by Kyle Blacker 
It’s been a few years since the release of the Lightning Email Builder, but as of the latest Spring ’24 release, there is a new addition to the family of email builders for Account Engagement.
We’re not sure whether this means the previous Lightning email builder will be phased out over time, but if you’re looking to up your email building game, you may find the updated builder provides additional flexibility compared to the previous one.
If you have the previous email builder experience enabled in your org, then you will automatically have access to the new one. When you now go to ‘edit in builder,’ you should see a choice between the new builder and the previous builder. It’s worth noting that if you attempt to edit an email created with the old builder using the new one, and vice versa, it will start you on a blank canvas.
Note: Not to be confused with the classic email builder, which is what users are more generally familiar with.
Below, we go into detail comparing the features of both Lightning builders alongside each other. Keep in mind that new updates and improvements will be coming to the new email builder over time and this is just what’s available from day one. So keep an eye out for new updates!
New Email Builder |
Previous Email Builder |
| More control has been added to the overall email canvas settings; colour schemes, master email padding and background image control. | Limited control for the overall email canvas. Supports some padding and limited background image support. |
| Has a single layout section to choose from, but this can be customised to add more columns as well as choosing the column spacing.
In addition you have the option to choose if sections stack on mobile or not. |
Has pre-built layout sections for quick use. All can be customised to add or remove columns as well as choosing the spacing between columns.
No mobile options. |
| Rich text is now split into 3 different content blocks; Heading, Paragraph, Lists. Making for a more streamlined approach for ease of formatting.
You cannot access the source code in any of these blocks. |
Rich text blocks work as usual; you can add bullet points, headings, text, and format as you wish.
You can access the source code of the text block. |
| Font colours for a block are set under the style tab. You cannot change individual text colour unless it’s a hyperlink. | Font colours are set in the rich text block. You can change text to any colour, size, etc. from within the rich text editor. |
| More granular control over padding and margin settings. You also have several preset padding and margin types you can quickly choose from or customise this yourself. | Limited control of padding and margin settings. |
| You can add and customise borders around your components. | No border customisation available. |
| No custom component support are available as yet. | Custom components can be built and shared on the Salesforce appexchange. |
| Can choose whether sections stack on mobile or not. | No mobile control at all. |
| Images must be uploaded to the CMS first. You can copy/paste regular Marketing Cloud Account Engagement image links in the image upload wizard, but it will save a copy to the Salesforce CMS. | CMS is recommended for images, but not needed. |
| Have a component tree for individual component breakdowns. View the hierarchy of your email components. | No component tree. |
| Set the email type in the builder to either Promotional or Transactional. | Cannot be set. |
| Can set the subject line both in and outside of the builder. | Can only set the subject line outside of the builder. |
| The sender ‘Preview’ function inside the builder only works with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Growth for the time being. Otherwise sender previewing outside of the builder works as usual |
‘Preview’ function is available outside of the builder only. |
| No custom CSS support. | No custom CSS support. |
| No undo button function yet. | Undo button function. |
Overall the changes made to the new builder seem to be for the better. The majority of the developments are newly added features, aside from the changes to the rich text block component. While you won’t have the amount of control you may want compared to the classic builder, it is very easy to use and spin up emails ready for your audiences if HTML and CSS aren’t your strong suit.