One of the best email practices is to test the email before sending it to the whole list. During the test you can not only check how your HTML email is displayed for your recipients but also ensure that your email is delivered into the Inbox but not into the Spam or Bulk email folder.
Read more on How to Test Email Before Sending…
Filed under: Email Marketing, Tips and Tricks | 1 Comment »
The capability to use images and photos in the messages is the main reason why people want to send HTML emails. The images allow you show your products to potential buyers, in addition they’re often used to track email open rates. But like many HTML tricks, they have their down sides. Spammers often abuse the images, so some email clients don’t show them at all without the user’s permission. Other email programs display the images included in an "img" tag, but not the images that are included with CSS, or as a background image, or both.
You can embed an image into a HTML email in a couple of ways:
#1. Inserting an image from the disk
- Save the image to a folder on the disk, for example,
D:\Work\Helps\G-Lock EasyMail\Pictures\image.gif
- Put the cursor at the place in your email where you want to insert the image
- Click on "Insert Picture" button in your email program
- Click "Browse" and select the image file on the disk
- Click "Open" to insert the image into the message
Read more on Embedding Images into HTML Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
It’s always a good idea to show as little code as possible in your email message. As the URL is basically computer code, you shouldn’t show the URL itself unless you have a specific reason to do so (if you send an email in the plain-text format).
Choose a nice anchor text (descriptive word or phrase) and hide the URL behind the anchor text.
Do this:
Read more on How to Present URLs in HTML Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is nice for websites, but don’t relay too much in it with HTML email. For instance, you shouldn’t expect DIVs to work. And definitely avoid CSS positioning – it won’t work. Use old-fashioned <TABLES> tags for your layouts in HTML email, and only use CSS for simple font formatting and colors. Always design your email so that it looks decently if someone removes your CSS. Before you send your HTML email, delete the CSS and see how it displays.
CSS is especially a touchy situation if you’re using a WYSIWYG to design your HTML email, because WYSIWYGs insert all kinds of crazy CSS and DIVs by default. It’s one of the drawbacks of WYSIWYGs for HTML email. It may help you get things coded, but you still have to understand HTML enough to go back and remove some of the code, so things won’t break in email applications.
Stylesheets that Stick
When you’re coding an HTML email with CSS, make sure that you don’t use linked CSS files (.css files attached using link or @import). These stylesheets are most widely ignored by email clients.
CSS style declarations in the head of an HTML document (using style tags) are ignored by some email clients, such as Gmail, so they should be avoided for styles that are key to the email design.
The most reliable way to include CSS in an HTML email is to use inline styles. They aren’t pretty, but few email clients ignore them. These styles are defined within the HTML tags in the body of the document, like this: <p style="color:green;font-family:sans-serif;">green and arial text</p>.
Using span tags to apply inline styles also works well.
Layout Techniques
Most people suggest using table, tr, and td tags for page layout within an HTML email. Tables are the most stable option, especially if you’re creating email messages that require a more complicated multi-column layout. Gmail simply removes div tags, and coverage in other clients like Hotmail is spotty. Also, floating div tags don’t work in several email clients, so any floating elements can be placed in a table (using <table align="left">, for example).
Using a div tag for a layout or background color is a better option when you’re working with a single-column layout. Applying styles to div tags using inline styles versus a style tag will help keep that style in place when the email ships out to the masses.
On the bright side, you can scale back on div tags if they’re causing problems, and use the almost universally supported table, tr, and td tags for anything you can’t accomplish reliably with a div.
Formatting Text
The best way to make sure your text formatting sticks is to use inline styles, but applying an inline style to every bit of text is tedious and may add too much extra weight to the HTML. If you aren’t especially picky about details like the exact pixel size of your text, whether your "black" text shows up dark gray, and how your links are underlined, you’ll probably be happier applying text formatting with a style tag rather than inline.
One place where inline styles may make a real difference is in the headings and special notes within your email. When you want to ensure that a certain notice is always red, or that headings are the same shade of orange as your logo, you should use inline styles for that formatting.
