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Draft your template

YAMM uses a regular Gmail draft as the email template for your mail merge. You can create it in Gmail — as a plain email or a Gmail layout you can fine-tune with HTML/CSS — or design it in Google Docs, which is ideal for collaborating with your team and writing in a comfortable, full-page editor. Pick whichever approach fits your needs and skills.

Start from Gmail​

With YAMM, creating an email template is easy: you just need a Gmail draft.

Prerequisites
Use the web version of Gmail, not Inbox or another tool.

  1. Open Gmail and click Compose.

    Click Compose in Gmail

  2. In the New Message window:

    1. Leave the To field empty. YAMM fills it in from the Email column when it sends.

    2. Add a subject. Use markers if you want to personalize it (Hi {{First name}}, ...).

    3. Draft the body, again with markers (for example, Dear {{First name}} {{Last name}},).

    Annotated Gmail draft with markers highlighted in the subject and body

  3. Close the draft. Gmail saves it automatically in your Drafts folder.

warning

Don't delete your draft!

Your draft is ready to be used as a template for your email campaign. To give it a more designed look, you can optionally start from a Gmail layout, or fine-tune the HTML/CSS if you're comfortable with code.

Start from Google Docs​

Google Docs is the best option when you want to build an email together with your team — several people can co-edit the same document, leave comments, and suggest changes before anyone sends it. Google Docs turns your document into a Gmail draft for you, and YAMM uses that draft as the template.

  1. Create a document.

  2. In the menu bar, select Insert > Building blocks > Email draft.

    Insert the Email draft building block in Google Docs

  3. In the email draft block:

    1. Leave the To field empty. YAMM fills it in from the Email column when it sends.

    2. Add a subject. Use markers if you want to personalize it (Hi {{First name}}, ...).

    3. Draft the body, again with markers (for example, Dear {{First name}} {{Last name}},).

    Write the email template in the Email draft block

  4. Click the Gmail icon. Google Docs creates the Gmail draft.

    Click the Gmail icon to create the draft

  5. Close the Gmail preview window.

    Close the Gmail preview window

Gmail saves it automatically in your Drafts folder. The draft is saved and available in YAMM as an email template.

The created draft in the Gmail Drafts folder
tip

If you later edit your template in Google Docs, click the Gmail icon again to create a new Gmail draft.

Star your draft to find it faster​

If you keep a lot of drafts, star the one you want to use as your template: in Gmail, go to your Drafts folder and click the star next to it.

A starred draft in the Gmail Drafts folder

YAMM then lists starred drafts at the top of the Email Template dropdown, so it's quicker to find when you start your mail merge.

The starred draft at the top of the YAMM Email Template list

What's next​