How to create a marketing email and go live with Dynamics 365 Marketing

Dynamics 365 Marketing provides an advanced digital-content designer for creating and styling various types of digital content. The designer features a drag-and-drop interface for building and working with templates, plus an optional HTML editor for working directly with code.  In this blog we will describe how to work with the Dynamics 365 Marketing designer to build a custom template.  

Step 1: Create a new email marketing message 

To create a new email marketing message, go to Marketing > Marketing Execution > Marketing emails and select New on the command bar. 

Choose an email template

The template picker provides many controls for searching, sorting, and filtering pre-built templates. Select apply one you have picked your template, or you can also select skip to create a custom template. In this example we will create a custom template. 

Step 2:  Input basic settings 

Enter a name for the message: Naming the email message will help you identify your template when you're looking at the list view or when selecting messages to include in a customer journey. To enter a name, select the Email name field on the left side of the header and enter a name for your new message. 

Enter a subject for the message: Enter a subject for your message by selecting add a subject in the email header section at the top of the page. This is a very important setting because this is one of the first things recipients will see when they receive the email. You can also have a preheader, which shows up next to or below the subject line in the recipient's inbox. 

Other Settings : Other important settings are also provided in the Email header pane. Once you’ve input the required settings you can begin to design the email.  


To address: This should almost always be the dynamic expression provided by default, which is {{contact.emailaddress1}}. 

 From address: This is the default email address set for your organization in the admin settings.  

 From name: This is the default from name set for your organization in the admin settings.  

 Reply-to address: The email address that reply messages are sent to when you want the messages to go to a different email address than the from address. 

Step 3: Design the email content 

The designer features a drag-and-drop interface for building a template, plus an optional HTML editor for working directly with code and a preview tool that can show how your design will look on various devices. 

To begin use the Designer tab graphical tool to design your content by using drag-and-drop, point-and-click operations 

Once your element is placed, you can change the column layout and/or design options. To edit and configure a section element: 

  • Select the section element on the canvas. It will display a blue border and tabs showing the element type and buttons for deleting or moving the element.
  • The Properties panel opens to show the settings for your selected section. 

NOTE: When you drop the text element, you'll see some placeholder text within the element and a floating toolbar just below or above it. An easy way to personalize the message is to include the name of the recipient in the greeting. Add the recipient's name as dynamic text by using the assist edit feature.

Once you’ve designed your custom template, make sure your message includes all required content and is ready to send, select Check for Errors in the command bar. If you followed the design procedures, your message should pass the error check. If it doesn't, read the error message, fix the reported issue, and try again until it passes.  

If this article was helpful to you, consider checking out some of our other blogs about Dynamics 365 Microsoft Marketing. If you need  further support and training with Microsoft Marketing – speak to one of our CRM experts today!