Some email clients are notorious for changing text in strange ways that can only be overridden with inline styles. Hotmail, for example, always displays links in small blue Verdana, regardless of the appearance of the rest of the email. If this is a problem for you, you should use inline styles on each link tag to override it.
General "Do’s" and "Don’t’s" for HTML Emails with CSS
Do …
Read more on CSS in HTML Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
The recipients will be viewing your email newsletter in different email applications which render HTML email differently. For this reason, you need to test your email first and make sure it works in as many different email applications as possible. There are many email applications out there and they all render HTML email in different sometimes unpredictable ways. Do you need to test every single newsletter across every single application, every single time you send? No. Just setup a good, simple, foolproof template and test it as much as possible. In the future all you’ll need to do is to vary the content. It really helps to setup a test computer (or two) in your office. If it’s not possible, send the email to a few friends or office-mates. Just ask them to let you know if anything looks "off" or broken to them.
In the table below we summarize the particularities of most popular email clients. Knowing common issues of various email applications will help you find the optimal HTML design so that you email newsletter is displayed in the suitable way for all the subscribers.
Read more on How Different Email Applications Render HTML Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
Many of your recipients will be viewing your newsletter in their web browsers like Yahoo!Mail, Hotmail, or Gmail. There are certain things you need to know about web-based email applications:
Read more on HTML Email in Web-Based Email Applications…
Filed under: | Comments Off
We all are busy people and if you don’t have much time to design a HTML message, you can search the Internet for email templates. A good source where you can find a rich library of nice looking and professionally designed HTML templates is here
Read more on Using HTML Email Templates…
Filed under: | Comments Off
As we wrote above you can design your HTML email directly in G-Lock EasyMail. Software includes a HTML editor with all main features: bold, italic, font color, hyperlinks, images, etc. But if you’re looking for something more complicated, you’ll need to use a standalone HTML editor.
Here are the tools you’ll need…
Filed under: | Comments Off
The "Email Admin Center" is becoming a regular practice in permission-based email marketing. The “Email Admin Center” is the area of an email put at the bottom of the message where the sender includes all the administrative information such as an unsubscribe link, profile update link, company contact information, privacy information or link, and other.
Why add the "Email Admin Center" to your email newsletters?
Firstly, the admin center allows you follow best permission-based practices which imply that you must provide simple and clear privacy and email policies in your newsletter.
Secondly, you can respect the CAN-SPAM Act that requires, among other things, to include a working unsubscribe option (reply to or link) and a postal mailing address.
Thirdly, you can provide the recipients with an easy way to change their email address or profile details by adding “Update Profile” link to the admin area.
The "Email Admin Center" lets the email marketers present all of the above information in a single easy to find location within the email message.
The "Email Admin Center" makes your email newsletter look more professional and assures people that the email is coming from a reputable company which cares about the subscribers. Building trustful relationship with the subscribers is as much important in the email marketing as the legal compliance with CAN-SPAM Act.
Read more on What You Should Include into “Your Email Admin Centre”…
Filed under: | No Comments »
Now we’ll just remind all the tips for designing a HTML email message and give an example of a good, "healthy" email newsletter created in G-Lock EasyMail. So, let’s recap:
Read more on What a Good, Healthy HTML Newsletter Looks Like…
Filed under: | Comments Off
A lot of people often put much of their time and efforts on the HTML version of their message and neglect the plain-text part. We think it’s a big mistake. Don’t ignore a plain-text version of your HTML email! You need it for the recipients who can’t (or won’t) view HTML. If you don’t bother to prepare the plain-text part of your HTML message, you’ll pass for a lazy spammer and can lose a number of your customers.
If you use G-Lock EasyMail for sending email campaigns, you just create your HTML message and the program auto-generates a plain-text version for you. If you don’t like how the plain-text part looks, you can edit it as you want separately from the HTML part. Then G-Lock EasyMail “ties” two versions together in “multipart format” and sends them out. Your recipients’ email application decides which version to display. You don’t definitely need any specific skills to create your plain-text email.
