# Email templates: marketing vs. transactional

When choosing between marketing and transactional email templates, you must consider both your personalisation needs and unsubscribe features.

Here's an explanation of these email template options:

## Marketing templates

Marketing email templates:

- Are ideal for emails focusing on individual personalisation such as first name, surname, or location, etc. These are called Contact Properties.

  See [Personalisation](<https://help.apteco.com/en/orbit/campaigns/apteco-email/personalisation/index.md>).
- Include a mandatory unsubscribe link in the footer, which you can replace with a link to your preference centre
- Are primarily used for promotional activities with simple personalisation using the individual contact properties, like a newsletter or birthday campaign

## Transactional templates

Transactional email templates:

- Are suited for emails requiring more than basic personalisation, incorporating transactional data variables like last purchase or holiday destination.
- Have an optional unsubscribe link.
- Are typically used for contractual activities

## Sub accounts

To manage these templates, Apteco offers two account types:

- **Promotional** – Allows opt-outs and supports both marketing and transactional templates
- **Contractual** – Only allows transactional email templates. This prevents recipients from unsubscribing because Apteco automatically adds an unsubscribe link to marketing templates, which is not appropriate for contractual emails

> [!NOTE]
>
> When a customer unsubscribes from one email, they unsubscribe from receiving all emails from your sub account. This is why you need two Apteco Email sub accounts - one Promotional and one Contractual.

## Choosing your template type

Before creating your template, ask yourself:

Does your email template:

1. Need personalisation, such as first/last name?
2. Require referencing data attributes like purchased products or loyalty credits?

### If your answer is 'yes' to the first question:

Marketing templates are suitable, offering personalised contact properties.

### If 'yes' to both questions:

Transactional templates are more appropriate, enabling a mix of contact properties and data attributes.

> [!NOTE]
>
> While both template types can include unsubscribe mechanisms, marketing templates automatically contain one, while transactional templates require manual addition to the email footer.

See [Unsubscribe link validation](<https://help.apteco.com/en/orbit/campaigns/apteco-email/unsubscribe-link-validation/index.md>).