The association is often made with good deliverability from an email marketing campaign to the router's competence and its reputation. The Routing process is considered solely responsible when campaign performance is unsatisfactory. It should be noted that the good message design is at least as important. Webmail filters dedicate a significant amount of attention to the message content and the way it is written. This article presents best practices of the message creation for your email marketing campaigns.
The object
This is the first part of the message that needs working on. It's one of the three most important elements along with the sender and the preview pane. The objective is to encourage the recipient to open your message. I'm offering you some tips below:
Length must not exceed 50 characters (leads to encoding issues misperceived by content filters).
The first fifteen characters are the most important.
It must reflect the content and pique the recipient's interest.
Rendering tests can be performed with tools such as Litmus and EmailOnAcid.
A/B tests can be carried out with a tool such as SmartProfile Email.
Accented and punctuation characters may be misinterpreted.
Capitals should not be overused.
The sender's alias
It is one of the two elements, along with the subject line, that determines whether the message is opened. It must be clear so that the recipient can recognise you quickly. The simplest solution is to use your company's name. Just as with the subject line, you can carry out A/B tests to find the best one.
Message preview
This is the second step in the process of reading an email, after the sender and the subject. Each email client offers a preview of the message in a preview pane. This can be vertical or horizontal, so you need to organise your email so that your message is quickly identifiable as soon as it appears in the preview pane.
The message
The message must be created in «multipart», meaning it must contain both an HTML version and a text version. All recipients will be able to read your message even if their email client does not support HTML interpretation.
The text message
The text message is very useful if your contact's messaging tool cannot interpret HTML. This part is often overlooked or done without prior thought, and yet it proves to be very important. Here are some tips to help you create the text message quickly and simply.
La longueur d'une ligne ne doit pas excéder
60 caractères.
The links have no anchor so they must be short. For example, a tool such as SmartProfile Emailing encapsulates links using its «shortlinks» tool.
The text should be edited in a «PLAIN TEXT» tool like Notepad. Copying and pasting from Word is not recommended.
Capital letters and special characters like «*», «–», «>», «<», «=» can be used to highlight headings and structure the message.
The text must not end with a link (issue encountered with recipients of the LaPoste.net webmail domain).
A visual link to the HTML version would be very useful.
Please note: It is technically impossible to count the number of times a text message is opened. To assess its impact, you need to measure the number of clicks. Remember to include a parameter on the text message links to differentiate them from the HTML message links.
The HTML message
The HTML message code should be clean and clear. An email should not be thought of as a normal web page. Many elements are not interpreted correctly by email clients or can make your message appear as spam.
The following items are not permitted:
JavaScript or ActiveX,
Forms, videos (a «landing page» is preferred).
Embedded images (host them on a server).
IP addresses (use a domain name).
Map (HTML
The tags <tbody>.
External CSS styles.
White on white (spammer technique).
Words frequently used by spammers (money, sex, viagra, ...).
Conversely, here is some advice for writing good HTML code:
The message width should be a maximum of 600px. This size mostly corresponds to the width reserved for viewing emails in email clients.
Fonts should remain standard (Verdana, Arial or Tahoma). Some tools do not correctly interpret exotic fonts.
Texts should be short. Use landing pages otherwise.
Bullet points and blank lines help to make the message more readable and spaced out.
Printing the message can be useful for validating the rendering.
The ALT and TITLE attributes should describe the images and encourage the recipient to accept them (if an image contains text, it is useful to copy this text into the ALT attribute so that even if the images are blocked, the message is still visible).
The multitude of font colours and sizes is to be avoided.
The text-to-image ratio should be balanced.
The nesting depth of arrays must not exceed three.
The message weight must not exceed 50KB.
The image weight should be as small as possible.
The disadvantages of messaging tools:
The CSS styles will not always be interpreted correctly. Check how your message renders without CSS styles.
White text is not recommended as some people disable coloured backgrounds.
The background images are not always interpreted.
Test your message with different DOCTYPEs.
Add « display:block; » to the « style » attribute of your images to avoid the hassle of strict.dtd DOCTYPE.
The message encoding must take into account image blocking and the preview pane.
Integrated tools SmartProfile Email allow the Render check on the most widespread messaging tools.
The «call to action»
This element is the most important part of the message. It's what will encourage the recipient to click.
It must appear in the preview area at a minimum.
It must be accessible with one click on the message.
It must be easily visible.
It can be repeated in the message.
If it's an image, clearly complete the ALT attribute.
If it's a text, the anchor should be clear («click here» provides no information).
Test the position of the «call to action» with a tool like SmartProfile to define the best one.
The visualisation link
Some webmails misinterpret HTML or don't interpret it at all. Provide a viewing link that redirects the recipient to a page displaying the email message in a browser.
The unsubscribe link
In the same spirit as mutual consent between the recipient and you when they sign up for your newsletter (see the article « How to build a contact list for your email campaigns? »)), they must have the option to unsubscribe at any time. The quickest way is to add an unsubscribe link to every email you send them.
It is possible to redirect the click to a form that allows the unsubscribed person to justify their action. These responses will allow you to improve your process and reduce the unsubscribe rate in the future.
It is difficult to accept a contact's unsubscription, but this action avoids a spam report and thus preserves your reputation with webmail providers.
The data modification link
An unsubscribe can be caused by the frequency of email sending or by your recipient changing their email address. To avoid losing a contact, you can offer them, via a page containing a form, the option to update their information and preferences. Use this method to qualify this contact a little better.
Be aware, it is very often easy to use «click here» as the anchor text for visualisation, unsubscribe and modification links. This term can increase your spam score with webmail providers. Be more original. We suggest, for example, «view our online version» or «to unsubscribe from this newsletter, go to this page».
Mentions of the CNIL
These are a few lines that bring you into compliance with French law and your responsibilities towards the CNIL. The recipient is also more confident if they are told they can have quick and easy access to their data.
Here is an example of the mentions we use:
«You have the right to access, modify, rectify and delete your personal data (Article 34 of the French Data Protection Act of 6 January 1978).«
The rules for good email message design practices are numerous. It is not a simple part of the email marketing campaign management process. There is a lot of work involved in correlating message content with its form. Filters are becoming increasingly sophisticated and webmails are imposing ever more constraints. Furthermore, it must be kept in mind that the rules are not fixed and that they evolve over time. What is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. Fortunately, tools make it easier to test the rendering and performance of messages.
If you wish to respond to this article, please feel free to leave a comment, share it with your acquaintances, and contact us. We are open to any discussion on the subject.