Read more on Preparing a Plain-Text Version of a HTML Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
Email marketers can be divided into 3 categories: The Good, The Bad, and The Clueless. The “Bad” are crazy madcap-spammers. These geeks don’t care what kind of damage they’re doing. They send millions and millions of pieces of spam every day. They’re evil, and they know it.
Read more on Email Marketing Etiquette – 13 Best Email Practices…
Filed under: | Comments Off
OK, we’ve just described best email practices you should follow to pass as a good email marketer and get better delivery results. But you know there is nothing constant on the Internet. New methods are being adapted; old ones go out of date. Email delivery practices change as well. Email practices that were widely and successfully applied yesterday may not be so effective today.
With all that said, we feel it’s reasonable to get you familiar with email sending tactics that are no longer good. If you are using any of such tactics or may just be thinking about applying any of them, you may consider changing your mind and not engage into them.
Read more on Best Email Delivery Practices Gone Bad…
Filed under: | Comments Off
AOL users tend to differ from other recipients on your list. Understanding their habits and preferences can help you optimize your newsletter for better delivery to AOL subscribers, or create a special copy of the original message that would find a broad response among this segment of your list.
The research shows that the majority of AOL users:
Read more on Understanding AOL Users Preferences and Habits…
Filed under: | Comments Off
If your mailing list contains a considerable amount of AOL subscribers, it’s important for you to be aware of the AOL service and email software specific features. You should get familiar with how AOL handles incoming email messages to be able to tailor your newsletter and overall email marketing process to the AOL specific requirements and issues. Below is a list of what you should take into account.
Read more on Optimizing Email Delivery for AOL Users…
Filed under: | Comments Off
So now when you know how most of anti-spam systems work, you can start on your HTML newsletter. You really have to “think like a spam filter” when you design your emails. Spam filters read your emails, and look for similarities with known spam. You don’t want to get thrown into the junk folder, right? So, you have to remember some things that you must not do when designing your email.
And the best way to learn what not to do is:
Read more on Tips for Avoiding Anti-Spam Filters…
Filed under: | Comments Off
Minimizing spam complaints is closely related to best email marketing practices and starts with the method of collecting email addresses. You should remember that nowadays sending unsolicited emails will only hurt you. To get the lowest complaint rates, you need to either use a confirmed opt-in method, or properly manage your single opt-in list. If you send to a solid permission-based list but still find that your spam complaints rate is higher than the optimal rate and/or is rising, consider the following:
Read more on 8 Tips to Minimize Spam Complaints…
Filed under: | Comments Off
With G-Lock Analytics tracking service you can clearly understand what is happening to your emails after they are sent.
G-Lock Analytics tracking service records the following data when an email is "tracked": IP address, event date and time, user defined "pass through" information, Link ID and campaign ID, where the subscriber is the person who receives the email.
When you are creating your e-mail message, you simply replace your links with our "track" links, and place a small image in your email (for HTML emails only). This is a transparent image that is placed within the e-mail. This web beacon records user defined "pass through" information, IP address, date and time of event, and campaign ID. The function of the web beacon is to report when an email has been opened.
With these types of reports you can figure out if your customers find your emails interesting, or what part of them they like more. For instance, if you are selling products online, and you send out a regular newsletter with a list of new products, you could use G-Lock Analytics tracking service to see what your customers are most interested in.
With G-Lock Analytics tracking service you can:
Read more on Tracking Email Campaigns with G-Lock Analytics Service…
Filed under: | Comments Off
Open rates are tracked with the use of a transparent one pixel gif image hosted on a server and inserted into a HTML message just like usual images. Any action on the recipients’ part that leads to the image load is counted as an open. But this metric may not be accurate if:
Read more on All Subscribers Opened my Email…
Filed under: | Comments Off
After you created a list of subscribers who confirmed their wish to receive emails from you and segmented your list depending on the recipients’ preferences, you can start creating your email message.
