Creating a Marketing Email

The marketing email editor is where you build an email newsletter or promotion for your brand. You edit it by clicking on the preview, ask Orsa AI to write or redesign it, and reuse your best emails as templates.

Orsa doesn’t send marketing emails to your list. When the email is ready, you test it and export it to the email tool you send with. See Testing and Exporting a Marketing Email.

Open your emails from the Marketing Email tab of the Create page.

Quick start (5 minutes)

Open Create on the Marketing Email tab.
Click Create, pick Marketing Email, then click Create. A new Untitled Email opens.
In the right sidebar, click the Orsa AI tab and pick Help me write and design a marketing email, or describe your email in your own words.
When Orsa AI shows “Orsa AI wants to update MJML code”, click View Suggestion. The AI Suggestion tab shows the email.
Click Apply Changes. The email appears in the Preview tab.
Click any text in the preview to change it in the panel on the right.

Example: a florist types “Write a Mother’s Day email: 15% off bouquets ordered by May 8, one big photo, a Shop Now button.” Orsa AI writes the email, a subject line and a preview text.

The email editor at a glance

The name at the top is the email’s subject line. Type to change it.
The tabs: Code, Preview, AI Suggestion and Templates. The email opens on Preview.
The buttons at the top right: Copy HTML, Send Test Email and the ⋮ menu (Export HTML, Copy Link, Save as Template, Delete Email).
The right sidebar has Configure, Orsa AI, Comments and Repurpose. Drag its left edge to resize it.

Everything saves as you go, a few seconds after you stop typing. While the preview updates, you see Compiling… next to the tabs.

Write the subject line and preview text

At the top of the Preview tab are two fields:

Subject Line: the title people see in their inbox.
Preview Text (Shows in inbox preview): the short line shown next to or under the subject, before anyone opens the email. Aim for 40 to 130 characters. The counter under the field goes up to 500.

Both save when you click out of the field. The preview text is also built into the email itself, so it travels with the HTML you export.

Tips for both:

Subject: say what’s in it for the reader, in a few words.
Preview text: add to the subject, don’t repeat it. Use it for the detail or the deadline.

Example: Subject Line “Mother’s Day bouquets, 15% off”. Preview Text “Order by May 8 for free delivery. Peonies are back.”

Orsa AI can write these for you. Try Suggest a better subject line or Rewrite the preview text in the Orsa AI tab.

Edit in the Preview tab

The Preview tab shows the email the way readers see it.

Click Desktop or Mobile at the top right to switch between the full width and a phone-sized view.
Hover over a piece of the email to see what you can click. Click text, a button or an image to edit it in the panel on the right.
Links don’t open while you’re editing, so clicks only select things.

When nothing is selected, the panel says “Nothing selected yet” and shows Email Background. Its Background Color fills the space around the email on wide screens. It’s hidden on phones.

Click Back to Email Background to go back to that view.

Text

Your Text: the words. Live Preview shows the result as you type.
Font & Style: Text Size, Text Weight, Text Alignment, Text Style (underline or strikethrough), Capitalization, Line Spacing and Letter Spacing.
Inner Spacing: the space around the text, for all sides or for Top, Left, Right and Bottom.
Colors: Text Color. Your brand colors from the Brand Kit appear under Your brand colors, one click away.

Buttons

Button Label: what the button says, like Shop Now.
Link (where it goes): the web address, like https://yourwebsite.com/mothers-day.
Button Options: Corner Shape (from Sharp to Pill), Button Outline, Button Width and Button Position.
Colors: Text Color and Button Background.

Images

Image URL: the link to the picture. It has to be a public web address, like https://example.com/photo.jpg.
Description (Alt text): what the picture shows, for readers whose email hides images.
Tooltip, Clickable Link, Image Width, Image Position, Corner Shape and Image Border.

Example: you want the button to stand out. Click it, pick Pill under Corner Shape, and pick your brand’s accent color under Button Background.

Change the layout: blocks, spacing and dividers

An email is a stack of blocks, like a header, a photo, a text section and a footer. When you select something, the panel shows the block it’s in, like Block 2 of 5:

Move Up and Move Down move the whole block.
Add Block Below adds a new block: Text, Heading + Text, Image, Button, Divider or Spacer.
Delete This Block removes it, after you confirm.

To edit the block itself, click an empty part of it, away from its text, buttons and images. You can then change:

Section Background Color.
Section Layout: the spacing inside the block, a Top Divider and Bottom Divider (a line above or below, with Width (px), Style and Color), and a Background Image with Image Fit, Image Position and Stretch Full Width.

After you move, add or delete a block, nothing is selected. Click again to keep editing.

Example: to separate your offer from the footer, click the offer block’s empty space and add a Bottom Divider of 1 px, Solid, light grey. For more room, click Add Block Below and pick Spacer.

Use your own photos

Images in an email are shown from a web address. The easiest way to use your own photos:

Open the Configure tab in the right sidebar.
Under Files to Use, add photos from your Assets library.
Ask Orsa AI to use them, for example “Put the peony photo at the top.”

Files you add to Files to Use get a public link, so they show up in every inbox. Anyone with that link can open the file, so only add files you’re happy to send to customers.

When you add a file, Orsa checks that its public link works. If it can’t make the link work, the file isn’t added and you see a message naming it, like “These files are not publicly reachable: peonies.jpg.” Try adding it again, or upload the photo again in Assets.

