Reaching audiences in multiple languages is a significant challenge in email marketing. Whether you're expanding into new markets or simply trying to connect with subscribers in their native language, manually translating every email template is tedious, repetitive, and error-prone.
Template Translation takes care of this for you. It's an AI-powered feature built directly into the Topol PRO editor that lets you translate your entire email template or just specific sections into any language with a few simple clicks. Your design, formatting, and personalization tags all stay exactly the same. There's no need to rebuild anything, and no risk of breaking your layout. The whole process takes a fraction of the time it would take to do it manually.
The Template Translation feature was designed with Multilingual Templates in mind and fits seamlessly into this workflow.
Before We Start
When you run a translation, the AI reviews all the text-based content in your template. This includes text inside text blocks, button labels, and the preheader. However, images and other visual elements are not affected by the translation. The feature only modifies text content. Your images, colors, backgrounds, spacing, and overall layout remain exactly the same. In short, your template will look identical to before, just in a different language.
One thing worth mentioning is that the AI automatically detects the source language. You don't need to specify which language your template is in. Just select your target language, and the AI handles the rest. After the translation is complete, you'll receive a notification showing which language your template was translated into, confirming that everything was detected correctly. And if you're not happy with the translation, click the "Undo" button to return to the original language.
Also, your Merge Tags remain unchanged throughout the translation. The AI recognizes them and skips over them, so there's no need to re-add anything afterward.
There are two ways to apply the translation: either to the entire template or to a specific content block. Let's explore both options.
Translating Your Entire Template
This is the preferred method for a quick and reliable translation of the entire template. You simply select a language variant from a dropdown, and the entire template is translated at once.
Once your template is complete and you want to translate it into a different language, follow these three simple steps:
Open the Language Settings panel by clicking on Create Mutation at the top of the editor.
Find the language version you want to translate into.
Click the translate icon next to that language.
The "Create Mutation" element is shared with Multilingual Templates. If you haven't used them yet, now is the ideal time to start. Template Translation greatly simplifies and speeds up the creation of multiple language versions of the same template.
After a few seconds, the translation finishes. Feel free to switch between language versions in the dropdown to compare them and make manual adjustments to anything that doesn't sound quite right. Once you're happy with the result, export or download each version separately.
If you have several mutations to translate, just repeat the process for each one. Each mutation is translated separately, so they don't affect each other. There's no specific order you need to follow.
Translating Individual Blocks
You don't always need to translate everything at once, as there are many situations where block-level translation works better. In these cases, you can translate individual text blocks and button blocks one by one, using the AI menu that appears when you hover over a block in the editor.
The workflow is also super simple:
Hover your mouse over the text or button block you want to translate. You'll notice a small AI icon appearing at the edge of the block.
Click the AI icon. A compact menu will open with several options: Improve, Rephrase, Make Longer, Make Shorter, and Translate.
Click Translate.
The block translates into the language of the currently active mutation in the editor. For example, if you've switched to the Swedish mutation using the Language Settings dropdown, the button name will reflect this and show "Translate to Swedish".
The translated text replaces the original content in that block. Only the active mutation is affected, so your other language versions remain exactly the same. You can leave the rest of the template unchanged, or translate other specific blocks - this is entirely up to you.
How translation fits into the Multilingual Templates workflow
Since Topol PRO uses Multilingual Templates for all templates, it's important to understand how the two features work together. Knowing this will help you make the most of both.
Your primary language version serves as the base design for the entire template. All other language variants follow the same layout and inherit their initial content from it. When you run a translation, the AI uses whatever content is currently in the template as the source, so your primary version is usually the one that gets translated.
When you translate the entire template (by clicking the translate icon in Language Settings), the output is written directly into the selected mutation. Each mutation is translated separately and independently of the others.
When you translate a single block (using the AI menu on that block), the translation targets whichever mutation is currently active in the editor. So if you've switched to the Spanish version of your template and translate a text block, only that block's Spanish content gets updated. Everything else, including the same block in other language versions, remains unchanged.
Final words
If you've been avoiding translating your campaigns because it seemed too overwhelming, this is genuinely worth trying. Even with just two languages, you'll see how much quicker the entire process becomes. Create your mutations, translate them with a click, and focus your time on refining the copy and ensuring it sounds right for each audience, rather than struggling with formatting or manually moving text around.
If anything is confusing or you encounter something unexpected along the way, please don't hesitate to contact our support team. We're always happy to assist. 😉