Mention Outlook to an email developer and you’ll be met with rolling eyes and perhaps a few expletives. No matter how many Outlook coding guides you read, there’s always something to throw a wrench in the gears.

However, it doesn’t all have to be negative! Although Outlook stirs these deep emotions in us, it’s like that one friend we all have that you know is going to turn up 45 minutes later than expected, it may be incredibly frustrating but it’s also reliably frustrating.

Coding emails that look great on Outlook is a rite of passage for all email developers; Outlook pushes us to think outside the box to create beautiful emails that withstand its quirks. It’s a playground where a perfectly aligned button becomes a badge of honor, and a table that refuses to cooperate transforms into a testament of our problem-solving skills. Sure, it may throw us a curveball now and then, but isn’t that what makes life exciting?

Join us as we delve into the intricacies, share insights, and equip ourselves with the tools necessary to conquer the challenges presented by Outlook.

Why Outlook emails don’t always display as expected

To undertake the rite of passage that is creating emails that still look great in Outlook it’s important for us to understand why Outlook can be such a thorn in our side.

One of the main issues with Outlook is its inconsistent rendering across different versions. Outlook CSS support isn’t great and here’s why…

The desktop versions of Outlook, especially those predating Outlook 2013, employ the Word rendering engine instead of a dedicated HTML rendering engine. This engine, originally designed for word processing, has limitations in interpreting modern HTML and CSS techniques commonly used in email design.

Although Outlook is no longer the powerhouse it was once in terms of email client market share, usurped in recent years by Apple/iOS Mail and Gmail, it still commands a healthy average 5%* of the market particularly in corporate environments. It’s still very important to make your emails look great on Outlook.

*This is just an average. Your email lists may vary, we always recommend checking your own analytics to see who is opening your emails on which clients.

11 ways Outlook can break HTML emails

Let’s explore best practices and strategies for optimizing HTML emails specifically for Outlook, enabling developers to overcome the challenges associated with it.

1. Outlook adds random white lines to emails

This is by far the most notorious and problematic Outlook issue that exists. Nothing beats finishing up your beautiful, intricate email design, passing it through your email rendering tests and seeing a random white line in your Outlook test.

While it may not be the most egregious design break, the way it seems to happen at random, and the fixes we have to employ, make it an almost rage-inducing bug. Despite Microsoft being fully aware of the bug, we’ve seen no fixes on Outlook’s end.

So, why do these white lines appear in your Outlook emails? Although we don’t know the exact reason for this odd behavior, the leading theory is that it has to do with heights that are odd numbers.

If these white lines are causing you a headache there are some potential quick fixes to help you get rid of them, at least temporarily:

Change up your font sizes and heights.

For some folks, the fix is as simple as changing font sizes from odd numbers to even numbers. For example, if you have a font size of 13px or 15px, try converting it to 14px.

You can also try manually changing heights, font sizes and line-heights to achieve the same outcome.

Add a ghost break.

Often adding a ghost break will temporarily fix the rogue white lines in Outlook. Similar to ghost columns, a ghost break is a line break that we add targeted only towards Outlook.

                            

                                <!--[if true]><br> <![endif]-->
                            
                        

Match the background color.

If you just need a very quick fix and your design allows for it, you can match the background color on your problem section to the containing section/table.

It’s the definition of painting over the cracks, but it certainly works for a quick, no-mess fix.

Add some Microsoft specific code

If you’ve exhausted your other options you can try this code snippet directly in your code’s head section. Here we’re targeting Outlook and collapsing table borders.

                            

                                <!--[if (gte mso 9)|(IE)]>
 <style type="text/css">
 table {
 border-collapse: collapse;
 border-spacing: 0;
 mso-table-lspace: 0pt !important;
 mso-table-rspace: 0pt !important; }
 </style>
 <![endif]-->

                            
                        

This may have a more drastic effect on how your email renders, so if you’re going to try this out it’s important to thoroughly test your email on all versions of Outlook.

Outlook white lines still got you down?

If none of the above helped fix your white lines or if you’re interested to read more about how and why these lines occur we wrote an in-depth article taking a deeper dive into it. We also recommend checking out this brilliant article from our friends over at ActionRocket.

2. Outlook lacks support for animated GIFs.

Does Outlook support GIFs? That depends on the version in which your animation is opened. Outlook and its lack of support for animated GIFs has long-been a sore point for many designers.

While the newer versions of Outlook now have GIF support, the older Windows desktop versions (2007-2016) will still only render the first frame of an animated GIF.

If your GIF includes a call-to-action or any information that is vital to the email’s messaging, you should always try to include it in the first frame. If that isn’t possible you can always employ this technique to show a GIF in most email clients, but hide it and show a static fallback image in Outlook.

3. CSS background images not supported.

A while back Microsoft added CSS background image support to Outlook 365 and Outlook.com, but we still lack support for these in most desktop versions of Outlook, and we don’t anticipate this being changed any time soon.

If you want your background images to work on Outlook 2016 and other older desktop versions you’ll need to dive into the world of Vector Markup Language (VML).

VML will allow you to get those beautiful background images working on Outlook but will add a layer of complexity to your email coding process. Ultimately, each email is different and often your email designs will still work without your background images loading, it’s down to you to decide if the extra effort of VML is worth if for your specific needs.

4. Outlook ignores margin and padding.

One of the persistent challenges faced by email developers when coding for Outlook is its tendency to ignore margin and padding properties.

Certain versions of Outlook will remove padding in a lot of situations, though you may have more luck with margins. It’s also important to remember that every desktop version of Outlook won’t support the styling of <div> tags, so if you’re using <div>s for your layout remember to employ the ghost column technique, wrapping the divs in Outlook specific tables to allow you to style those for Outlook.

How you handle your spacing in your email code is important and if you’re having trouble getting the spacing you want in Outlook you can take a deeper dive into margins and padding in HTML email.

5. Outlook adds a border to table cells.

A bug in Outlook 2016 adds a 1-pixel border around table cells in emails. This may not be a major problem unless you need your email template to line up perfectly.

To get rid of this extra border, use “border-collapse: collapse;” embedded or inline. This CSS property indicates whether cells have a shared or separate border. Setting the property to the collapse value means it combines to a single border.