Get help from Orsa AI

The Orsa AI tab is a chat about this email. Orsa AI knows your brand, your Brand Kit colors, your playbook and anything linked in Configure. It can:

Write or redesign the whole email.
Change the subject line and the preview text.
Use the photos in Files to Use.

Starter prompts include Suggest a better subject line, Rewrite the preview text and Help me write and design a marketing email. Orsa AI uses AI credits. See Credits and Limits.

Changes to the email’s design come as a card, “Orsa AI wants to update MJML code”:

Click View Suggestion. The AI Suggestion tab opens with a preview, and a red dot shows on the tab while a suggestion is waiting.
Check it. It uses the Desktop or Mobile view you last picked on the Preview tab.
Click Apply Changes to replace your email with Orsa AI’s version, or Discard to keep yours.

You can also click Approve on Orsa AI’s card to apply the change straight away.

Subject and preview text changes come as cards too. Click Approve to use them, or Cancel.

Example: “Make it shorter, keep only the offer and one button.” Click View Suggestion, check it, then Apply Changes.

The Code tab

The Code tab shows the email’s code. Orsa emails are written in MJML, a language made for emails that look right on phones and in every inbox.

You don’t need the Code tab to build an email. It’s there if you or a developer want to paste in code or change something the panel can’t.

Type or paste code. The preview updates a few seconds after you stop.
Click Format Code at the bottom to tidy the spacing.
The bottom bar shows MJML and the number of lines.

When the email shows Compilation Error

If the code can’t be turned into an email, the Preview tab shows Compilation Error with Error Details. Common causes are a missing closing tag, a wrong attribute or a tag in the wrong place.

Open the Code tab.
Fix the code, or undo your last change with Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac).
Go back to Preview. It updates on its own once the code works.

If Orsa AI’s suggestion has the problem, the AI Suggestion tab shows Compilation Error instead. Click Discard and ask Orsa AI to try again.

Templates

A template is an email you’ve saved for reuse, like your monthly newsletter layout.

Save an email as a template: open the ⋮ menu and click Save as Template. You see “Saved as template!” and a Template badge at the top. Click Remove from Templates to undo it.

Start from a template

Open a new or existing email.
Click the Templates tab. You see every template in your brand.
Click View to open a template in a new browser tab, or Apply to use it.

Apply replaces this email’s content, subject line and preview text with the template’s. There’s no undo, so use it on a new email. You see “Template applied to current email!”.

If there are none yet, the tab says “No templates found”.

Example: a gym saves its first newsletter as a template. Every month they create a new email, click Templates, click Apply, and change the dates and photos.

Configure: status, approvers and planning

The Configure tab in the right sidebar holds:

Content Source: the idea, transcript, document, blog or video this email is based on. Orsa AI reads it.
Scheduled Date: the date you plan to send it, for your team’s planning. Nothing is sent on that date.
Status: where the email is in your process. Moving it to Review runs the Quality Gate. See The Quality Gate.
Approvers, with Request Review. Only the email’s approvers or the brand’s Owner or Admins can set Approved. If the email has no approvers, anyone in the brand can. For everyone else, Approved is greyed out in the Status list. See Reviews and Approvals.
Tags, and Files to Use (see above).

The Comments tab is for your team’s feedback. See Comments and Mentions.

The Repurpose tab turns an approved email into a design or an AI design. Until the email is Approved or Published, it says “Approve it first”. See Repurpose and Similar Content.

Ideas for using marketing emails

A monthly newsletter.

A bookshop links the month’s content idea as Content Source, asks Orsa AI for a newsletter with three staff picks, and saves the first one as a template.

A flash sale.

A boutique writes “48-hour sale, 20% off summer dresses, ends Sunday midnight” to Orsa AI. They set Scheduled Date to Friday so the team knows when it goes out, and send it from their email tool.

Turn a blog post into an email.

A dental clinic picks its blog post “5 signs you need a check-up” as Content Source and asks Orsa AI for a short email that links to it.

Tips for the best results

Link a Content Source and add photos first. Orsa AI writes better emails when it can read the idea or blog behind them and has real photos to use.
Fill in your Brand Kit colors. They show up in every color picker and Orsa AI uses them. See Brand Kit.
Check Mobile before you finish. Many people read email on their phone.
Write alt text for every image. Some inboxes hide images until the reader allows them.
Keep one main button. One clear call to action is easier to act on.
Apply templates only to new emails. Applying replaces everything.

Common questions

Can I send this email to my customers from Orsa? No. Orsa only sends test emails to you. Export the HTML and send it from your email tool. See Testing and Exporting a Marketing Email.

Clicking something in the preview doesn’t select it. Some pieces, like spacers and dividers, can’t be selected. Click the empty part of the block around them instead, or change them in the Code tab.

Why can’t I upload an image straight into the email? Images are added by web address. Add your photos to Files to Use in Configure and ask Orsa AI to use them, or paste a public image address into Image URL.

The preview shows “No email content yet”. The email is empty. Ask Orsa AI to write it, apply a template, or paste code in the Code tab.

I applied Orsa AI’s suggestion but its card still asks me to approve. Apply Changes already changed your email. Click Cancel on the card so Orsa AI doesn’t apply it a second time.

I applied a template by mistake. There’s no undo. Apply the email’s original template again if it came from one, or ask Orsa AI to rebuild it.

My templates show an envelope instead of a picture. Template pictures aren’t always available. Click View to see the template before you apply it.

The Scheduled Date passed and nothing happened. That’s expected. Scheduled Date is only for planning. Send the email from your email tool.