If your team built every Mautic email by hand over the years and now wants them on one platform with the CRM, the job is to move every template that still earns its place without carrying over broken code or dead merge fields. This article covers that move at the level of individual emails: auditing what you have, mapping tokens to merge fields, rebuilding each template in the levelpartner.ai platform's builder and testing before anything goes live. It does not cover the wider decision about whether to leave a self-hosted tool, which has its own article.
Why moving emails one by one matters
Most firms that ran a self-hosted email tool for a few years have far more templates than they use. Some were built for campaigns that ended long ago. Others were copied and edited until nobody knows which version is current. Moving all of them wastes days. Moving none of them means rewriting proven emails from memory.
The better path is a short audit, then a rebuild of only the emails that matter. For a 40 to 100 person firm that is typically a working week of effort spread across a month, not a project with its own budget.
Before you start
Gather these before you touch the builder:
- An export of every email template from the old tool, as HTML and as plain text if available.
- A list of the tokens or merge fields each template uses.
- Your brand assets: logo files, colour codes, font choices and footer text.
- Your contacts already imported into Contacts, with custom fields created for any data the emails reference.
- A verified sending domain in Settings.
If your contacts are not yet moved, do that first. A template whose merge fields have nothing to pull from cannot be tested properly.
Step one: audit what you have
Sort every template into three groups. Keep: sent in the last twelve months and still relevant. Merge: several near-identical versions of the same email. Retire: anything tied to an offer, event or process you no longer run.
Say the export holds 140 templates, and 31 were sent in the last year. If 12 of those collapse into 5 core emails, the rebuild list comes to 24 templates: the 19 unique ones plus the 5 core versions. The other 116 would be archived as HTML files in a shared folder in case anyone needs to look back. The counts are hypothetical.
Step two: map tokens to merge fields
Each token in the old templates needs an equivalent in the new platform. Standard fields like first name, last name, email and company map directly to the platform's contact fields. Custom tokens, such as a renewal date or an account manager's name, need a custom field in Contacts first.
Write the mapping down in a simple two-column table: old token, new merge field. Anything with no equivalent is a decision. Either create the field, or rewrite the sentence so it does not need it.
How to set it up
- Go to Settings, Custom Fields, and create any missing fields.
- In Marketing, Emails, Templates, start a new template.
- Rebuild the layout in the builder rather than pasting old HTML.
- Copy the text across section by section.
- Replace each old token with the matching custom value.
- Add the Footer element with your address and unsubscribe link.
- Click Save Template with a name showing purpose and audience.
- Send a Test Email to two inboxes and a phone.
Rebuilding instead of pasting HTML feels slower on the first template. By the third, it is faster, and the results render more consistently across inboxes.
What this replaces and the time it takes
This replaces a separate email tool that sat apart from your CRM, with its own contact list to keep in sync. Once the templates live in the platform, they can be sent from campaigns, from workflows triggered by pipeline stages, or by a salesperson from a contact record. Expect around 30 to 45 minutes per template to rebuild and test. After launch, maintenance drops to a quarterly review.
Once the core templates are in place, connect them to automation. The email workflow guide shows how emails fire from triggers, and the email sequence guide covers multi-step series. For the strategic question of whether to move at all, read our comparison of self-hosted and all-in-one email marketing.
The common mistake is pasting the old HTML straight into a code block. It looks fine in the preview, then breaks in some inboxes because of styles the old tool injected. Rebuild in the builder unless the email genuinely needs custom code.
Do not rebuild templates for campaigns you will not run again. Archive them and move on.
Troubleshooting
Merge fields show as raw text
The field name does not match exactly, or the custom field was never created. Insert the field from the builder's merge field menu rather than typing it.
Images are missing
Old templates often linked to images hosted on the previous server. Upload every image to Media Storage and relink it before sending.
The layout looks different from the original
That is usually fine. Aim for a cleaner single-column layout rather than a pixel copy of the old design. Compare it against the design best practices instead.
Unsubscribes did not carry over
Contacts who opted out in the old tool must be marked as unsubscribed when you import them. Check this before any send.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import Mautic email templates directly?
You can paste exported HTML into a custom code block, but rebuilding in the builder is more reliable. Imported code often carries styles that render poorly in some inboxes.
How long does it take to move all our emails?
It depends on how many you keep after the audit. Most firms end up rebuilding 15 to 30 templates, which takes one person about a working week spread over a few weeks.
What happens to our old send history?
Export reports from the old tool and keep them as files. The new platform starts its own reporting from the first send.
Do we need a developer?
Not for standard emails. A developer helps only if you have heavily custom HTML you want to keep.