Overview
Marketing Cloud provides templating features through Guide Template Language (also referred to as ‘Guide’ or ‘GTL’) which is based on the Mustache and Handlebars.js template engines.
Mustache, aptly named after its curly brace syntax that resembles a sideways mustache, is a popular template engine that is widely available across different languages and runtimes. Built on a simple syntax, Mustache provides a ‘logic-less’ approach to templating, as it lacks explicit control flow statements like ‘if’ and ‘else’ conditionals or ‘loops’; however, both looping and conditional evaluation can be achieved using built-in block helpers.
Handlebars is a superset of Mustache and uses helpers, literals and partials to add extensibility and minimal logic to Mustache.
Using these two template engines, Guide provides a declarative syntax that leverages the advantages of template-based content architecture, while also retaining interoperability with AMPscript and Server Side JavaScript (SSJS) scripting languages. Guide can be used in any platform application that publishes personalized content, including:
- Email messages
- SMS messages
- Mobile Push notifications
- CloudPage landing pages
NOTE: Guide is not a scripting language. Rather, it’s a templating language. While simple conditional statements and process loops can be achieved in Guide through built-in block helpers, it’s not designed as a replacement for AMPscript.