6. Outlook ignores link styling.

In certain cases Outlook will not apply the link styling you’ve applied to your hyperlinks.

Specifically, Outlook will strip the styling from <a> tags without an href value or links that don’t have https:// or https://, which can be annoying if you’re using them as anchors to navigate the email, using mailto links, or using placeholder links for testing purposes.

If you need to test an email before you have live URLs for that email, consider using a placeholder link that includes a https:// or httsp:// protocol.

If you find that Outlook is stripping your styles from a mailto or internal anchor link, simply wrap the <a> tag in a <span> and apply your styling to the surrounding span.

7. Resizing non-native images in Outlook.

Outlook will always try to render your images at their native dimensions which can be annoying when you’re creating larger images and scaling them down, a common technique for high DPI devices.

While most email clients will respect your CSS, Outlook will not respect CSS to resize images. That’s why it’s important when resizing images to define the attributes in HTML for Outlook. You’ll only need to define the width, Outlook will resize the height accordingly to maintain the proper image proportions.

                            

                                <-- This image will be resized to 300px in Outlook -->

 <img src="https://www.emailonacid.com/images/photo.jpg" width="300" style="width:300px;" />

 <-- This image will NOT be resized in Outlook -->
 <img src="https://www.emailonacid.com/images/photo.jpg" style="width:300px;" />


                            
                        

If you’re seeing images that don’t look great in Outlook ensure you check that you’ve defined the correct width in the HTML.

8. Outlook ignores HTML item width and height.

As we’ve already mentioned, Outlook doesn’t support styling inside of <div> tags.

So, when an email renders in Outlook, the <div> sections will assume the height of the text inside of them, and 100% width, even if you specify a height/width for them in code.

Once again, the fix for Outlook HTML emails is to use tables instead. We have seen this with a few other elements, but the <div> situation is the most common problem.

9. Font stacks and Times New Roman.

When it comes to font rendering, Outlook presents a unique challenge for email developers due to its limited support for web fonts and reliance on font stacks. Unlike most email clients, Outlook does not have built-in support for downloading and displaying custom web fonts directly from external sources.

Further to this, if you include a custom font at the top of your font stack, Outlook will ignore all of your fallback fonts and instead display Times New Roman. (Thanks, Outlook!)

• Fix 1: Replace the stack using attribute selectors.
• Fix 2: Wrap text in a span.
• Fix 3: Add MSO conditional code.
• Fix 4: Specify a custom font in a media query.

Fix 1 was the most popular among email geeks who submitted their own solutions to Email on Acid. It works because Outlook ignores attribute selectors. This code will tell the email client to replace any style that includes the custom font with the correct stack:

                            

                                 <html>
   <head>
     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Tangerine">
     <style>
       div {font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Tangerine';}
       [style*="Tangerine"] { font-family: 'Tangerine', Helvetica, serif !important; }
     </style>
   </head>
   <body>
     <div style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Tangerine';font-size: 48px;">Making Email Beautiful!</div>
     <div style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;font-size: 48px;">Helvetica</div>
     <div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;font-size: 48px;">Times New Roman</div>
   </body>
 </html>

                            
                        

If this fix didn’t work for you or if you’d like to take a more thorough look at font stacks in Outlook we wrote a comprehensive guide to font stacks and Outlook.

10. Controlling line height in Outlook.

At one time, emails were rendering taller than expected in Outlook.com because the client was controlling line-height using CSS. That’s not so much of an issue anymore.

Microsoft Office styles (MSO styles) will tighten up your lines just a bit. If your spacing seems off, give it a try. Add “mso-line-height-rule:exactly;” directly before the line-height style, inline or embedded.

11. Email alignment issues in Outlook

Another common problem with older desktop versions of Outlook is wonky alignment, specifically when trying to include two or more columns that are meant to stack nicely on mobile devices for your responsive designs.

If you’re encountering issues like this with your layout on Outlook worry not! The solution is simple – we turn back to our trusty old friend the Ghost Column fix. By wrapping the problem columns in an Outlook specific ghost table we can constrain the columns so they display as intended.

To view the full code snippets or take a deep-dive into the world of ghost columns, check out our fluid hybrid design guide and our explanation of ghost tables.

The things we do for Outlook HTML emails.

In addition to the 11 common challenges discussed earlier, Outlook’s peculiarities often require us to implement specific workarounds and adjustments. These additional steps are necessary to ensure optimal rendering and functionality in various versions of Outlook.

Table-based layouts.

If it wasn’t for Outlook we’d be able to ditch the tables and embrace the <divs>. Tables have long been the standard for email developers, but as email standards catch up to web standards, more and more developers are ditching table-based layouts in favour of divs with ghost tables. In fact, our very own email newsletters are coded with this method.

If you’re interested in breaking the mold and experimenting with emails without tables, you can check out this fantastic repo from Mark Robbins on getting off the table.

MSO conditional statements.

You’ll notice in the 11 tips and tricks above we often rely on MSO conditional code to get around Outlook’s tricky limited support.

MSO conditional statements are a fantastic tool allowing us to target Outlook desktop versions specifically, even allowing us to target specific versions. This allows us to create workarounds for Outlook that would otherwise have us pulling our hair out.

Extensive email testing

It’s important to test your email across every device or email client that your recipients may be opening on, but it’s especially important to test for Outlook.

Not only do we have to employ a lot of whacky work-arounds and clever conditional code to make our email look great on these versions of Outlook, there’s also a lot of them!

From Outlook.com, to Outlook 2010, to high DPI versions of Outlook 2016, a tool like Email on Acid’s testing tool lets you instantly see how your email is rendering across every version of Outlook.

Don’t leave your Outlook-specific fixes to guess work, ensure they look great on every version of Outlook and simplify your Outlook email troubleshooting.

ALT text

While we aren’t only adding ALT text for Outlook, it’s also extremely important for accessibility and any of your readers who have images disabled, it’s a key part of creating emails for Outlook as Outlook users will all have their images disabled by default. You still want your emails to convey your messaging even when the images are disabled.

