SMS and email templates – Marketli Help

Templates live on a Templates tab in each section: Leads, Appointments and Workspaces. Each has two cards, Email templates and SMS templates. A template belongs to the section you create it in, which is also the section whose automations can attach it. Owners and admins manage them; everyone can use them.

A template is inserted as a draft: you can edit it before it goes.

SMS templates

Creating one

Leads → Templates → SMS templates → New template (or the same tab under Appointments or Workspaces).
Template name: this is what your team sees in the picker, so make it obvious, for example Missed call follow-up.
When to use it (optional): an internal note.
Message: the text itself. A live counter shows characters and segments.
Leave Active on.
Save template.

Watch the segment counter

A plain-text SMS fits 160 characters per segment (153 once it splits into several). Certain characters (em dashes and some punctuation copied out of Word are the usual culprits) force the whole message into Unicode, which drops you to 70 characters per segment and roughly doubles the cost. The editor warns you when that happens. It is worth heeding.

SMS templates have no merge fields

This is deliberate. Nothing substitutes {{tokens}} on the SMS template send paths, so a template containing {{first_name}} would print those literal characters to your client. Write SMS templates as complete messages.

The one exception is the workspace Message everyone composer, which is a different feature and does substitute {{first_name}} and {{name}}. See Messaging clients and team notes.

Where they appear

A document icon in the SMS composer, labelled Insert a template. You will find it in Conversations and in the lead follow-up scheduler. It is hidden entirely when your company has no active templates.

Email templates

Creating one

Leads → Templates → Email templates → New template (or the same tab under Appointments or Workspaces).
Template name and an optional When to use it.
Subject.
Write the body in the email editor (Design), or choose Paste HTML for an email designed somewhere else.
Leave Active on and Save template.

The email editor

An email is a column of blocks: headings, text, buttons, images, dividers, space and custom HTML. What you see is how it sends.

Click a block to change it in the panel beside it (under it on a phone): its words, colour, alignment and, for a button, where it goes.
Add puts a new block under the one you selected. Move blocks with the arrows or by dragging, and copy or delete them from the same small toolbar.
Insert in a text block adds a personal detail, such as the first name.
Settings (with no block selected) sets the preview text shown after the subject, the colours and the corner rounding. New emails start with your brand kit's colours and font.
Undo and Redo cover every change.
Preview shows the whole email at desktop or phone width.
Change with AI rewrites the selected heading, text or button, or the whole email when nothing is selected, for example "shorter and friendlier". It changes words, not your colours, images or custom HTML, and it never adds a link that is not already in the email or in what you asked. Each change comes from your business's monthly AI allowance, and one email can have up to 30 AI changes a day. Undo puts any change back.

Buttons and links need an address starting with https:// or mailto:. Appointment emails can also link to the person's booking, and review emails to their review page. Images come from your image library or your brand kit.

Email merge fields

These are real and they are filled in per recipient at send time:

Field	What it inserts
{{recipient_first_name}}	First name, or their preferred name if the contact has one
{{recipient_name}}	Full name
{{recipient_email}}	Email
{{sender_name}}	Your name
{{sender_company}}	Your company
{{workspace_name}}	Workspace
{{stage_name}}	Stage
{{next_key_date}}	Next key date

The last three are used by stage communications. See Milestones and CRM pipelines.

In Design mode, use Insert in a text block. In Paste HTML mode, type them literally.

You can give a field a fallback so a blank never reads awkwardly:

{{recipient_first_name,fallback=there}}

Campaign templates

Email campaigns have their own templates, on Email campaigns → Templates. They are kept apart from the section templates above: a campaign template is never offered to an automation, a stage communication or the one-off email composer, and a Leads or Appointments template never appears in Email campaigns.

Use template starts a new campaign as a copy. Nothing is saved until you change something or press Save, and the campaign is yours alone, like any draft. Changing the template later does not change campaigns already started from it.
New template opens the same email editor. Campaign templates use the campaign merge fields: first name, full name and email.
In the campaign editor, Save as template keeps a copy of what you have written as a new template.
Anyone in your business can create, edit and copy campaign templates. Only owners and admins can delete one.
A template that is switched off stays in the list, marked Off, but cannot be used until it is switched back on.

Campaign templates are part of the Ultimate marketing package, like campaigns themselves.

Archiving rather than deleting

Turning Active off hides a template from the picker but keeps it for history. Deleting is available too, but messages already sent keep their text either way. Only future use is removed.

Every send still goes through the gates

A template does not bypass anything. Opt-outs, suppressed email addresses, daily caps and the company number rules all still apply at send time. If a message does not go, the reason shows up in the send result or in the automation's run history.