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If you’ve ever had to translate marketing emails into multiple languages, you know the pain. Copying text into spreadsheets, manually wrapping everything in translation tags, rebuilding layouts in different ESPs… It’s tedious work that eats up hours you don’t have.

I’m going to show you a workflow that cuts this process down to about 10 minutes. We’re going to design an email in Figma, export it to Braze with translation tags automatically added, and then use Smartling to translate it into multiple languages. No manual tagging required.

The Problem with Braze Translation Tags

If you’re using Braze with Smartling (or any translation tool), you already know the drill: before you can translate anything, you need to wrap every text block, URL, and alt tag in translation tags.

That means going through your email and manually adding {% translation_tag %} wrappers around everything. Every headline. Every body copy block. Every button. Every link. Every image alt text.

Miss one tag? Your translation breaks. Forget to wrap a URL? Your French users end up on English landing pages. Tag something incorrectly? Enjoy troubleshooting why half your email is in the wrong language.

It’s tedious, error-prone work that turns a simple email into a 30-minute tagging exercise. And if you’re building multiple emails per week? That’s hours you’re spending on formatting instead of strategy.

There’s a faster way that skips the manual tagging entirely.

The Fast Way: Figma → Braze → Smartling

Here’s the workflow that gets you from design to translated email in minutes, not hours.

How the Workflow Works

Here’s the basic process:

Design your email in Figma like you normally would. When you’re ready to export, open the Email Love Figma Plugin and select Braze. Before exporting, check the boxes to add localization tags for text and URLs. This automatically wraps everything in Braze translation tags—no manual tagging required.

Create a campaign in Braze using your exported template. You’ll see the translation tags are already in place. Add your target languages (French and German in my example), save as a draft, and you’re ready for Smartling.

Connect Smartling to Braze if you haven’t already. You’ll need to create an API key in Braze and add those credentials to a new Smartling project. Once connected, your Braze campaigns will appear in Smartling.

Request your translation in Smartling. Select your campaign, choose your target languages, and pick your translation method (I used AI for speed). Smartling extracts your text and translates it in a few minutes.

Preview your multi-language email back in Braze. Select “Multi-language user” and you’ll see your email translated into each language. Same design, different languages. Done in about 10 minutes.

Why This Workflow Works

This approach solves three major pain points:

Speed: You go from design to translated email in minutes, not days. No spreadsheets, no manual tagging, no rebuilding layouts.

Accuracy: Translation tags are automatically added in the right places. No more missing tags or broken layouts because someone forgot to wrap a text block.

Efficiency: Design once, translate many times. Your Figma design becomes the single source of truth, and translations happen downstream without touching the original.

Who This Workflow Is For

This is especially valuable if you:

• Send emails to international audiences regularly
• Have a small team managing multiple languages
• Want to scale your email program without scaling your workload
• Are tired of manually managing translation tags in your ESP

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

This workflow assumes you’re already using Figma for email design and Braze as your ESP. If you’re using a different ESP, the Email Love Figma Plugin supports integrations with Iterable, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot, Klaviyo, Customer.io, and Loops—though the translation tag feature is currently Braze-specific.

Also, while AI translation is fast and convenient, you’ll want a human translator to review anything customer-facing or legally sensitive. AI is great for speed, but human review ensures quality.

The Bottom Line

Translating emails doesn’t have to be a multi-day project involving spreadsheets, developers, and manual tag insertion. With the right tools, you can design in Figma, export with translation tags already added, and have translated emails ready to send in about 10 minutes.

If you’ve been putting off launching emails in new languages because the process feels too complex, this workflow makes it actually doable.

Questions about the setup? Want to see how this works with a different ESP? Email our support team – [email protected]

Try the Email Love Figma Plugin free → Get started here

Much love,
Andy

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @emaillove