Overview

Sculpt is a user-friendly message editor that empowers you to create highly engaging layouts with the simplicity of drag-and-drop functionality.

You can dream up any type of message content—banners, rich text, product grids, cart items, recommendations, and much more—turn them into Sculpt blocks, and use those blocks to create unlimited layouts and content variations. And because blocks are truly custom, you can incorporate our powerful Smarty syntax to generate fully personalized content in real time.

To create messages using Sculpt

1. Build your Sculpt template.

2. Create your Sculpt blocks.

3. Use your template and blocks to create Sculpt messages.

Before you can create a Sculpt message, you must have a Sculpt template and Sculpt blocks set up in your account.

Templates

A Sculpt template is the HTML shell that you drag blocks into. Log in to Cordial and navigate to Content > Sculpt Templates > New to create a template. When templates are created, they become available to select in the Message Content pane during message creation.

Using the Settings form builder, some elements of the template can be locked down and made un-editable (such as logos and footers). You can define other elements to be draggable, allowing you to drag in blocks from the block library.

Templates can be made with pre-loaded editable blocks so you can start off with pre-defined layouts. Those pre-loaded blocks can then be edited, duplicated, or deleted when creating messages.

You can also create custom settings for your templates that allow you to use variables to reference global template elements in numerous blocks. This is useful for link appends, global colors, or pre-header text.

• Learn how to create Sculpt templates here.

Blocks

A Sculpt block is an HTML content element that can be dragged into a template during message creation. Once you have blocks created in your account—Content > Sculpt Blocks > New—you can drag them into your selected template during message creation by clicking Edit in the Message Content pane.

Any attribute of the block (image URL, headline, text, links, etc.) can be referenced from a variable, which your team can control with a form. For example, you might have a block that consists of a table with a nested image. You could then reference the image path, image link, and alt text with variables, creating a form that your team can use to select an image from the image library, write alt text, and add the image link.

You can create an entire library of blocks that can be dragged into templates to build customized messages without writing a single line of code. If you need another type of content, like a grid of recently browsed products, you can create a new custom block and add it to your library. When creating Sculpt blocks, you can also enable AI content generation to boost productivity and spark creativity.

• Learn how to create Sculpt blocks here.

Messages

When you create a new batch or automated message, you have the option to use Sculpt templates to build the message content. To do so, navigate to Messages > Create New Message and select Sculpt Editor. Once you pick a template in the Message Content pane, you'll have access to the Sculpt block library where you can drag, drop, edit, and delete blocks in the editor.

Sculpt blocks and template settings are edited using forms. These forms are created when the template and blocks are created.  

If Sculpt templates or blocks are changed, existing messages that use previous versions of those templates and/or blocks will not be altered. Along those same lines, saving a message will not alter underlying templates or blocks.

• Learn how to create a Sculpt message here.

Settings Form Builder

When building Sculpt templates and blocks, you can define which elements of the HTML (image paths, links, text, etc.) will be editable during message creation by clicking the Settings Form Builder button.

These editable elements are referenced using Smarty variables placed within the HTML and edited using custom forms you create. 

When creating these custom forms, the variable keys and data structure are generated automatically based on the names you provide. 

Sculpt forms consist of two main elements:

• Sections: Sections provide a way to organize your form. Sections can contain multiple related fields. When creating blocks, sections can also be set as repeatable.
• Fields: Form fields (text, image selectors, etc.) are used during message creation for entering custom content values (text, links, colors, etc.).

When creating fields, you'll need to select the field type that will be displayed.

Available field types

• Checkbox: Displays a checkbox to collect a boolean value (true or false).
• HTML editor: Displays an HTML editor for collecting raw HTML.
• Image selector: Displays a text field for an image URL as well as a button to access the image library.
• Text: Displays a single line text input.
• Text area: Displays a multi-line text input. You can enable AI content generation in this field.
• Color picker: Displays a color picker for selecting colors or adding hex values.
• Number: Displays an input that accepts number values.
• Select: Displays a dropdown menu.
• Rich text: Insert a free-form text area with a customizable text editing interface. You can enable AI content generation in this field.

Data output and variable keys

As you name your sections and fields, the system will generate the variable keys needed to reference the Smarty variables in your HTML. You can access the data output window to view the data schema in JSON format. Refer to this when adding the Smarty variables in your HTML.

Example template and blocks

If you want to get started right away with an example template and blocks, you can download this demo template and blocks and import them into your account.

In the next article, you can learn about building Sculpt templates.