Set Up the Canvas and Extract Client Assets
Before you draw a single rectangle in Figma, you need the right canvas size and the client brand assets ready to go. We always start with a standard desktop frame width of 600 pixels. Every major email client renders desktop layouts cleanly at this width, so designing wider is a waste of time.
Do not wait for a brand manager to send you a folder of assets that takes three days to arrive. You can grab everything directly from their live website using three lightweight browser extensions: an image downloader extension to extract high-resolution product photography, a font inspector to match exact font families, and a colour eye-dropper extension to pull precise HEX codes.
Keep your copy doc open on one side of your screen and your design canvas on the other. Your copywriter should have already broken down the preheader, hero text, body, and product callouts into clear sections. Designers should not be writing copy on the fly, they should be styling structured messaging.
Build the Preheader and Hero CTA Above the Fold
The top of your email has one job: get the recipient engaged before they need to scroll. We start with a slim preheader bar containing the primary offer, such as free shipping or a first-order discount code, styled with a distinct background fill and an actionable button.
In Figma, highlight your preheader text and hit Shift + A to turn it into an Auto Layout frame. This is non-negotiable in my books. Auto Layout ensures that whenever you tweak padding, text, or discount codes, the button and container expand automatically without breaking your alignment.
For the hero headline, aim for a font size between 45 and 50 pixels and limit the main title to roughly five words. Place a bold, high-contrast call-to-action button directly beneath it. A reader should never have to swipe downward on their screen just to figure out what you want them to click.
Use Auto Layout for Flexible Headers and Layers
Static shapes and floating text layers will slow your production down to a crawl. When a client asks to change three words in a headline, floating layers force you to manually nudge every element below it. That is a mistake.
Instead, group related elements into nested Auto Layout frames. When designing graphic hero sections with cutout product imagery or background shapes, use Figma masks to keep graphics contained within the 600-pixel boundary. Place your product imagery over subtle geometric background fills to add visual pop.
If you want elements to overlap, use Figma layer ordering on the left panel to arrange what sits in front. Once the hero block looks balanced, group the entire section into a single master frame using Ctrl + Alt + G. This keeps your canvas tidy and makes batch exports into Klaviyo seamless.
Design Product Grids with Proper Spacing and Shadows
Product feature blocks need breathing room. When showcasing multi-product collections, build one clean card first, turn it into an Auto Layout container, and duplicate it. Each card should hold the product cutout, a title, a short benefit description, and a clear call to action like "Shop Now".
To give flat packshots depth, add a soft floating shadow behind the product. Draw a subtle ellipse underneath the item, apply a layer blur effect, drop the layer opacity down to around 20% to 30%, and group it inside the product frame. It makes the item look like it is resting on the canvas rather than glued to it.
Use the Auto Layout "Gap" field to lock in uniform spacing between product columns and rows. When your spacing is governed by numbers rather than manual eye-balling, swapping in a new product takes 10 seconds flat.
Build Reusable Social and Review Modules
Social proof and navigation footers should be modular blocks you can reuse across every flow in an account. For customer reviews, build a dedicated text card with quotation marks, star ratings, and the customer name styled in a distinct secondary font weight. Using authentic customer names builds trust immediately.
For the footer icons, only display the social platforms where the brand actively posts. Download clean vector SVG icons from resources like Flaticon, standardise their bounding boxes to 50 by 50 pixels, and align them horizontally using Auto Layout.
Add a subtle top stroke border of 1 pixel to separate the footer from the main body content, set your standard unsubscribe and preference center legal text below, and lock the frame. Build this once properly, and you have a master footer ready for every campaign.
Adapt the Desktop Template to Mobile at 375px
Around 70% of ecommerce email opens happen on mobile devices. Designing a desktop version without a dedicated mobile counterpart means you are only doing half the job. Fortunately, resizing in Figma takes less than two minutes if your original build used proper frames.
Duplicate your finished 600-pixel desktop frame to the side. Select the new frame, hit K on your keyboard to activate the Scale tool, and change the frame width to 375 pixels. This scales the entire email down proportionally.
- Check font legibility: Ensure no body copy or button label has scaled down below 16 pixels. Anything smaller causes mobile readers to pinch-zoom or bounce.
- Stack multi-column grids: Select your two-column product frames and change the Auto Layout direction from horizontal to vertical. Mobile screens demand a single-column scrolling flow.
- Enlarge tap targets: Scale product buttons back up to full width so they can be easily tapped with a thumb.
Final Thoughts
Building high-performing email templates is not about creating complex, bloated graphics that take ages to load. It is about establishing clean structure, clear visual hierarchy, and reusable Auto Layout components that allow you to produce campaigns fast. Master these Figma fundamentals, and your Klaviyo builds will be sharper, faster, and far more consistent.
If you want our team to design, build, and execute revenue-focused email campaigns for your ecommerce store, take a look at our Email Campaigns service to see how we manage the entire process.
