This guide shows you how to design an email in Figma, export it to Braze with translation tags automatically added, and translate it into multiple languages using Smartling.
What You'll Need
Before you begin, make sure you have:
- Email Love Figma Plugin installed
- A Braze account with API access
- A Smartling account
- An email design ready in Figma
Overview
This workflow eliminates the need to manually add Braze translation tags ({% translation_tag %}) to your emails. Instead, the Email Love Figma Plugin automatically wraps your text, URLs, and alt text in translation tags during export.
The complete process takes approximately 10 minutes.
Step 1: Export Your Email from Figma
- Open your email design in Figma
- Launch the Email Love Figma Plugin
- Select Braze from the ESP dropdown menu
- Check the following boxes:
- ☑️ Add localization tags (wraps all text in Braze translation tags)
- ☑️ Add localization tags for URLs (wraps links in translation tags)
- Click Export to Braze
Your email will upload to Braze as a template with translation tags automatically added around all text, URLs, and alt text.
Step 2: Create a Campaign in Braze
- Log into your Braze account
- Navigate to the Templates section
- Locate your newly exported template
- Go to Campaigns and click Create Campaign
- Give your campaign a name
- Select Email as the message type
- Choose Select from Template
- Select the template you just exported from Figma
- You'll see your email code with translation tags already in place
Add Your Target Languages
Before saving, you need to tell Braze which languages you're translating into:
- In the campaign editor, locate the Language settings
- Select your target languages (e.g., English, French, German)
- Click Save Draft
Step 3: Connect Smartling to Braze
If you haven't connected Smartling to Braze yet, follow these steps:
In Braze
- Go to Settings → APIs and Identifiers
- Click API Keys
- Click Create API Key
- Give your API key a name (e.g., "Smartling Integration")
- Under permissions, check all boxes (or at minimum, template access)
- Note: While template access should theoretically be enough, checking all boxes ensures the integration works smoothly
- Click Create API Key
- Copy your API Identifier (you'll need this in a moment)
- Note your Endpoint URL (also found in the API settings)
In Smartling
- Go to All Projects
- Click Create New Project
- Give your project a name
- Select Braze as the connector type
- Choose your linguistic package
- Select your target languages (e.g., French, German)
- Click Create Project
Configure the Braze Connection
- In your new Smartling project, go to Settings
- Navigate to Braze Settings
- Enter the following information:
- API Key: Paste the API identifier you copied from Braze
- API URL: Paste the endpoint URL from Braze
- Language Attribute:
language(same as the example in Smartling) - Source Language: English (or your default language)
- Choose your email preference:
- One email for all languages (recommended)
- Separate email per language
- Click Test Connection
- If successful, click Save
Step 4: Request Translation in Smartling
- In Smartling, click the Braze tab in the left sidebar
- You'll see a list of available templates and campaigns
- Navigate to the Campaigns section
- Locate the campaign you created in Step 2
- Check the box next to your campaign
- Click Request Translation
- Enter a job name
- Select your target languages
- Choose your translation method:
- AI Translation (fastest, good for speed)
- Human Translation (slower, best for quality)
- Click Authorize Job
Smartling will extract all text from your email and begin translating. For AI translation, this typically takes just a few minutes.
Optional: Translate URLs Manually
If you need to translate URLs to language-specific landing pages:
- Click into the translation job
- Navigate to the URL fields
- Manually update each URL with the appropriate translated version
- Save your changes
Step 5: Preview Your Translated Email
- Return to Braze
- Go to your campaign
- Click Preview Message
- In the preview settings, select Multi-language user
- Choose a language from the dropdown (e.g., French, German)
You should now see your email translated into the selected language with the same design and layout as your original.
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