Whether you are using HubSpot, Pardot, Marketo, or most any other marketing automation platform (MAP), there’s a good chance you are struggling with the lack of features and ease of use when it comes to building out your email templates or even making simple changes to your emails.

I’ve been a certified Pardot Consultant for over nine years, and a HubSpot consultant for the last few years (since 2022). When I started getting into HubSpot, due to HubSpot’s reputation I expected a great, easy to use email builder. But I was very surprised to find that people still struggle and complain about how difficult it is to use the HubSpot drag-and-drop email builder and it’s lack of support for rendering emails in Outlook and overall mobile responsiveness, even in 2025.

This article describes workflows for generating new templates, and our recommendations for using an external email template builder whether you are using Pardot, HubSpot, Marketo, or any number of email marketing platforms.

We prefer using an external email builder to build email templates using a convenient drag-and-drop builder and then copying over the HTML to the Pardot Classic email builder or HubSpot email builder, and so do many of our clients. See this popular article: Best email template builders for email production.

Below we will outline two primary email template builder workflows to generate new templates.

Email template builder workflow #1) Create a master email template using the native email builder

Pardot Classic offers over 20 preconfigured email designs that can be used to base new emails on. Similarly HubSpot marketplace has many email templates ready to go, free and paid, but typically even the paid email templates will require some editing and maybe even some fixing (it is not uncommon to still require a skilled email developer to update and maybe even fix HubSpot email templates even those purchased from the marketplace).

Some prebuilt email templates are very elaborate, with headers, sub headers and multiple columns, while others are simple in design and render well on desktop and mobile devices.

Once you’ve chosen your layout, you can create a master, or parent, email template from which several child templates can be derived. Using this workflow you can do this by working directly within Pardot Classic or HubSpot native email builder.

Good knowledge of HTML and CSS is hugely beneficial if going this route, especially when dealing with email rendering on Outlook and making your email template mobile responsive.

Examples of child templates include:

• Standard cultivation email templates
• Product updates email templates
• Form autoresponder email templates

Creating ‘purpose-based’ email templates in advance of actual email campaigns as a starting point for your email layout is a standardization and productivity improvement over typical historic process where each new email is created using the native email builder by just copying an existing template, then making ad-hoc changes made for every new email required.

For Pardot users (non-Pardot users can skip down to workflow #2)

Using the Pardot Classic email builder

What to know about using the Pardot Classic email template builder

• Classic Pardot email builder houses the email template.
• Images and PDF downloads are hosted in Pardot.
• Image/download reference links are set in the template during build.
• UTM links can be set in the template within Pardot.

Protecting email templates in Pardot Classic

We recommend locking down email template content areas that should not be editable in order to prevent team members from messing up the HTML structure. This can be done by manual editing of HTML code within template elements such as table rows (shoot us a note if you need help on how to do this).

You’ll want to make certain there are certain editable areas and repeatable rows within the email template, and make certain areas non-editable.

Pros and cons of using Pardot Classic email template builder

• With the Pardot Classic email template editor you can test the email templates under Litmus, built into the Pardot Classic builder. Litmus provides visual renders of your email template across dozens of combinations of platforms and email clients including desktop, mobile, and tablets, i.e. Outlook 2019 on Windows, Gmail on Macbook iOS, iPhone 12, etc. Only the Pardot Growth package, which is Salesforce’s lowest Pardot package, does not include Litmus testing.
• Media and images used in Pardot Classic templates do not count towards Salesforce storage.
• Dynamic content and snippets can be inserted into templates.
• Entire HTML source code can be copied and pasted into template (this one is huge if you intend to use an external email builder then paste in your HTML).
• Builder not as user-friendly as many competitive products.
• Hard to add buttons and do custom design without good knowledge of HTML/CSS (or using an external email builder then pasting in your HTML as mentioned above).

For Pardot Lightning users: Create a master email template using the Pardot Lightning email builder

👉 See our related article: Pardot Lightning Email Builder—love it or loathe it

The Pardot Lightning email builder doesn’t come with any preconfigured layouts but its ease of use almost negates the need for layout templates. Users can add features one row at a time and can select between image, HTML, rich text and button.

Once you’ve created a parent email template, the process is generally the same as with Pardot Classic (except you are not able to paste in your entire HTML).

You can then create child templates to be used to suit various outreach needs. Pardot Lightning email builder is more user-friendly than the Pardot Classic email builder for those with limited HTML/CSS knowledge, but comes with its own set of caveats.

What to know about Pardot Lightning email template builder

• Pardot Lightning and Salesforce CMS set up are prerequisites.
• Pardot Classic cannot access Lightning email templates for editing.
• Like Pardot Classic, Lightning can be used to create templates for Engagement Studio and autoresponders.
• UTM links can be set in the template within Pardot Lightning.

Pros and cons of using Pardot Lightning email template builder

• • Images and PDF downloads hosted within Salesforce CMS and count towards Salesforce storage limits.
  • Dynamic content and snippets are not supported.
  • Pardot-specific merge fields, such as EPC (Email Preference Center) and unsubscribe, may need some finessing to work in Lightning.
  • Litmus testing is not available for Lightning.
  • Salesforce users with the appropriate Salesforce permissions can use Lightning templates to send emails.
  • Sections of email templates can easily be locked down, with no HTML knowledge required.

