How to Upload an Email Template in Constant Contact

In this guide, you'll learn two ways to move your Postcards template into Constant Contact:

The built-in integration, which sends your template straight into your account in just a few clicks,
The manual route, where you export the HTML from Postcards and paste it into Constant Contact's Custom Code editor. Both work well, so pick whichever fits your workflow best.

We'll also cover how to add personalization tags so each subscriber gets a more tailored email. You can add these inside Postcards before exporting, or later from Constant Contact's editor, both options are covered below.

Prerequisites

A Designmodo account
A Constant Contact account
A finished email template in Postcards, ready to export
A text editor (only needed if you're going the manual HTML route)

Add personalization tags inside Postcards (optional)

Personalization tags are little placeholders that get swapped out with each subscriber's real information when the email is sent, so instead of every recipient seeing "Hi there," they see "Hi Sarah," "Hi James," and so on. Constant Contact uses a simple format like [[FirstName]] , [[CompanyName]] , or [[City]] , and the system fills in the matching detail from each contact's profile at send time.

You can add these tags right inside Postcards before exporting, which is handy if you already know exactly where you want them. If you'd rather add them later from Constant Contact's editor, that works too.

To add a tag in Postcards:

Open your template in the Postcards editor, click the text element where you want the tag to appear, or add a new text element if needed.

Type or paste the tag exactly as Constant Contact expects it, for example [[FirstName]] You can place it inline with other text, like: Hi [[FirstName]], thanks for joining us!

If you'd like a fallback for contacts missing that detail, use this format: [[FirstName or "there"]] . Anyone without a first name on file will see "there" instead.

For the full list, including custom fields and account-level tags, here's Constant Contact's official reference.

Method 1: Use the Postcards Integration

This is the fastest way to get your template into Constant Contact, no downloading or copying code needed.

Once your template is ready in the Postcards editor, click Export in the top right corner, then select Send to Email Platform from the dropdown.

A small popup will appear with a list of available integrations. Find Constant Contact and click it.

You'll be prompted to sign into your Constant Contact account, enter your credentials and log in.

Postcards will then ask for permission to access your campaign and contact data; click Allow Access to continue.

Once connected, Postcards will send the template directly into your Constant Contact account. You'll see a confirmation with a link to view it click it

You'll land on your templates page in Constant Contact, where the imported template will be ready to use.

Method 2: Import the HTML Manually

If you'd rather handle things yourself or want more control over the code before importing, you can paste your Postcards HTML directly into Constant Contact's Custom Code editor.

First, you'll need your Postcards template code. There are two quick ways to get it:

Copy email code: In the Postcards editor, click Export in the top right corner and select Copy Email Code. This copies the full HTML of your template straight to your clipboard, ready to paste.

Download as ZIP: Click Export > Download as ZIP, and make sure Host images/fonts online is toggled on.

Extract the ZIP into a folder, open the index.html file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad), and copy the entire code.

Once you have the code ready, head into Constant Contact. From your dashboard, look at the left panel and under Assets, click Templates.

From there, click Paste HTML code at the top-right of the page

You'll be taken to the Custom Code editor with some placeholder HTML already filled in. Select all of that placeholder code, delete it

And paste in your Postcards HTML using whichever method you chose above. If you select the “Live Preview” option in the top right corner of the editor, you’ll see a preview of the email we added in code:

After pasting the code, you'll see a popup letting you know 1 error was found, this is just Constant Contact flagging that the tracking pixel tag is missing. The tracking pixel is a tiny transparent image that lets Constant Contact know when a contact opens your email, so you can see open rates in your reports.

To fix it, simply click "Fix them for me", and Constant Contact will automatically insert the tag for you. It won't affect how your template looks or behaves in any way.

You can also add personalization tags directly from this code editor. To do it, click anywhere in your HTML where you want the tag to appear, then click Insert at the top of the editor and select Personalization from the dropdown.

A popup will open where you can pick the contact detail you want to use (like first name, company, or city) and set fallback text for contacts who might be missing that info.

Once you click Insert, Constant Contact will drop the tag right where your cursor was.

If you're not sure where to place the tag, you can search through the template code to find the spot (Ctrl + F or Cmd + F). For example, if you want to add the first name to your headline, copy the headline text and use the search to jump straight to it.

Set up the email details

Before sending, you'll want to set the subject line, from name, and reply-to email. To do this, click the bar at the very top of the editor, just below the Save and Continue buttons, that shows your sender name and subject preview.

A popup will open where you can fill in these details along with a few other options. Once everything looks good, click Save.

Send settings and final touches

After clicking Continue in the top right, you'll be taken to the send settings page. Here you can review and adjust everything before sending: the subject line, the From name and email, the recipient list (under To), and your physical address (required by anti-spam laws). You can also expand Advanced options for extra settings.

You may notice that Constant Contact adds its own logo and reference text to the footer of every email.

This is part of Constant Contact's branding and can't be fully removed or white-labeled, but there is a workaround if you'd rather not have the logo there.

If you're a paying Constant Contact customer, you can request to have the logo removed from your email footer at no extra cost. To do this, reach out to Constant Contact Support and ask them to remove it from your account. Once they do, the logo won't appear in any new emails you create going forward (you may need to log out and back in to see the change take effect). Keep in mind it won't apply retroactively to emails that have already been sent.

The other footer details, like your business name, mailing address, and unsubscribe link, are required by law and can't be removed, but you can edit some of those fields directly from the editor.

Here's Constant Contact's official article for reference: https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/email-digital-marketing/articles/KnowledgeBase/6051-Removing-logos-and-references-to-Constant-Contact-from-your-campaigns?lang=en_US

Once everything looks good, click Save as draft in the bottom right corner. Your template will be saved and ready to use whenever you're ready to launch your campaign!

What we covered

How to add personalization tags inside Postcards before exporting.
How to use the built-in Constant Contact integration to send your template directly.
How to manually export your Postcards template as HTML or copy the email code.
How to paste your HTML into Constant Contact's Custom Code editor.
How to fix the tracking pixel error.
How to insert personalization tags from the Constant Contact editor.
How to set up the subject line, sender info, and send settings.
How to handle the Constant Contact footer logo.