LAYOUT
- Unless having a responsive email is absolutely necessarily, use tables as the framework of your email. This will ensure that your email will show up how you want it to across all email applications.
- Because applications like Gmail and Outlook have poor support for float, margin and padding, it’s best to avoid using them when possible.
- Set your table at 600px wide and align center.
CSS AND STYLING
- CSS will work in HTML email but it has limitations and because browser-based email applications, such as Gmail, strip out <head> and <body> tags by default, it’s always best to try to use inline CSS over embedded CSS whenever possible.
- When declaring the color property in your CSS, some email applications don’t support shorthand hexadecimal colors like: #f60. Stick to the longhand approach for the best results: #ff6600.
- Create your borders nesting tables rather than using the border-style property. Some email applications like Outlook do not support the border-style property.
IMAGES
- Avoid spacer images.
- Try to avoid floats – Both Outlook 2007 and earlier versions of Notes offer no support for the float property. Instead, use the align attribute of the img tag to float images in your email <img src=”image.jpg” align=”right”> or use tables.
- Always include the dimensions of your image: width=”600px” height=”250px”.
- Some email applications like Outlook and gmail add a few pixels of additional padding below images. To close up the gab, add the display:block property to your code: <img src=”http://www.mywebsite.com/eblasts/images/myimage.jpg” width=”600″ height=”250″ alt=”This is an example” style=”display:block” />
- All images (JPEG, PNG or GIF) in the HTML content need to be hosted and include absolute URL’s like so: http://www.yourwebpage.com/image.jpg
UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION
- It’s important to include a paragraph reminding your subscribers why they are receiving your email (because they may have forgotten that they signed up in the first place!). You also need to add an easy access unsubscribe button so they can unsubscribe if they wish. I know that’s hard to swallow (they don’t want my emails?!) but trust me, you’d rather have a smaller list of engaged users than a large list of users who never open a single email of yours.
