Klaviyo Email Templates vs Email Design Systems
If you're using Klaviyo and thinking about email design, you'll come across two approaches: templates and design systems.
They sound similar.
They solve different problems.
What's a Klaviyo email template?
A template is a pre-built email layout you populate with content. It gives you a consistent structure — header, body sections, CTA, footer — that you reuse across campaigns and flows. Once set up, anyone on the team can brief an email without making layout decisions each time.
Most brands at the early to mid stage of email marketing use templates. They're practical, reasonably affordable to set up, and solve the most immediate problem: making emails look intentional and on-brand without starting from scratch every time.
What's an Email Design System?
An Email Design System goes further. It's not just the visual templates. It's the full architecture of how your email programme works.
That means every email category the business sends is mapped and defined. What type of email is this? Why does it exist? What content does it need? What role does it play in the customer journey? How should it be structured? What are the design rules for each type?
The result is a document and a set of templates that turns email from something that lives in people's heads into a shared system the whole team can operate from.
When do you need which?
You probably need templates if you're setting up Klaviyo for the first time, or your current emails are inconsistent and you want a coherent visual identity across campaigns and flows.
You probably need a system if your email programme is already established and the problem is operational. Different people briefing different things, inconsistent output, a new team member who has had to learn by osmosis, or a brand that has grown to a point where informal knowledge isn't sufficient.
Some brands need both at the same time. A system without well-designed templates is a framework without execution. Templates without a system produce well-designed emails that still lack strategic coherence across the full programme.
What the Email Design System at Soley Creative includes:
We map the full email architecture of your brand's programme alongside a complete set of on-brand, Klaviyo-ready templates for each type. The output is a system any team member can brief and execute from with confidence. It also makes onboarding new designers significantly faster, because the knowledge is captured rather than assumed.
For a fashion brand we worked with, the Email Design System delivered a 49% increase in page views, a 32% increase in unique clickers and a 33% increase in reported ROI during the rollout period. A new designer joined the team shortly after and was briefing confidently within days.
Find out about the Email Design System here.