Read more on Using the Multipart/Alternative MIME Format…
Filed under: | Comments Off
Here is a list of new features, fixes and improvements of G-Lock EasyMail v6: Added: G-Lock EasyMail is integrated with G-Lock Analytics Email Tracking Manager. With G-Lock Analytics Email Tracking Manager you can:
Read more on New Features and Improvements of G-Lock EasyMail v6…
Filed under: Email Marketing | 6 Comments »
With an ever-crowded inbox, email readers are used to make quick decisions on how to deal with email. They have become more sophisticated in the ways they open, read and delete email messages. You know most of your recipients aren’t sitting at their big desktops reading patiently every email message in their never-ending inboxes. Many email readers look through email on mobile devices like cell phones, and other handhelds clearing out anything that doesn’t grab their attention immediately.
What do you think how much time a reader spends to decide whether to read or delete a message? The research shows that the average reader takes 2 to 5 seconds to decide if the message is worth to be read or not. This tiny time interval is enough to look at the sender line, subject and any snippets visible. So, the sender line, message subject and snippet text is all you have to persuade the reader to open your email.
The importance of the sender line and subject is incontestable. You know that your email message must have a recognizable sender line and a powerful subject line. But what is the snippet text? How can it affect your open rate?
Open your own inbox and look at the first sentence in your email that is displayed after the subject line. This is the snippet text. Typically, the snippet text is the first line of an HTML message, or the first sentence of a text message. In Outlook the snippet is a short line of the text in autopreview. Gmail users see a shaded text after a truncated subject line. Yahoo displays a pop-up with a snippet text when you put the cursor on the subject line in the inbox preview on your Yahoo home page.
This tiny but significant piece of the text in your email message can help the reader make the decision in your favor when they are scrolling through their inboxes, looking for which messages to open and which to delete.
In the majority of email messages the first line after the subject asks the reader to click the link to see the web version of the message for better display, or contains a request to add the sender email address to the reader’s contact list. Here are a couple of examples: "Have trouble viewing this email? Click here" or "Click here for a web version". These are legitimate services, but they shouldn’t be in the top line because none of these sentences tells the reader about the purpose of the email, leaving the reader to decide on the subject line alone. And furthermore, the statistics show that people simply aren’t clicking on the links to the web versions.
The above examples of the snippet text share two common mistakes: they neither refer to the actual content in the message nor include the company name or brand. If that’s what your readers see in the top line, you’ve lost another opportunity to stand out in the crowd and make the reader stop at your message.
Instead you can make a valuable use of this space. With a snippet text you have more space to build brand recognition and relevancy beyond the subject line alone. A correctly worded snippet adds a value to the message, arouses interest and excitement and helps your reader decide whether to save the message or to read it immediately.
In a commercial email, you can repeat your offer – discount, free shipping, and invitation to view a new product – with link to the web version, for example "[Program Name] upgrade deadline – for a special discount coupon, click this link".
If you send a regular newsletter, it is appropriate to put a headline in the top line with the link to the web version. Example: "To choose HTML email templates from our exclusive collection, click here".
For an email message confirming a transaction, you can refer to the action and thank as appropriate: "A special thank you from [Company Name]". The transaction confirmation does not require a link unless you maintain a "thank you" or "order confirmation" page on your website.
Before you do a mass mailing with your new snippet text, it is reasonable to verify how it will show in different email clients and web mail services as well as on different platforms.
A lesson here is that with a never-ending flow of emails in our inboxes, you cannot afford a luxury to waste a single line in your email message. The top line is another great opportunity to persuade the reader that your message has value and is worth to be read. If you aren’t taking the full advantage of this line, you’re likely missing a chance to make your message stand out in the reader’s inbox.
Read more on Stand out in the Reader’s Inbox by Using the Right Snippet Text…
Filed under: Email Marketing, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »
