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How to Create Integrated Footers for HTML Email Templates

VipeCloud Support avatar
Written by VipeCloud Support
Updated over a week ago

You can either read through this article or scroll to the bottom of the page to watch the recorded video walkthrough. Click here to go to the video.

Integrated footers allow you to design your required email footer content directly into the body of your HTML email templates. This keeps your emails clean, branded, and compliant without having required text automatically appended to the bottom of your messages.

This feature is intended for users sending mass HTML emails who want more control over design and layout.

Use of this feature is optional, and not a necessary step for your mass emails to have a compliant CAN SPAM footer, including the unsubscribe link. For most users, they find the automatic footer to be sufficient. This feature allows users to have complete control over the design and appearance of their templates, including the footer.


What Is an Integrated Footer

Timestamp: 0:00

An integrated footer is a footer you manually add inside your HTML email template that includes required compliance elements such as:

  • Your business address

  • An unsubscribe link

  • A privacy policy link

When these items are detected in your template, the system will not auto-append a separate footer to the bottom of the email.


Step 1 - Verify Your Office Address in Email Settings

Timestamp: 1:20

Before working in templates, you must confirm your business address is set correctly.

Steps:

  • Click Communication in the left sidebar

  • Go to Email Settings

  • Scroll to the Office Address section

  • Review the address carefully and confirm it is accurate

  • Click Update Address

Important notes:

  • The address in your template must match this address exactly

  • Differences like “U.S.” vs “U.S.A.” or punctuation changes will cause a mismatch

  • If the address does not match, the system will not recognize it as compliant


Step 2 - Add Your Privacy Policy in Email Settings

Timestamp: 2:27

Privacy policy links are now required in email footers for compliance.

Steps:

  • In Email Settings, scroll to the Privacy Policy card

  • Paste the full URL of your website’s privacy policy

  • Click Update Privacy Policy

Notes:

  • If your website does not have a privacy policy, now is a good time to add one

  • The system provides a recommended vendor that can generate and maintain a privacy policy for free

  • This value is required for the privacy policy merge tag to work later


Step 3 - Open an HTML Email Template

Timestamp: 3:31

Integrated footers only apply to HTML email templates.

Steps:

  • Go to Email

  • Click Templates

  • Open an existing HTML template or create a new one

  • Scroll to the bottom of the template where the footer will live


Step 4 - Add an Integrated Footer to the Template

Timestamp: 4:24

Steps:

  • Add a Text Block at the bottom of your email

  • Scroll to the Advanced Integrated Footer card at the bottom of the template editor

  • Review the checklist showing required footer items

The system checks the template for:

  • Business address

  • Unsubscribe link

  • Privacy policy link

When all required items are detected, the system will not add an automatic footer.


Step 5 - Insert Required Merge Tags

Timestamp: 5:13

Steps:

  • Copy the sample footer provided in the Integrated Footer section

  • Paste it into the text block you added

  • Save the template

After saving:

  • Confirm all three required items show as checked

  • If any item is missing, review your Email Settings


Step 6 - Clean Up the Unsubscribe Link

Timestamp: 6:25

By default, the unsubscribe merge tag will display a long raw URL, which is not ideal.

Steps:

  • Remove the raw unsubscribe merge tag from the visible text

  • Highlight text like Unsubscribe by clicking here

  • Add a hyperlink to that text

  • Paste the unsubscribe merge tag into the link URL field

This keeps the footer clean while preserving functionality.


Step 7 - Clean Up the Privacy Policy Link

Timestamp: 7:20

Follow the same approach used for the unsubscribe link.

Steps:

  • Use readable text such as Privacy Policy

  • Hyperlink the text using the privacy policy merge tag

  • Avoid displaying the raw URL


Step 8 (optional) - Save the Footer as a Reusable Module

Timestamp: 7:47

To avoid rebuilding this footer in every template, save it as a module.

Steps:

  • Hover over the footer area

  • Select the full footer structure, not just the text block

  • Click Save as Module

  • Name it something like Integrated Footer

  • Choose whether to save it for:

    • All users on the account

    • Only your user


Step 9 - Reuse the Integrated Footer in Future Templates

Timestamp: 8:36

Steps:

  • Open a new HTML email template

  • Go to the Modules tab

  • Drag your saved Integrated Footer module into the template

  • Save

Your footer is now ready to use across all future HTML emails.


Why Use Integrated Footers

Timestamp: 9:01

Integrated footers allow you to:

  • Keep emails visually clean and branded

  • Meet compliance requirements without clutter

  • Build once and reuse forever

  • Maintain consistency across campaigns


Watch the Full Video

Transcript

0:00 Hello everybody, my name is Drew. Today we're going to be talking about integrated footers. And so, have you ever wondered if you're able to make that footer at the bottom of your templates that are sent out as like mass emails, if you're able to integrate that into the main body of your email, so that

0:26 it's not just a bunch of text stuck at the bottom but but rather it is a cohesive branded email. Well, with a little bit of setup and knowing where to look, you're able to do just that.