Proper ALT text usage is often the key factor in getting your recipient to click that “allow images” button so they can see your email in all its glory.

Avoid Outlook rendering issues with email previews

The best way to avoid HTML emails that look bad in Outlook is to take a close look at how things render before you hit send. You can do that with Sinch Email on Acid.

Use our email readiness platform to check out Outlook HTML email previews that come from live clients and devices. These screenshots, which include email previews from 100+ clients and devices, are seeing the future of your campaigns in subscribers’ inboxes.

With Email on Acid, you get unlimited email testing with every paid plan. That includes much more than Outlook email previews. You’ll also get deliverability and accessibility checks as well image and URL validation and many other valuable features.

Don’t let Outlook rendering issues derail your email marketing efforts. Put your best campaigns forward with help from Email on Acid.

The post Outlook HTML Emails: How to Fix 11 Common Rendering Issues appeared first on Email on Acid.

Email fraud is a big problem, especially when it comes to issues like email spoofing. Protecting the safety of email recipients is important to mailbox providers and it should matter to you as an email sender too.

Email marketers like you want subscribers to trust that campaigns are safe to open, and you want the email channel to continue being a place where brands and customers can connect. As of 2024, all senders will need to have email authentication protocols in place if they want to reach people using major services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook.

But when you start hearing about protocols like SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI, not to mention other acronyms like SMTP and MTAs, it can feel like you’re wading through a bowl of alphabet soup. Don’t worry. This guide will shed some light on what you need to know and point you in the direction of how to set up email authentication protocols correctly.

Email authentication protocols are unsung heroes working behind the scenes to verify that senders are who they claim to be before emails reach inboxes. Implementing these verification methods not only shows responsibility but also improves email deliverability.

The protocols can get pretty technical, and all the acronyms might remind you of a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal. But let’s start by exploring the basics.

What is email authentication?

Email authentication is the process of using multiple methods to ensure that messages are not faked or forged before they get delivered. Mail servers on the receiving end use email authentication protocols to verify the sender name in the “from” field and other information located in the email header.

These protocols also check to make sure emails weren’t altered in transit, and they inform mail servers what to do with messages that fail authentication.

Email authentication protocols protect us from spam and phishing attempts, especially a type of phishing known as email spoofing. Here’s a quick explanation of the main protocols and specifications connected to email authentication:

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF): A list of sources that are approved to send mail on behalf of your domain.
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): A combination of public and encrypted keys used to verify the identity of a sender before a receiving mail server accepts a message for delivery.
• Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC): A specification that checks for SPF and DMARC alignment before informing receiving mail servers how to handle failures. DMARC also provides reports on email traffic to senders.
• Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI): An email specification that enables senders to have a verified logo displayed at the inbox level when they are enforcing DMARC.

All these email authentication protocols and specifications are DNS TXT records that mailbox providers and receiving mails servers refer to when deciding whether to accept your message for delivery and whether it should be filtered into spam or reach the inboxes of their users.

Email authentication protocol requirements in 2025

When Gmail and Yahoo announced new requirements for bulk senders that began rolling out last year, followed by Microsoft in 2025, the biggest change of all was about using email authentication protocols.

For a long time, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC were strongly recommended but not required. That’s not the case any more. In 2025, all senders must be using some form of email authentication. If you are a bulk sender – which generally means sending thousands of emails every day – then you need to be using all three of these authentication methods.

But even if you’re not a bulk sender, implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is a smart move. Mailbox providers are getting serious about stopping problems like spoofing and cutting down on spam.

When Sinch Mailgun surveyed senders for its exclusive report, The state of email deliverability 2023, results showed a significant portion of senders were not using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, while many others were uncertain of how their emails were being authenticated:

• Using SPF?
  • Yes: 55.4%
  • No: 12.8%
  • Unsure: 31.8%
• Using DKIM?
  • Yes: 58.5%
  • No: 11.1%
  • Unsure: 30.4%
• Using DMARC?
  • Yes: 42.5%
  • No: 18.7%
  • Unsure: 38.8%

These findings suggest there are many senders who need to improve email authentication – or at least check to make sure it is set up. In some cases, your email service provider (ESP) may be authenticating your emails.

For more on what this means, we recommend watching a webinar from our colleagues at Sinch Mailgun. They hosted representatives from both Google and Yahoo to get answers about what senders can expect and what you should do to meet the requirements. Marcel Becker of Yahoo told webinar attendees that the new requirements are really about making sure senders do the things they should already be doing.

What is email spoofing?

Email spoofing involves messages that appear to be from a known or reliable sender, but they are actually an attempt to acquire sensitive data such as access to a person’s finances or online accounts. Email spoofing leads to a fake website with a bogus login page where targets are asked to enter credentials or other information.

These email phishing attempts often try to forge the sender name as well as imitate the look of emails from recognizable brands including financial institutions, social media sites, or online retailers like Amazon.com.

Amazon spoofing is so common the company has its own email address for reporting potential scams and suspicious communications.

Example of an Amazon email spoof

Even savvy internet users can be tricked with email spoofing. Clever scammers often prey on the fear of getting hacked to trick people. That’s why email authentication protocols are so helpful. They keep malicious messages from ever reaching the inbox.

How does email authentication work?

Email authentication involves several possible methods of validating the origin of an email and domain ownership of message transfer agents (MTAs) that were involved in transferring or modifying an email.

Put simply, emails are sent from a certain domain or subdomain. Email authentication protocols are rules located in DNS (domain name system) records for these sending domains. To authenticate an email, the sending mail server and receiving mail server talk to each other, double-checking protocols in the DNS for confirmation of the sender’s identity.

While each protocol is unique, it generally works like this:

1. The sender/domain owner establishes rules for authenticating emails sent from or on behalf of its domains.
2. The sender configures sending email servers and publishes the rules in the DNS records.
3. Mail servers that receive emails authenticate messages from the sender using the published rules.
4. Receiving email servers then follow the published rules and either deliver, quarantine, or reject the message.

In addition to verifying legitimate senders, email authentication protocols also help establish IP address and domain reputation so that malicious senders can be more easily identified.

