You know that feeling when you’re staring at your email campaign dashboard. Your deadline is looming, and you’re wondering whether to opt for an artisanal, handcrafted, custom email design or to assemble pre-built modules into a gorgeous email.
I’ve been there. That whole “analysis paralysis” thing, where you toggle between wanting something unique versus something you can get done before the boss starts sending those “just checking in” messages.
The truth is, both email design approaches—modular email design and custom email design are superstars in their own right.
The custom design brings originality that makes subscribers remember your brand. Modular design systems deliver the consistency and speed that keeps you sane amidst time and resource constraints.
FYI: We are not picking sides. That would be like choosing between cheese and chocolate. Why would anyone do that to themselves? We’re better off showing you when to deploy each of these powerhouses for maximum impact.
What exactly is a modular email design and a custom email template? Most importantly, how can you utilize them as a more effective approach to creating email templates?
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What Is Modular Email Design?
Whether you have a fancy in-house team or work with an agency like modular email design services, Modular Email Design won’t disappoint you.
Especially if you’re part of the stressed-out 62% (majority!) of email marketing teams that take two weeks or more to build a single email. Or 23% of the teams that multitask 5 emails at a time. And we bet you WOULD fit in at least one of the two tribes.
What does that have to do with modular emails?
Modular email design is the process of building email templates by assembling a variety of pre-built email elements. These ready-made, custom elements—called Modules are reusable content blocks.
Designers and developers have a library of modules readily available, such as headers, banners, image blocks, text sections, product cards, CTAs, and footers. That makes email template design a breeze.
When it’s time to create a new campaign, marketers select the needed modules, stack, rearrange, and swap them in the desired order to create different email layouts. Build once, use forever. Or until your brand guidelines change again next quarter.
It’s easy to understand how efficient a modular HTML email structure can be for your email production when you prepare a whole library of modules required for different types of email campaigns. Promotional, transactional, reactivation, and so on. No need to redesign or code them from scratch for every email sent.
Plus, editing and customizing the modules is a breeze. That makes initial development faster and last-minute design changes a lot quicker, too.
The direct impact of this design flexibility is on the turnaround time of email template production.
Carin Slater, Email and Content Growth Marketing Manager at Litmus says modular email templates help them trim 50% off email production time.
And Carin’s story is certainly not the only one.
Jason Witt, VP and Executive Creative Director at Oracle, helped a client reduce campaign build times by 25%.
Oleksandr Dieiev, Email marketing specialist at Stripo, reports that their team went from 2-hour email builds to tidy 30-minute assemblies.
And what about brand consistency? Yes, that too.
Modular HTML email structures are predesigned and pre-tested for brand-consistent designs. Once you lock the design elements of your brand, including your markers, logo, footer, and palette, they won’t accidentally change when your team customizes the module.
How Can Modular Email Templates Work For You?
Here, take a glimpse of how to use modules to build modular email templates
Set Your Brand Guidelines (Or: How to Stop Redesigning the Same Email 17 Times)
Establish non-negotiable rules for branded elements like colors, typography, spacing, and imagery. It’s imperative to align every module with your brand identity. So that every email reflects your brand identity without much effort.
Identify the Most Reused Elements
Review your past email campaigns. Identify which content and design components consistently recur. Headers, CTA buttons, product tiles, footers, testimonials, or something else. These repeat performers are your first candidates for modular roles. Modularizing them will bring you incredible efficiency.
Invest in a Design System
A modular email design system houses a framework of reusable styles and components along with design and coding best practices. Even your most technically terrified team members can mix and match to build on-brand emails without accidentally setting your visual identity on fire. Additionally, they facilitate design updates over time.
Build Multiple Variations of Common Components
Have multiple style options for frequently used blocks ready. Meaning design different styles or layouts for the same module to suit various campaign needs. All without straying away from your brand’s look and feel, of course.
What Is Custom Email Design?
A custom email design means your email team builds each email template from scratch. That’s by designing and coding manually from scratch.
These custom designs are often aesthetically rich, highly customized, and tailored to specific goals. Instead, custom email templates are key elements of brand alignment across various marketing channels, including your website, social media, and emails.
Custom templates give brands complete control over their messaging, ensure error-free performance, and help them stand out from competitors. So, if email is a crucial communication channel for your brand, investing in custom email development is worthwhile.
As Drupal Sinh, a seasoned project manager at Mavlers, wisely points out,
“If a brand has limited resources, tight deadlines, or lacks a dedicated design and development team, DIY editors provide a quick and efficient solution. However, if the goal is to create a premium experience and go beyond basic email communication, custom development is the better option.”
But custom email design is a demanding task.
Unless you have excellent coding skills and a solid understanding of different email service providers (ESPs), you’re in for a bumpy ride without the seat belt.
If you have a developer lacking these, it restricts the effectiveness of your custom email templates. Done well, there is no limit to the potential of innovation and creative freedom. And that’s the biggest advantage of custom email designs.
Moreover, Custom email development demands more time and resources than its modular cousin. Not your go-to when someone wants a complex interactive design “coded yesterday. Unless you have an efficient email production workflow in place, you may feel stuck in a rut.
Oh, and different email clients support different HTML and CSS elements with all the consistency of a toddler’s food preferences. If the emails have too complex design elements or are not correctly optimized, rendering issues may occur.
How Can a Custom Email Template Design Work For You?
Be Wise With Your Resources
Save custom designs for high-stakes campaigns—product launches, significant sales, or “please don’t unsubscribe” customer journeys. Or when you need those fancy interactive elements that make subscribers forget they’re reading marketing emails.
Show Off Value Beyond the Product
Custom layouts enable you to tell stories visually through infographics, tutorials, or immersive experiences that capture subscribers’ attention and encourage them to pause their mindless inbox scrolling. Use this power wisely.
Test Like Your Career Depends On It (Because It Does)
With unique layouts comes more responsibility. Test thoroughly across devices and clients. And follow accessibility best practices to ensure every subscriber has a good inbox experience.
Hire Experts
If you’re sending a high volume of serious emails and generating revenue from the email channel, invest in niche coding and design talent. Build an in-house dream team.
If that feels like stretching your internal resources too thin, consider outsourcing to a reliable custom email template agency. These are specialists who can code responsive emails with ease. They’ll solve problems that come with custom email coding like they never existed.
Comparing Custom and Modular Email Design
Aspect | Custom Email Design | Modular Email Design |
|---|---|---|
Cost | High upfront and ongoing costs. | Lower costs due to reusable modules. |
Turn Around Time | Loner production cycle. | Faster email creation and deployment. |
Flexibility | High creative freedom. | High flexibility within predefined modules. |
Maintenance | Requires dedicated developers’ support. | Easier to update and scale even for non-tech-savvy. |
Functionality | Advanced coding and interactive features. | Limited to module capabilities. |
Ease of Use | Requires technical expertise. | Non-technical users can manage. |
Brand Consistency | Depends on ongoing discipline. May vary visually depending on the designer. | Built on a consistent design system. |
Scalability | Hard to scale. Not very efficient for frequent sends or large volumes. | Highly scalable. Enables teams to build emails quickly. |
What’s the Solution Here? You Don’t Have To Choose
The smartest email marketers don’t choose between modular and custom; they strategically use both approaches, like master chefs selecting the perfect ingredients. The combination lets you stay efficient without sacrificing creativity.
- Utilize a modular email template design for recurring and automated campaigns, such as newsletters, product updates, and transactional emails. It keeps your email production quick, consistent, and scalable so your team can occasionally see daylight.
- Save custom email design for when you need to dazzle absolutely. Think of those high-impact product launches, VIP campaigns, or whenever you need subscribers to pick their jaws up off the floor. Or simply when your regular templates start feeling as exciting as beige wallpaper.
The TL;DR (Because We’ve All Got Emails to Send)
- Modular email design is ideal for efficiency, scalability, and consistency across regular sends.
- Custom email design is ideal for high-impact messages that require storytelling, branding, or rich visual elements.
- You don’t have to choose one over the other—it’s about knowing which tool to pull from your kit at the right moment. Master that, and your campaigns will be efficient, scalable, AND impossible to ignore.
