which is not appropriate for contractual emails

Choosing your template type¶

Before creating your template, ask yourself:

Does your email template:

1. Need personalisation, such as first/last name?
2. Require referencing data attributes like purchased products or loyalty credits?

If your answer is 'yes' to the first question:¶

Marketing templates are suitable, offering personalised contact properties.

If 'yes' to both questions:¶

Transactional templates are more appropriate, enabling a mix of contact properties and data attributes.

See Unsubscribe link validation.