The four pillars of email authentication

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the standard foundation upon which email is built.  It’s what’s used to send and receive messages. However, SMTP doesn’t include a way to validate a sender’s identity, which is what makes it susceptible to spammers and phishing.

Email authentication protocols emerged in the early 2000s as a way to enhance the security of SMTP and thwart the rise of email spam. SPF and DKIM were the first widely adopted methods. DMARC soon followed as a policy to confirm and extend SPF and DKIM. BIMI is the new email specifcation on the block.

These email authentication protocols provide a standardized way for services such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and Apple Mail to verify the identity of senders as opposed to using separate, proprietary methods to authenticate email.

So, while email authentication might seem complicated, technical, and even a bit messy … these protocols do provide some standardization. Email marketers should be glad we don’t have to follow different protocols for every mailbox provider.

Let’s take a closer look at SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI.

1. SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

The Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, is an email authentication protocol that provides a DNS record specifying which IP addresses or hostnames are authorized to send email from a domain.

SPF is a DNS TXT entry that enables the receiving mail server to check that an email claiming to come from a certain domain is connected to an authorized IP address. The receiving server does this by looking up rules for the bounce or return-path domain in the DNS record. That is compared to the rules in the SPF record to ensure there’s a match.

Without implementing SPF, mailbox providers are much more likely to mark messages as spam.

In some cases, email service providers (ESPs) handle SPF implementation automatically. That’s because the ESP may provide the IP address and the return path. However, if you send a high volume of email, you likely want to avoid using a shared IP address. A dedicated IP helps you control sender reputation. Keep in mind that if you are on a shared IP address, your SPF record may need to be updated when you switch ESPs.

One of the downsides of SPF is that it won’t work when emails are forwarded. If your brand is one that relies heavily on email word-of-mouth (getting your audience to forward your message), there’s a decent chance of the SPF failing validation and never reaching anyone beyond your list.

2. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

The next email authentication protocol is the result of two methods developed to prevent email forgery. In 2004, Yahoo merged its “DomainKeys” with Cisco’s “Identified Internet Mail.”

DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM, uses an encrypted key known as a digital signature. This signature is added to email headers to help verify a sender and associate a message with a specific domain. DKIM also needs to be set up inside a sender’s DNS record.

You can think of DKIM like a watermark or fingerprint that is unique to an email sender. Unlike SPF, DKIM signatures continue working when an email is forwarded.

There are actually two keys that make DKIM work. Administrators generate a public key on the DNS record as well as a private key that mail servers transporting the email to the recipient use to verify authenticity. The private key is the DKIM signature in the email header.

The digital signature lets the MTA or receiving mail server know where information on the public key can be retrieved for authentication of the email. Finally, the public key is used to verify the encrypted key in the DKIM signature. This shows a connection between the email and the sending domain where the public key is located.

As secure as all of this sounds, it’s still possible for hackers to get a hold of DKIM keys and use them to impersonate a sender. For that reason, it’s recommended that DKIM keys are changed a few times per year.

According to a 2015 article on CircleID.com, some ESPs may share DKIM signatures among customers. That’s no good because a compromised digital signature could impact a bunch of companies at once. Hopefully, this issue is no longer as widespread as the article states. But, if your ESP is providing your DKIM signature, it’s a question that’s worth asking.

If you need to produce your own digital signature, there are DKIM generators that help create these email authentication records for you. You can also learn more about DKIM signatures and see an example record here on our blog.

3. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)

It was actually PayPal that led a group in developing DMARC technology to improve upon existing email authentication methods. PayPal was (and is) commonly impersonated by cybercriminals using fake emails. Several other big brands as well as major mailbox providers immediately adopted the method.

Technically, DMARC isn’t an email authentication protocol so much as a policy that mail servers on the receiving end refer to before delivering an email. DMARC helps determine how to handle a message when it fails authentication.

This policy, also known as Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, is yet another record that is published in the DNS. It specifies whether a sending domain is using SPF, DKIM, or both protocols for authentication. DMARC is often described as a way to get the best out of SPF and DKIM because it creates a common framework using both protocols

For many people, missing an important, legitimate email is even worse than letting spam get through to their inbox. Real emails can sometimes fail DKIM and SPF authentication for various reasons. So, mailbox providers may let emails through if they don’t pass the test but appear to come from a legit sending domain. DMARC makes it more clear what to do.

A DMARC policy allows senders to create a framework that defines its email authentication methods and dictates how to handle messages that violate the policy. There are three options domain owners can choose to specify the treatment of emails that fail DMARC validation:

The three DMARC p= policies:

1. p=none: Take no action. Treat the email as if there were no DMARC validation. This policy also helps gain an understanding of the email stream without impacting flow.
2. p=quarantine: Accept the email but send it to a junk or spam folder instead of the main inbox. Or, isolate the suspicious message for further inspection.
3. p=reject: Stop delivery of the email to any folder. The sender will be informed why the email is not getting delivered.

A DMARC policy that rejects unvalidated emails is the strongest, but it can mean email from a domain stops flowing if for some reason SPF and DKIM are failing.

A benefit of implementing a DMARC policy is that senders get regular DMARC reports, which provide the following information:

• Which servers and third parties are sending mail for your specified domain.
• The percentage of emails that pass DMARC.
• What servers or third parties are sending emails that failed DMARC.
• What actions receiving mail servers take on unauthenticated emails.

DMARC still isn’t perfect. Like SPF, it can break during email forwarding. DMARC may also be difficult for senders to set up, and concerns over stopping the flow of legitimate emails discourage stringent policies.

However, if your organization manages to set up and implement a successful DMARC policy, you’ll have an effective way to stop most phishing emails that attempt to spoof your sending domain.

DMARC policy requirements in 2025

Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s new requirements for bulk senders require the use of DMARC along with SPF and DKIM. However, it is acceptable to have a DMARC policy of p=none – at least for now.

The mailbox providers have indicated that this is just the first step towards requiring an enforced DMARC policy of either p=reject or p=quarantine. First, they want more organizations to adopt DMARC. Once the requirement is established, they’ll take things a step further and a p=none policy won’t cut it anymore.

To be clear… a DMARC policy of p=none is not the requirement. It is the minimum allowed at this point in time. As Marcel Becker of Yahoo told senders, enforcing DMARC is a win-win-win situation for mailbox providers, senders, and email recipients.

4. BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification)

BIMI is the latest member of the email authentication family. Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft are not requiring senders to implement BIMI. That’s because this specification is meant to encourage organizations to adopt all the other email authentication protocols. It’s almost like a reward for having strong authentication methods.

Unlike the other specifications, BIMI results in something your subscribers can see in their inbox. When implemented correctly, BIMI displays a verified, trademarked, brand-designated logo next to messages in the inbox.

The BIMI logo shows an email can be trusted because it means other email authentication methods are in place. It provides subscribers with a signal that an email is indeed authentic. This adds an additional level of trust because, even if scammers manage to get a phishing email delivered, it won’t display a logo.

In order to get mailbox providers to display a BIMI logo, you must have a fully functioning DMARC policy in place with SPF and DKIM records set up. In some ways, BIMI is the payoff for pursuing the other email authentication methods.

Like the other protocols, BIMI is a TXT record tied to a domain’s DNS. But, before you put a BIMI record in place, you need to have a properly formatted logo.

Compatible BIMI logos are SVG files in the shape of a perfect square, which can be cropped into a circle. They require a solid background and should be published via HTTPS. BIMI logo files need to be small and shouldn’t exceed 32kb. Finally, your logo must also be a registered trademark to meet standards.

Google launched a Gmail pilot program for BIMI in 2020. In July of 2021, news broke that Gmail was officially rolling out full support for BIMI. In 2023, Apple announced that it would also support BIMI logos in its Apple Mail client starting with iOS 16. That’s big news because it’s likely that a sizable portion of your list are using either Gmail or Apple Mail. It certainly makes the time and effort of setting up email authentication protocols seem even more worthwhile.

Implementing BIMI should ultimately increase subscriber confidence in the source of your emails. Get more advice, resources, and tools at BIMIGroup.org. You can also hear from two BIMI Group experts in our AMA on Brand Indicators for Message Identification.

Should you use all email authentication protocols?

Short answer? Yes.

You know how they say, “two heads are better than one”? That’s like using both SPF and DKIM. You know how School House Rock and Blind Melon say, “three is the magic number”? That’s like adding DMARC to the email authentication mix.

And as mentioned, you’ll need DMARC to get the most out of both those protocols and to get a BIMI logo to display.

While it could certainly take time and effort, setting up strong email authentication methods is worth it, especially if you have the resources.

Email marketers shouldn’t have to handle email authentication protocols alone. You’ll most likely need to get your IT team or someone esle with technical expertise to help you set up in DNS records. Your ESP may also need to get involved. Colleagues, vendors, or security consultants should be able to help you troubleshoot issues as you work to confirm that email authentication protocols are working correctly.

Who should take email spoofing seriously?

Whether or not you prioritize email authentication depends on how important security is to your brand – and more importantly – your customers.

For major online retailers, financial institutions, consumer tech companies, and others dealing with sensitive personal and business information, email spoofing can be a big problem.

Microsoft regularly tops a quarterly report from Check Point, a cybersecurity firm that lists the brands most often spoofed in phishing attempts. Other regulars on the phishing brands list include major banks like Wells Fargo and Chase. PayPal and Dropbox often make the list as do social sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Email spoofing even targets kids using the online game Roblox.

However, you don’t have to be a gigantic company to get spoofed by scammers. An article from Kelly Sheridan on Dark Reading says criminals are now using smaller brands for email spoofing.  In fact, that includes Check Point, the cybersecurity company that publishes the brand spoofing list. Sheridan writes:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has more info on what to do if your business is spoofed.

The benefits of using email authentication protocols

If you’re on the fence about email authentication protocols, or you need a way to convince others in your organization that it’s worth implementing, here are the key advantages:

1. Protect your customers and subscribers

It may not be your direct responsibility to stop email spoofing from fooling people, and it’s unlikely you’d be held liable for a customer who gets scammed. However, the fact that email marketers can do something means we should.

Even though a phishing scam isn’t your fault, that may not be how your customers perceive it. Certainly, customers who are scammed by email spoofing of your brand could become very hesitant to open and engage with legitimate emails from you. Which leads to the next benefit …

2. Protect your brand reputation

In a world where everyone faces cybersecurity threats daily, brands that have a reputation for being safe and secure are trusted.

Phishing emails exploit trust in your brand. If you can stop these malicious messages from reaching inboxes, you’re also stopping the erosion of trust. Email authentication protocols are tools you can use to stop phishing and protect your brand’s reputation.

Speaking of reputation, email authentication also helps you establish a strong sender reputation. That leads us to benefit number three …

3. Support email deliverability

Email authentication can have a direct impact on inbox placement. When mailbox providers can confirm the source of an email and the identity of the sender, it can be confidently delivered to inboxes.

On the other hand, failure to implement email authentication protocols increases the likelihood of legitimate communications landing in spam or getting rejected by mailbox providers. Email authentication is one of the most effective ways marketers can support email deliverability and a good sender reputation.

Manage email deliverability with Mailgun Optimize

Email authentication protocols are just one aspect of the complex and nuanced practices connected to deliverability. But achieving inbox placement doesn’t have to be a total mystery. With the right partner, you can gain the visibility you need to avoid spam, stay off email blocklists, and maintain a good sender reputation with mailbox providers.

Mailgun Optimize is a complete email deliverability suite. Here’s just some of what it can do:

• Reputation Monitoring: This feature monitors blocklists while helping you avoid spam traps. It integrates with both Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS so you can keep an eye on your sender reputation with these important providers.
• Inbox Placement Reports: This solution provides reporting that lets you know where emails are likely to land – before you hit send. You can also use this feature to ensure your email authentication protocols are properly configured.
• Email Validation: Verify every contact in your database or set up email verification on sign up forms to maintain good list hygiene.

While email authentication can get technical, there’s no denying the fact it’s worth the time and effort to get things working. Now that Gmail and Yahoo are requiring authentication, there’s no excuse. Make sure you know if and how your messages are authenticated in 2024.

The post Email Authentication Protocols in 2025: Your Guide to SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI appeared first on Email on Acid.

That sounds pretty good, right? Except… it’s not very authentic. (And you’ve got to laugh at all those buzzwords ChatGPT managed to work into one paragraph.)

The struggle is artificial

With so much AI-generated out there, it’s difficult to know what came from a trusted human expert and what might be full of questionable information. Authenticity requires that you are building trust among your target audience. If you don’t seem real, in some cases, your brand may be harder to trust.

Bots can be a problem for marketers as well as those being marketed to. Just as it’s important to remember there are actual human beings opening your email campaigns, subscribers also want to know there are real people behind the brands they love (even if you are getting help from AI).

Your subscribers want to feel seen, they want to feel connected, and they want to be more than just their data. Authenticity is still one of the best ways to drive connection (and conversion) in your email marketing.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using AI in email marketing, but if you don’t have the time to create awesome emails with a human touch, why expect that your subscribers will take the time to engage with them?

In this article, we’ll talk about what authenticity in email marketing looks like, how it works in the age of AI, and why adding a human touch can pay off in the long run.

What does authentic marketing really mean?

Authenticity is about being true to yourself. In marketing, that means being true to your brand.

What does your brand stand for? What are your company values? You need to be able to articulate these as a team before you can translate those values to email. For example, if one of your brand values is “honesty,” but you consistently send emails that it’s the “last day to save!” even though the sale really ends in a few more days…that’s not very authentic. And subscribers see right through that.

Just as a reminder: Real people are reading your emails, and they’re (hopefully) opted-in to receive them. That’s a huge gift that should not be wasted. Stay true to what you promised subscribers when they signed up for emails and maintain your credibility.

Why an authentic marketing strategy matters

With the rise of AI-generated content, authenticity in marketing is what’s going to help you stand out.

Subscribers know that you’re collecting their data. They know that you’re probably using AI-generated words or images, or suspect it. There’s nothing wrong with speeding up your email marketing process—and making your life a little easier. For example, Sinch Mailjet offers an AI Copy Generator that helps marketers come up with better subject lines, calls to action, and more.

AI generated copy doesn’t have to be inauthentic. But if you’re leaning too heavily on artificial intelligence, your emails are going to start sounding and looking the same as everyone else’s. You’re missing out on the opportunity to start a real conversation with your subscribers and make them feel special.

Authenticity can even reduce price sensitivity and increase brand loyalty among key demographics. CX Today cites a study from the UK indicating 48% of Gen Z and 51% of Millennials would be less concerned with price increases due to inflation if the brand was authentic.

So, for example, that could mean being honest and upfront with customers about why you need to raise your prices. Go ahead and ask Chat-GPT to help you explain that to people if you want. It’s not about using or not using artificial intelligence. The point is, your marketing efforts have authenticity baked into them, which makes you a more authentic brand.

But how can the email channel bring authentic marketing into everyday communications?

5 ways to add a human touch to your email marketing

At it’s best, digital marketing is essentially a form of customer service. Email is a great way to let your customers and subscribers know that you care. Here are five ways you can add a more human touch to your email campaigns:

1. Email permission and preferences

The first way to be a human: Make sure everyone on your list actually wants to be there.

You need to have permission to send your subscribers emails. This isn’t just a suggestion. It’s a law in the EU and Canada and a requirement for most inbox service providers (ISPs) and email service providers (ESPs). That’s why purchasing an email list is not a good idea—buying a list doesn’t count as consent.

Here are some ways to obtain consent and set expectations:

• Use either single or double opt-in when people sign up for your list.
• In your welcome email series, let new subscribers know exactly what type of authentic content you’ll send so they know what to expect.
• Always include a clear unsubscribe button. You may also choose to include a preference center, which helps subscribers choose what kinds of content they want to receive.

It’s much better to have a slightly smaller email list with subscribers that open, read, and click on your emails than a ton of subscribers that ignore you (or worse, mark you as spam.)

By the way, new sender requirements in 2024 mean you should be paying extra close attention to spam complaints and the unsubscribe process. Gmail and Yahoo want senders following RFC 5058 for one-click unsubscribe functionality in email headers. Plus, you need to keep your spam complaints below 0.1%.

2. Email personalization

To personalize your email, you don’t necessarily need to know a subscriber’s name. Personalization goes beyond variable mapping to populate a template with your subscriber’s name—it’s about recreating the feel of a conversation.

Email personalization really comes down to providing value to our subscribers. In other words, you want to make today’s consumers feel like you wrote and designed an email just for them, even if you’re sending it to many users on your mailing list.

For example, an online retailer could send personalized recommendations based on what customers have bought in the past or what content they’ve downloaded. You can also use other data to craft compelling marketing messages specific to certain consumers (and don’t forget to keep empathy in mind).

Here are some additional personalization strategies to implement in your email marketing campaigns:

• Analyze your data, so you know what messages resonate with which kinds of subscribers.
• Use dynamic content.
• Draw on the customer data you already have. Pay attention to purchase history, browsing behavior, and survey answers.
• Use list segmentation to create segments of target audiences who exhibit similar characteristics drawing from demographic, geographic, or psychographic data. Then, send targeted emails to these segments.
• Offer tailored coupons, special offers, and product recommendations.
• Send celebratory emails for anniversaries or birthdays.
• Take into account subscribers’ time zones to optimize send times.
• Create a personalized call-to-action (CTA).

Above all, strive for the “personal” in “personalization.” Use the data you’re constantly collecting on your subscribers to craft relevant emails that speak to where they are in their customer journey.

3. Email accessibility

Always make sure that your entire list can read and engage with your emails. According to the CDC, 26% of Americans have some degree of disability. Around 5% have vision impairments that qualify as a disability, but many more of your subscribers may also have common vision problems.

While devices and tools can help people with vision impairments access the internet, email developers and marketers can help recipients have the best possible experience with a few code and design adjustments. A few ways to make your emails accessible:

• Use a simple layout with white space
• Write alt text for your images
• Evaluate your color palette for appropriate levels of contrast
• Use a readable font and font size
• Include podcast and video transcript links
• Write clear, easy-to-understand copy

Show you care about every subscriber on your list. Building genuine relationships with customers means removing barriers.