0:38 Now, this is a, you could say an advanced feature that most people aren't going to have to worry about, but for those with the, those marketer eyes, the graphic designers, uhm, you're going to love this because it can give a more unified and branded look for your emails.

0:58 So, we're going to first talk about the settings where you might need to make some adjustments or at least double check them, and then we'll head over to the email templates.

1:11 So, we're first going to go to that communication button, or the communication tab in the left sidebar. Bye for now.

1:20 And then we're going to go down in that menu to email settings. We're going to scroll down and first take a look at the office address.

1:37 Now, you should already, if you're sending mass emails, you should already have your office address in here, but give this a, another once over and make sure that it is up to date because we're going to be putting this manually into your email template and our system is going to be checking what's put

1:56 in your template against exactly what is put here. And it's a stickler as well, so it needs to be exact matches.

2:05 Like, for instance, the country here says U.S. If I put U.S.A., that wouldn't be a match. If there was a period after the S.T.

2:14 in Main Street, that also wouldn't be a match. So, just make sure that this is all looking good and then hit update address to save it.

2:27 Next, we're going to be scrolling down to the Privacy Policy card. Now, when you're sending as an email marketer, there's a new regulation that a lot of systems like there's no required to be a Privacy Policy linked in the email template footers.

2:44 And so, you need to make sure that you update this with your website's Privacy Policy. If your website doesn't have a Privacy Policy, now is a great time to add one.

2:57 You can actually see, right here, we link to a recommended vendor that creates Privacy Policies for your website. It does it for free.

3:08 And they and they update it as regulations come out. So that's one place you could look, lots of other places as well.

3:18 But make sure your privacy policy is updated and then click Update Privacy Policy in this card. Now, we are ready to head over to the email template.

3:31 So, let's click on Email, go to Templates. We're going to open up our template that we'll be working with here.

3:45 Note that this really does only apply to, uhm, to HTML types. templates we're gonna first of all scroll down to the bottom of our email template to where we're going to be adding all, uhm, adding this footer.

4:05 We're going to put a text block where we're going to be adding this footer and then at the very, very bottom of this page you'll see the card that says Advanced, uh, Integrated Footer and there's a whole bunch of stuff that you'll, uh, that you'll see here.

4:24 So, first of all, what we're looking at here where it says Found Address and Email Template. found unsubscribed link, and so on.

4:33 That right there is a check that looks in this template that we're saving and it checks to make sure checks it for the required, uh, attributes for a compliant footer.

4:47 And so, what we're going to be doing is putting all of that stuff in the footer, which our system will then recognize that, okay, great, this template includes those three items, the address, the unsubscribed link, and the privacy policy.

5:02 Therefore, it doesn't need to put that, uh, that text at the bottom and so it won't. So, we're going to need to make sure that those three attributes are in there.

5:13 And you'll see at this, this right here, of this sample footer, you can. Basically, just copy this and then paste it into the text block that we have created.

5:36 Now, uhm, that right there, you actually, I'll, I'll save this to show you, that right there should be all that we need to have those three checkboxes checked.

5:52 All right. So it did not give me that privacy policy link. I know exactly what that is. One of those quirks of working in a demo account.

6:00 There we go. Okay. So we have three check marks. Technically speaking, we're all set here. Uhm, now there is one thing that you need to be mindful of, which is, uhm, with this as is, with that unsubscribe link, just that merge tag right there, uhm, that's going to put a, an unsubscribe link in, like,

6:25 raw in that footer. And that will be a total eyesore. It's going to be a giant, ugly link, and we don't want that.

6:35 So what we're going to be doing here is hyperlink. We're going to be hyperlinking this. So we're going to cut this, and we're going to hyperlink unsubscribe by clicking here.

6:53 I'm going go up there. And we're going to hyperlink that, with that merge tag, the text unsubscribe by clicking here.

7:08 And you can take whatever approach you want here, but one way or another, I definitely recommend using that, using a merge tag, hyperlink.

7:20 rather than just that raw URL. And I would recommend doing the same thing here with your privacy policy. So, I'm going to spare you, uh, me going through that process.

7:33 I think you get the idea. Uhm, the last thing that I would recommend doing, it's just a, like, the last thing you want to do is have to do this every single time you are making a, uh, an email template.

7:47 Now, you very well might just copy your template over and over and just, you know, take that iterative approach. And if you do that, fantastic, this will this will copy over and, uh, and it'll work as you need it to.

8:05 But, uhm, if you don't do that, you can save yourself this work by saving a module of this footer. And so, you can do that by hovering over this and going to that tab that's on the left, click save as module, give it a name of something like integrated footer and in that folder you can save it to the

8:36 account where all users will have access to this or you can save it as just the user and then when you click save, there we go, we now have this saved and we can just drag and drop this over into future templates and just save yourself a ton of work as you saw that I just did right here.

9:01 So, that, uh, that just about does it. Uhm, And yeah, hopefully for those who want to have more polished looking email templates and not have that text stuck on the bottom of your template for your footers, this will give you a great option.

9:20 To, you know, give your brand that more polished image. Thank you so much.

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