Every Canadian email team has the same conversation sooner or later. Do we send one email with English and French in it, or two emails? And if two, two campaigns or one campaign with two versions inside it? It sounds like a technical choice. It's really a choice about how much work you're signing up for every week, and how easy it'll be to tell whether the French is working.
Here are the three options, what each one really costs you, and what I'd pick.
For whether you need French at all (if you email Quebec, you do), see the Quebec French email guide.
First: a language field you can trust
All three options depend on knowing which language each subscriber wants. Without that, you're guessing from postcodes, and you'll get it wrong for a lot of people: anglophones in Montreal, francophones in Ottawa, Moncton or Winnipeg.
- Ask at sign-up. One question, two buttons: English / Français. Show the form in French on French pages.
- Default sensibly when you don't know. Quebec addresses default to French; everyone else to English. Let people change it from the preference centre, and in every email footer.
- Store it as one field, with fixed values.
franden, or French and English, but not a mix of both. Every segment and every rule will depend on it. - Backfill your existing list. Use the language people bought or browsed in, then their province, then English. Send a one-off "Which language would you like?" email to anyone you still aren't sure about.
New Brunswick is worth a special mention. It's Canada's only officially bilingual province, and around a third of its people speak French as their first language. If you default everyone outside Quebec to English, you'll get Acadian customers wrong.
Option 1: two separate emails
One English email to the English segment, one French email to the French segment. Either two campaigns, or one campaign with two versions sent to two segments.
Why it works:
- Each subject line and preheader is written for its language and fits its space. French usually runs longer, and it gets the room it needs.
- Each email reads as if it were written in that language, because it was.
- Results are clean: opens, clicks and revenue by language, side by side.
- Approval is clean too. The person who reads French approves the French email and nothing else.
What it costs:
- Two emails to build, test and schedule, every time. Changes to one have to be made to the other.
- The risk that the French goes out late, or with an old price, because it's "the second one".
How to make it hold up: plan both on the same date, build the French from the approved English rather than from scratch, and have a checklist step that compares the two before either is scheduled: same offer, same links (pointing at the French and English pages), same send time.
Option 2: one bilingual email
French and English in the same email, one after the other or side by side, sent to everyone.
Why teams choose it:
- One email to build and send. No language field needed.
- Nobody gets the "wrong" language, because everyone gets both.
What it costs:
- The email is twice as long, and the second language sits below the fold.
- The subject line has to carry both languages (Soldes d'automne | Fall sale), which means both get cut off on a phone.
- Under Quebec's Charter, the French has to be at least as prominent as the English, so for Quebec audiences French usually goes first or the two run in parallel. That leaves your English readers scrolling past French to find their half.
- Results can't tell you which language people actually read.
It suits short, functional messages where length doesn't matter much: a service notice, a policy update, an event reminder. For marketing, it tends to make both versions worse.
Option 3: one email with language blocks
One campaign, but the content blocks are conditional: French blocks shown to French subscribers, English blocks to English ones, based on the language field.
Why it's tempting: one campaign, one schedule, one set of reporting, and each subscriber only sees their language.
What it costs:
- Testing is harder. You have to preview the email as each language to see what each person will get, and the builder usually only looks at one.
- Every block has to exist twice and stay in step. Miss a condition and someone gets a half-French email.
- The subject line is often the weak spot. Not every ESP lets you vary it by language in the same campaign.
- Approvers need to see both rendered versions, not the template with both languages in it.
It works well for automated journeys (welcome series, basket reminders), where you build the email once and it runs for months. For weekly campaigns, the extra testing usually costs more time than building a second version.
What I'd pick
Separate versions (option 1) for campaigns, language blocks (option 3) for automations, and a bilingual email (option 2) only for short notices. Whichever you choose, the French gets the same date, the same offer and its own approval.
How the main ESPs handle it
Features change, so check your own plan. Here's what the ESPs' own help pages say, as of October 2026.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo segments on a Language profile property, which you can collect on a form or estimate from location. Its Smart Translations feature, on paid accounts, machine-translates the text blocks, labels and alt text in a campaign or flow into other languages; links, images and product feeds still have to be changed by hand, and edits made after translating mean translating again (Klaviyo help). Treat the machine translation as a first draft for a Quebec French translator, not as the finished French.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp doesn't create language versions of an email for you. You can write each version yourself in conditional blocks using the subscriber's language, with merge tags such as _|IF:MC_LANGUAGE=fr|_, and its translate merge tags add links to a machine translation rather than a French email. The subject line can't be varied this way (Mailchimp help). In practice, most Mailchimp teams send to two segments (option 1).
HubSpot
HubSpot supports multi-language versions of marketing emails, with a language set on each email, from Marketing Hub Starter; generating a translated version automatically needs Professional or Enterprise (HubSpot knowledge base).
Braze
Braze uses translation tags around the copy in a message, with the translations for each locale uploaded by CSV or through its API. Braze doesn't translate anything itself, and there are limits on how much each tag can wrap (Braze docs). Translation management tools such as Phrase, Lokalise, Smartling and Crowdin connect to it.
Wherever you build it
The ESP is only half of it. The part that decides whether French email goes well is what happens before the build: whether French is on the plan with its own date, whether the translator sees the email, and whether someone who reads French approves it. That's the part Mailfois handles, alongside whichever ESP you use.
Frequently asked questions
Should I send bilingual emails or separate English and French emails?
For marketing campaigns, separate versions sent to language segments usually work best: each subject line fits, each email reads naturally and results are clear. A single bilingual email suits short notices. For Quebec audiences, the French has to be at least as prominent as the English either way.
How do I know which language a subscriber wants?
Ask at sign-up, default Quebec addresses to French and the rest to English, and let people change it in every email footer and the preference centre. Store it in one profile field with fixed values.
Can the subject line be in both English and French?
It can, but both halves get cut off on a phone. Separate versions, each with its own subject line, are usually better.
Can I use machine translation for Quebec French?
As a first draft, yes. Have a translator who writes Quebec French check and correct it before it's approved, and check prices, dates and merge tags, which machine translation often mangles.