4. Brand voice in email copy

Brand authenticity means developing a clear brand voice so your copy across all of your digital marketing channels sounds similar. You probably already have a brand voice, whether you’ve defined it clearly or not. Even if you plan to write with a little help from generative AI, know what kind of style conventions you include.

That means making decisions on:

• What kind of punctuation you use
• Whether or not you’ll use contractions
• How colloquial your speech will be, in terms of slang or memes
• If you’ll directly address the reader or if you’ll use “I” or “we” conventions
• What technical terms or vocabulary you’ll steer clear from

Overall, you want to write like you talk. It’s okay if your brand is on the more formal side—but it should still sound like a human, not a robot. If you wouldn’t use it in a conversation (or it sounds ripped out of a cringey corporate handbook), don’t use it.

5. Owning up to mistakes

Email marketers make mistakes. Who hasn’t sent out an email with a typo or broken link? It happens to the best of us.

Admitting it and apologizing can create an opportunity. This may mean sending a corrected or apology email to your entire list or replying 1:1 to a subscriber that’s having a customer service issue. The more you can acknowledge the humans behind the computer exchange, the more likely you’ll come across as authentic in your email marketing.

5 examples of authentic marketing emails

Authenticity is earned. It may take some time for your emails to start to feel more aligned with your brand as you define what makes your emails specific to your program. In the meantime, take a look at these examples:

1. Send a personalized email based on behavior

Finding the right pet for you takes time and effort. Petfinder helps match aspiring pet owners with animals in need—and when there’s a potential match, they notify their subscribers via email. This is a great example of using data that already exists in the system (in this case, search preferences, such as dog breed, age, and location) and delivering a relevant message.

2. Lean into empathy with your subscribers

No matter what services you offer, there are bound to be sticky or uncomfortable moments in your customer journey. Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes is the key to crafting an email that just gets it. This email from On/Go is a great example of this. If you’re taking a COVID test, you probably feel sick—whether it’s COVID or something else, you’re not at your best. This quick email gives subscribers everything they need for next steps right away.

3. Check in with subscribers on interest

As scary as it is to court unsubscribes, it’s much better than the alternative low engagement or spam complaints. This email from Animoto does a great job at asking subscribers if they still want to receive emails without it feeling like it’s an automated follow-up. Part of that is the language they choose, like phrasing it as a question and using contractions to sound more friendly.

4. Include human voices in your email

Graza is ostensibly an olive oil company, but the way they send their emails makes it feel like a friend chatting in the kitchen. One way they add authenticity to their emails is by introducing real (expert) voices. In this case, they’re talking about a shakshuka recipe and dropping the name of the writer in the copy before a few additional tips.

Including testimonials or other types of user generated content (UGC) is another effective way to add authentic human voices to email campaigns.

5. Own up to your mistakes

To be human is to make mistakes. What matters is addressing them head-on rather than ignoring them, especially with a gaffe like this email. While you’ll still deal with fallout from your mistake (depending on what it was), it’s important to show that you care about what you do, even if you don’t always get it right.

Humans make mistakes (but you can catch them)

P​​art of being human includes making mistakes. But mistakes are probably something you want to keep out of your email marketing… at least as much as you can.

Sinch Email on Acid is designed to help designers and developers catch as many problems as possible before hitting send. That could be anything from an accessibility issue to a typo. Where we really shine is pre-send testing that produces reliable Email Previews showing you how your campaigns render on more than 100 clients and live devices. Unlike other options, Sinch Email on Acid offers unlimited email previews with every paid plan.

But you can try it out first! Check out the free trial to take our email readiness platform for a test spin.

The post Authentic Marketing in Email: How to Add a Human Touch in the Age of AI appeared first on Email on Acid.

We owe this tradition to our dear friend and contributor Jay Oram of ActionRocket who first showed us how to add wintry vibes in email campaigns six years ago. Be sure to check out more of Jay and the ActionRocket team’s work – you’ll be inspired to go further with email.

‘Tis the season for surprising and delighting your subscribers, and this is a fun way to do it.

Can ChatGPT code falling snow for HTML emails?

Just for kicks, we decided to ask ChatGPT if it knew how to code falling snowflakes in an HTML email. Here’s the reply we received:

You’re not exactly wrong, ChatGPT, but you’re not trying hard enough. Sure, we could have used a different prompt and kept trying, but it’s the busy holiday season. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

The AI answer went on to provide a couple code snippets using a GIF as a background or an inline SVG. But we’re talking about something different here.

This tutorial shows you how to get falling snowflakes in the foreground of your email using CSS animations. The result is an email campaign with some depth of field, almost giving it a 3D effect. That may be overstating things just a little – but it’s pretty cool.

How an animated snowflake effect looks in email

Take a look at the email newsletter Jay coded up for us back in the day. We’re willing to bet most of the emails you opened over Black Friday and Cyber Monday did not include little snowflakes gently falling down your screen. If they did… we’re also willing to bet they learned how here.

This isn’t the sort of thing you expect to see in a typical newsletter or email promotion. But here’s the thing… Once you’ve shattered your subscribers’ expectations, you’ve set the stage for even more inbox surprises.

That could very well mean higher open rates and increased email engagement. Now you’re subscribers will be wondering what they might find the next time they check out your email marketing campaigns.

You know how a gift always looks better with a bow on top? Think of this as that finishing touch that makes opening an email come with a little holiday magic.

Email client support for CSS animations

Unfortunately, nothing in email development is perfect. This technique uses CSS animation and keyframes. According to CanIEmail.com, these are only supported in clients using WebKit as the rendering engine, which is mainly Apple Mail and Outlook for Mac as well as Samsung and Thunderbird.

But if you check out your email analytics, that could be significant portion of your email subscribers. You’ll find out how to target clients that support CSS animations

Standing out in the inbox is a never-ending challenge. Putting in a little extra effort in this way makes your emails memorable. But enough with the fluff. Let’s turn things over to Jay Oram and find out how to let it snow. Here’s his animated snowflake tutorial for email developers looking to spread holiday cheer.

Setting up the snowflake CSS animation

The snow effect is essentially a snowflake or shape in a div that you animate using CSS. This technique moves the image from the top to the bottom of a container div you place around your email tables.

