How do you transfer templates, automations, and preferences?

Templates and automations don't have a universal transfer format. Every ESP has its own system, and you're going to rebuild at least some of this manually. The good news: it's mostly a mechanical process, and doing it thoughtfully is a good opportunity to clean up technical debt you've accumulated over the years.

For templates, export the HTML source from your current ESP and rebuild in your new platform's template editor. Before you start, update any ESP-specific merge tags and syntax. Variables like *|FNAME|* in Mailchimp become {{ first_name }} in Klaviyo, for example. Track links, unsubscribe links, and footer tokens all need updating too. Test every template in your new ESP with a real send before you go live.

Automations (welcome series, drip campaigns, re-engagement flows) are usually the most time-intensive to rebuild because they have conditions, branching logic, and timing delays that all need to be manually recreated. Export a document of every automation you currently have, including the conditions and the trigger logic, before you start. That documentation becomes your specification for the rebuild. Subscriber preferences, things like frequency settings, category opt-ins, or topic preferences, often don't have a clean export format. If your subscribers have granular preferences stored in custom fields, export those fields with your list export and map them to equivalent fields in your new ESP. If you have a preference center, rebuild it on the new platform and test every option before launch.

One thing that's easy to miss: authentication for your new sending subdomain and domain needs to be set up before any templates go live. A template that sends correctly from the wrong authentication setup will land in spam even if everything else looks right.