Email template builder workflow #2) Create a master email template using an external builder and port the HTML into your email sending platform

External email builders are excellent tools for creating and refining email templates for use with almost any Marketing Automation platform. Whether your design needs are clean and basic or sophisticated and elaborate, external builders can offer the best choice for achieving your desired outcome with the least amount of effort.

With external builders, unique content required for each campaign can be updated in the source from the external email builder, or simple updates can be made within the native email builder once your code is ported over (as long as you are only making a simple change).

Many external email builders (like Stripo) have the ability to directly integrate with your existing marketing automation platform, and can “port” your email template HTML code directly over to your marketing automation platform with the click of a button.

If your external email builder doesn’t directly integrate with your marketing automation platform you may need to do an “export” (rather than “port”) and copy the entire HTML code to your computer’s clipboard and then paste that code into the email editor of your marketing automation platform (this works as long as your marketing automation platform supports replacing your entire HTML code all at once by pasting in your HTML code and is not limited to editing just HTML “blocks”).

Most external email builders will have many more features for building out your email than your marketing automation platform’s native email builder. This makes it super easy to create a beautiful email template consistent with your branding and using a state-of-the-art drag-and-drop email builder (complete with UTMs within your links), while still being able to use your marketing automation platform for the sending and tracking analytics of your emails.

An added benefit of using an external email builder is that all of your email templates can be stored outside of your marketing automation platform (hosted and stored within the external email builder), making migrating to another platform at some point much easier since you’ll already have a copy of all of your email templates. This could potentially save you many hours and many dollars in the event that you migrate to another platform, which is fairly common to do.

Build your email template using your favorite external email builder (ours is Stripo), then port it over to your native email builder within your email sending platform by either using a direct integration for porting the code over or via export/import by copying/pasting the final HTML code into your email system.

Do your email testing, and if any changes are needed then make them quickly and easily in the external email builder and re-port the code back to your email system for sending your final approved email campaign.

We prefer the workflow of building the main email template and any derivative email templates with any updates needed by using the external email builder tool rather than trying to update the email template within the native email builder, which can be much harder to manage and may even require getting into HTML or CSS code.

Here’s a breakdown of our suggested email building workflow:

1. Build email template in external email builder (start by copying an existing approved email template and edit as needed)
2. Port/export email code to email sending platform
3. Send test email from email sending platform to internal test group
4. Make any needed revisions in external email builder
5. Re-port/export email code to email sending platform
6. Re-test from email sending platform to internal test group
7. {revise and re-port/export as needed}
8. On final approval, send the email

In practice with many of our clients we find that even if you need to make revisions to your email before sending, that those changes are more easily done in an external editor then re-port the updates back to your email sending platform. We find this to be the best workflow even (and especially) if you are creating several email templates per week. External email builders are just that much easier to work with than almost any of the current native email builder options.

We prefer using an external email builder to build email templates using a convenient drag-and-drop builder and then copying over the HTML to the native email builder, and so do many of our clients. 👉 See this popular article: Best email template builders for email production.

Stripo offers many pre-built email templates, both free and paid, but we find it better to just build them ourselves since Stripo makes building emails so easy.

What to know about using external email builders

• Most marketing automation platforms will host the images on their own servers, and allow you to host them on your website and just embed them into your email templates using the URL source link (or they can be hosted using the external email builder’s servers).
• If you are using Pardot images and media are hosted in Pardot or Salesforce, depending on which Pardot builder you use, or they can be hosted on your website.
• Image/download reference links are set in the template during build.
• UTM links can be set in the template using the external email builder during build.
• The external email builder houses the source version of the email template (your working code including the full layout and content minus any edits you make once you port it over to your marketing automation platform).
• The external email builder can also retain email template versions (versioning), allowing you to role back to a prior version if needed.
• The external email builder can support multiple users without requiring access to your marketing automation platform (i.e. HubSpot, Pardot or Salesforce) if they are just doing design work.

We’ve written a blog post on our top email template editors (highly recommended reading!). Recently updated to reflect our current (2024) choices.

Summary

At the heart of any marketing automation software (MAS) lies some solid email functionality. Although email marketing has been around for over 20 years, email remains one of the most effective ways to nurture and communicate with prospects and clients. The ability to easily create and update email templates that are visually appealing and that meet branding guidelines is a must-have for any MAS. Yet most marketing automation platforms fall far short of a good and productive experience when it comes to creating your emails.

Most of the people we work with or talk to find that the Pardot Account Engagement Lightning Email Builder is too limiting and not nearly as user friendly as other email builders on the market, so they don’t like it and don’t use it.

And many people are used to working with the Pardot Classic Email Builder or the HubSpot email builder and are getting by, but not very happy with it (and often find they need to hire an email developer to create a useful template).

Unless working with the native email builder is mandated by your organization, we recommend using an external email template builder and then porting the HTML over to your marketing automation platform for email sending. You’ll be glad you went that route.