From Blank to Bank: Generate Stunning Email Heroes in Seconds with Hero Lab
Generate AI-powered email hero images in seconds with Backstroke Hero Lab. Eliminate design bottlenecks, test creative faster and launch campaigns on time.
It’s Thursday. Your campaign launches Monday. You need a hero image. Your designer says “maybe next week.” Sound familiar?
The email creative bottleneck is real. You know you should be personalizing more, but you don’t have the design resources to create variants. It’s not about data or know-how. It’s about time.
You’re stuck waiting on design queues while launch dates slip. You need three hero variations to test, but getting one takes 48 hours. Your designer is slammed, your Figma workflow is slow, and your campaigns? Why do they always come together in the last seconds before launch?
You need a hero. And now you have one anytime you want.
We’re introducing Hero Lab to our suite of AI-enabled email generation products. Hero Lab gives email marketers the power to generate stunning, on-brand hero images with AI in seconds—not days. Create images from scratch, overlay typography on existing assets or remix proven creative with the click of a button.
Plus, we’re pushing enhanced versions of Predictive Templates and our evergrowing fortress of enterprise-grade security updates to keep your campaigns both fast and secure.
Tie up your cape, slap on those tights. It’s hero time.
The Real Problem: You’re Waiting Too Long for Killer Creative
This is what we hear constantly:
“Our design team is overwhelmed. It takes 3-4 days to get a hero image back. We’re missing launch windows.”
“I want to test five different hero variations, but I can only get one from my design team.”
“We spend hours in Canva, trying to make product shots look professional. It still doesn’t look right.”
Creative bottleneck is killing your momentum. Campaigns launch late because you’re waiting on design. You can’t test variations fast enough to optimize performance. Manual Canva/Figma workflows eat 2-5 hours per hero image. Design teams are buried in requests. So you do what we all do: compromise. You resort to generic templates, limit experimentation and only dabble in personalization, because custom creative just takes too damn long.
Yeah, it’s frustrating. And it’s costing you money too.
Hero Lab: From Idea to Campaign-Ready Hero in 60 Seconds
Hero Lab is a new feature in Backstroke where you generate hero images with AI. Using product photos, style references, and typography examples, you can go from blank canvas to gorgeous assets in a flash.
No more waiting. No more design bottlenecks. No more choosing between “fast” and “good.”
Here’s How It Works.
Open Hero Lab in Backstroke
Choose your mode:
HERO: Create net-new hero images from product images, style references and typography.
ADD TEXT: Overlay typography onto your existing assets.
REMIX: Systematically iterate on existing creative—swap headlines, tweak visuals and create variations.
Configure in seconds: Enter headline, subheadline, button CTA and visual direction. Attach product images, style references and typography examples. Set your image ratio.
Generate: AI creates your hero image in under a minute.
Download: Get a campaign-ready image file that works in your existing workflow.
This Changes Everything: Why Hero Lab Matters to You
Ship campaigns on time. No more waiting 3-4 days for design. Generate heroes in seconds and hit your launch windows without compromise.
Uncork creative variations. Need five hero concepts to test? Ten variations for different segments? Generate them all in minutes. Test more, learn faster, personalize content and optimize performance.
Free your design team. Let designers focus on strategic creative work while marketers generate campaign heroes independently. No more bottlenecks, no more blocked launches.
Powered by real ecommerce data. Hero Lab uses Backstroke’s proprietary ecommerce data—12,000+ brands’ creative strategies and consumer interactions—to generate heroes that match subscriber intent. Whether someone’s browsing or ready to buy, Hero Lab adjusts visuals to match their journey.
Bonus: Perfect rendering across email clients. As a nice side benefit, because Hero Lab outputs a single image, Gmail can’t mangle your custom fonts and Outlook can’t strip your backgrounds. Your hero looks exactly as intended—every time, in every inbox.
First release is download-only: Generate in Hero Lab, download, then add the image in your existing template or campaign workflow. In-app library and “insert into campaign” features are coming based on your feedback.
Predictive Templates: Smarter Personalization at Scale
While Hero Lab handles your visuals, Predictive Templates take personalization even further by predicting subscriber behavior.
Who’s likely to open? To scroll? To click? To convert?
Backstroke uses predictive analytics to generate the best visual and template combinations for each subscriber type. Our system comes pre-loaded with over 75 template variations, each optimized to drive everything from engagement to sales.
What you get: Email content personalization at the cluster level. This is a major step forward for marketers who want to scale campaigns that still feel personal, relevant and fresh, without manually segmenting every send.
Predictive Templates work seamlessly with Hero Lab. You simply generate the perfect hero image, then let Backstroke predict the best template structure for each subscriber segment.
Enterprise-Grade Security: SOC2 Compliance & Beyond
As we’re innovating on visuals and personalization, we know trust matters just as much. That’s why we’re rolling out enhanced security features and working toward full SOC2 compliance.
What’s Included?
Reduced session durations to 8 hours. Short enough to stay secure, long enough to stay productive. Enterprise teams can set even shorter custom durations.
Encrypted API key management for all integrations, stored in AWS Secrets Manager. No one can view sensitive credentials without proper permissions.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) now available for all accounts. It’s soon to be the default login method.
Enhanced password controls with complexity requirements to guard your data and integrations.
These updates reinforce Backstroke’s position as a leader in secure marketing automation. Whether you’re optimizing campaign targeting or generating AI-powered creative, you can move fast without worrying about compliance or data integrity.
What This Launch Means for Marketers
Ecommerce marketers don’t have time to wait on design queues or choose between speed and quality. Every hour spent waiting for creative or fighting manual workflows is an hour not spent on strategy, testing or revenue optimization.
1) Hero Lab eliminates the creative bottleneck. Generate campaign-ready heroes in seconds, create unlimited variations for testing and ship on time without waiting for design.
2) Predictive Templates eliminate the guesswork by using AI to match the right template to the right subscriber. It’s personalization beyond tokens, without manual segmentation.
3) SOC2 security eliminates risk by protecting your data with enterprise-grade safeguards.
Together, these updates help you ship better-looking, better-performing, more secure campaigns in a fraction of the time.
Your Next Steps Are Right Here.
Ready to stop waiting on design? Want to generate unlimited hero variations and ship campaigns on time? Need to test more and move faster without sacrificing quality?
Try Hero Lab, explore Predictive Templates, and see how Backstroke helps ecommerce marketers drive 31% more revenue per send . . . without the creative bottlenecks or the wait.
Hero Lab is available now in beta. Download-only in this release. Library and campaign integration coming soon, based on customer feedback.
