Designing beautiful email messages for Gmail
Great news! The Gmail connector is available again.
Level up your messages in Gmail
Have you ever thought about sending a cool email message to your friends, your colleagues, or your loved ones? It's now easy with BEE!
You can choose your favorite between a lot of ready-to-use Gmail templates (made for promotions, invitations, greeting cards, thank you notes, startup presentations, blog updates, job alerts, product announcements). Are you wondering how?
There are two ways to use BEE with Gmail:
- The Gmail Add-on: BEE Templates for Gmail
- The BEE Pro feature: Gmail connector for BEE Pro
1. Gmail Add-on
No registration is required to use the BEE email templates within your Gmail account: just install the add-on and start creating your new beautifully designed emails!
See more details about using the BEE Templates Add-on for Gmail.
2. Gmail Connector (BEE Pro)
Have you seen a cool template in the Gmail Add-on and would you like to edit it? It's simple!
- Connect your BEE account to your Gmail account before you start designing (from Brand Settings)
- When you want to send a specific message to Gmail (from Export).
From Brand Settings
Go to Settings / Connectors.
Click the Connect button for Gmail.
And follow the steps to log-in. Your credentials are not stored in BEE Pro; they are just used to connect your accounts.
From Export
Log-in to your BEE Pro account, choose your favorite template, then edit and save it as a message. When your message is ready, click on the Export message button in the Message Details page.
And then click on Push to your sending system.
A new window will be displayed with the connectors' list. Select Gmail.
Follow the steps to log-in. Your credentials are not stored in BEE Pro: they are just used to connect your accounts. Then, log-in to your Gmail account and you will find your email into the Drafts folder!
Are you experiencing any issues with Gmail?
Unfortunately, Gmail has some limitations (e.g. it ignores email responsiveness). To make the most out of the Gmail Connector, we suggest you keep your design simple and in a single column.
Note that Gmail also will clip your message if the HTML file is over 102KB. This can happen regardless of whether or not you are using Gmail as your sending platform, so be mindful of the size of your exported message. While our HTML parser will do its best to reduce the size of the HTML file, certain things may greatly increase the HTML footprint. Below we've listed some common causes of this issue and how to avoid them
- Heavily formatted text If your message is text-heavy, start with plain text and don't apply any formatting until all text is in place.
- Using the hide on desktop/mobile feature Try to create a single design optimized for any type of device. While the hide on desktop/mobile feature is helpful, it creates conditional statements and often requires duplication of content, which can quickly generate a lot of extra HTML.
- Adding news rows for each content block When possible, stack content blocks inside of the same row.
- Frequent use of dividers Use padding in place of dividers to cut down on the HTML footprint for your message.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, so if you need any more help troubleshooting why Gmail is clipping your message, feel free to let us know!
Are you curious about using BEE Pro with other sending apps or the availability of new connectors? Take a look at Using connectors in BEE Pro.
Comments
4 comments
How would I go about switching gmail email accounts? I have two gmail emails that I need to email from, but I am not given an option to switch accounts once I have chosen an email.
(occasionally I am asked to choose an email account but not with any consistency)
Hi Ian, do you want to push your BEE Pro messages to 2 different Gmail accounts?
Hello Matteo,
Yes, I would like to push BEE Pro messages through two separate gmail accounts. After leaving the comment above, I read somewhere that I would have to upgrade my account to enable this feature? Is this correct?
Yes, you should upgrade to the Agency Plan, this version of BEE Pro allows you set up different brands (i.e. clients, business units, brands within your company) so that you can better organize your emails, control user access, and specify different connectors for each brand.
Let me know if you need further information ;)
Please sign in to leave a comment.