How to create a multilingual email campaign using Smart Translations

How to create a multilingual email campaign using Smart Translations

Estimated 4 minute read

Updated Feb 19, 2026, 12:00 AM EST

Table of contents

Before you begin
Translate a campaign
Regionalizing product content
Editing original content after translating
Translations for cloned messages and A/B tests
Additional resources

Learn how to create and send an email campaign in multiple languages, depending on the language preferences of your audience. Klaviyo can translate a campaign’s content to 60+ languages.

Localizing campaigns is great if you have or plan to expand to an international customer base. Sending emails in each subscriber’s preferred language allows you to reach a wider audience which can increase overall engagement.

Before you begin

Smart Translations is available on paid accounts. Enable Smart Translations from your account settings.

If you haven’t already, learn the basics of how to create and send an email campaign. This article mainly covers translation features for campaigns.

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Translate a campaign

Make sure your email is fully edited and ready to send in your original language before translating. Otherwise, you’ll have to go through the translation process again if you make edits to the original content.

Create a campaign or edit an existing draft campaign.
On the Recipients step of the campaign wizard, make sure to add lists or segments to your campaign’s audience that you know have multiple language preferences.
If you haven’t already, add an email template to your campaign.
On the Message step, click Edit to open the template editor.
Click the Translate icon in the top right.
Under Written in, choose the original language of your email.
Select what languages you want to translate your campaign into by checking the box next to each language. The recommended languages are based on the preferred languages of your campaign’s audience. Languages chosen in your translation settings are selected initially; some may appear under Additional languages.
If desired, click the dropdown under Additional languages to view and select languages that aren’t recommended.
Choose a Default language for recipients whose preferred language is unknown or unavailable. You can use the original language or one of the selected translations.

Click Translate.
Review the translated email elements. If a Translations list appears first, click Open next to a language to open its editor. You can manually edit any of the elements if needed. You can also click the edit button next to listed images to change them to ones appropriate for the selected language.

Click the edit button next to a listed text block to review and edit the full text. Click the back arrow labeled Close to return to the list of elements.

If you selected multiple languages to translate into, click the arrows at the top or use the dropdown to switch between languages.
If you want to add more languages or remove the currently selected language, click the name of the language. If you remove a language, confirm with Remove. If it is your default language, choose a replacement before confirming.

Once you’re done, click Done. Your translation edits save as you make them.

When you’re ready to send, return to the campaign wizard and complete the Review step. Click Schedule or send and follow the campaign scheduling instructions to choose your send time and confirm.

Regionalizing product content

Regionalizing product content allows your customers to see your product information, currency, and pricing that match their preferences.

Dynamic product blocks

Regionalizing product content is available for the Shopify integration when Shopify Markets is enabled.

Dynamic product blocks in Smart Translations use your customer’s language and country to select localized product information, currency, and pricing. If the matching catalog locale is unavailable or returns no products, Klaviyo tries the configured fallback catalog locale, then the base catalog. Because of these fallbacks, recommendations are not guaranteed to exclude every product that is unavailable in the customer’s country.

Within the Smart Translations editor, select a Fallback catalog locale for the dynamic product block. This is used when the customer’s country is unknown, a matching catalog locale is unavailable, or that locale returns no products.
A default Fallback catalog locale for each language can be configured from your account settings.
If you selected multiple languages to translate into, click the arrows at the top or use the dropdown to switch between languages. Select a fallback catalog locale for each language, then click Done when you’re finished.

Static product blocks

Static product blocks used in Smart Translations can be manually configured for each language following the instructions in Translate a campaign above.

Editing original content after translating

If you edit the original content of the email after you’ve already translated, a warning will appear at the top of the editor notifying you that your edits will affect translation.

To correct any potential translation errors:

Click Review translations next to the warning message. If the Translations list appears, click Open next to the language you want to review.
To update all out-of-sync blocks for the selected language, click Update translations. The affected blocks are highlighted in yellow.

Alternatively, to handle an out-of-sync element individually, open its 3-dot menu and choose an available action:
Re-translate - translate any changed text.
Match source - match image or URL to the original source.
Edit - manually modify the element.
Ignore - keep element as is.
Switch to each remaining language and review any out-of-sync elements. Once you’ve finished, click Done.

Translations for cloned messages and A/B tests

If you clone a campaign with translations within the same account, the new campaign will keep all translations from the original which you can freely edit. When cloning to another account, sender-name translations are not copied, so review the sender name in each language. Learn how to clone a campaign.

When you create an A/B test, new variations will keep translations from the original email.

Additional resources

Learn more about editing and scheduling campaigns:

How to edit or reschedule a campaign

Learn how to edit or reschedule a scheduled campaign. You can edit both scheduled and draft campaigns. - How to cancel a scheduled or sending campaign

Learn how to cancel a campaign that has been scheduled or partially sent. Campaigns that have already been fully sent cannot be cancelled. If you don't see the option to cancel a campaign by following the steps below, then sending is already complete and it can no longer be cancelled. - Understanding campaign schedule and send options

Learn what sending options are available for campaigns and how you can use them. When you schedule or send a campaign, you can choose things like your send time, send strategy, timezone, and other details.

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