CSS animations work on a range of email clients including iOS, Apple Mail, Android Native Mail and Outlook for Mac. The snow animation won’t display on other email clients, so you don’t need to provide a fallback.

First, we set up the media query to detect the webkit, that will support the CSS animation.

                            

                                @media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 0) {
}
                            
                        

Next, we set up the container the snow will be in.

                            

                                .snowcontainer{
  position:relative;
  width:100%;
  overflow:visible;
}
                            
                        

Creating your snowflakes

We then need to define the snow. The simplest way to do this is to use a shape that doesn’t need an image, such as a square. You can create a square by setting height: 18px by width: 18px and setting a border-radius that is half the height (to gain a perfect circle), border-radius: 9px. Set the position:absolute  so the snow will be positioned within the container and top: -20px to start the animation before it enters the snowcontainer. Finally, add a background-color to set the color of the shape.

It looks like this:

Here’s the code for the shape snowflake:

                            

                                .snow{
            height: 18px;
            border-radius: 9px;
            width: 18px;
            position: absolute;
            top: -20px;
            background-color: #ffffff;
      }
                            
                        

Another way to add a snowflake is to add a background image. This technique is similar to to the square technique above, but it uses a background-image and no border-radius. With these changes, the snowflake will appear like this:

Here’s the code for the image snowflake:

                            

                                .snowimage{
  /* size of image */
  height:18px;
  width:18px;
  /* absolute - relative to the container div */
  position:absolute;
  /* Where animation starts */
  top:-20px;
  /* image link */
  background-image:url('images/snowflake.png');
}
                            
                        

Setting the background-image as a .png means the snowflake will have a transparent background and show the content through it. If you need some snowflake inspiration, check out the Noun Project’s snowflake icons.

Animating your snowflakes

With the code as is, we just have some shapes within a <div>. To animate them, we can put together a shortened version of an animation. See below:

                            

                                .snow1{
  animation: snow1 5s linear 0s infinite;
 }
 /* animation: Name of animation / length of animation / timing function
(linear = same speed from beginning to end) / delay (time between
animation end and start) / number of times */
                            
                        

This animation is called snow1. We define the length of the animation as 5s (five seconds) and the linear timing function. The linear timing number keeps the animation the same speed throughout – 0s (zero seconds) is the delay before the animation starts again. Finally, we include the number of times the animation will run (infinite).

By creating a few different animations with slightly different lengths and delay time, the snow will fall at random.

                            

                                .snow2{
  animation: snow2 6s linear 1s infinite;
 }
 .snow3{
  animation: snow3 7s linear 2s infinite;
 }
                            
                        

Next, we set up the keyframe animations to dictate where the snowflake will move to and from.

                            

                                @keyframes snow1
 {
  0% { top:0%;left:50%; }
  100% { top:100%;left:65%; }
 }
                            
                        

At the start of the animation (0%), we position the snowflake at the top of the div (0%) and 50% from the left. At the end of the animation (100%) the snowflake is 100% from the top and 65% from the left.

By setting the start and end points slightly different in each animation, the snow will seem to appear more at random.

                            

                                @keyframes snow2
 {
  0% { top:0%;left:30%; }
  100% { top:100%;left:25%; }
 }
 @keyframes snow3
 {
  0% { top:0%;left:70%; }
  100% { top:100%;left:60%; }
 }
                            
                        

HTML for the snowflake animation

Once you’ve created the CSS animation, you’ll need to add this effect to your email using HTML. To create this animation technique, the first bit of HTML you need is a <div> to open the snow container. You can set the height and width of the container to establish where the snow will show. For example:

                            

                                <div class="snowcontainer" style="width: 100%; height: 500px;">
                            
                        

Next, each individual snowdrop needs to be set. To do this, start with a <div> with the class of the snowimage or snow as set up in your CSS. Follow that with the name of the animation (e.g. snow1). The code should look like this:

                            

                                <div class="snowimage snow1"></div>
                            
                        

Then, add in all the snowdrops and animations within the snow container. See below:

                            

                                <div class="snowcontainer" style="height: 500px;">
  <div class="snowimage snow1"></div>
  <div class="snow snow2"></div>
  <div class="snow snow3"></div>
                            
                        

Place all your email content you would like below your snowdrops and finish with a closing </div> to end the snowcontainer.

Get all the code and see it in action from Jay Oram on CodePen.

Other ways to use this CSS animation in emails

Thanks again to Jay Oram of ActionRocket for the tutorial and code snippets above.

Christmas only comes once a year, but you can use this CSS animation all year long if you put your creativity cap on. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Autumn leaves for fall themed emails. This could be a way to have fun with back-to-school email marketing.
• Colorful falling confetti to celebrate just about anything, including birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestone emails.
• Matrix-style raining code could be a memorable way to enhance emails to a tech-savvy audience.

It can also be raining cats and dogs, or raining men (hallelujah), or turkeys or frogs could be falling out of the sky. Heck… you can drop tons of little poop emojis in emails if that’s your thing.

Take your emails to the next level…

Of course, this is the kind of things that stops being surprising and could easily start to get annoying if you over use it. So, if you want some other ideas for creating engaging emails, check out these classic episodes of Notes from the Dev: Video Edition with Megan Boshuyzen.

Rollover images are a simple yet impactful way to add interactivity into email. Nout Boctor-Smith shows you how to pull it off.

For more advanced interactivity, Emre Demirel showed us how he gamified an email with a rock, paper, scissors you can play in the inbox.

Jay Oram brought us even more inbox fun with a Wordle game for email. And you can follow along as Megan Boshuyzen explains how she coded her award-winning interactive email for Email Camp: Road Trip Edition.

The post Let it Snow: How to Use CSS Animations in Holiday Emails appeared first on Email on Acid.

Of course, it never hurts to double-check your Black Friday email marketing strategy. If you believe in Murphy’s Law, you know that anything that can go wrong, certainly could go wrong (and probably will).

If you’re “the worrying kind” of email marketer, we’ve got a few potential problems you may not have on your list yet.  And if you’ve got more of a “let the chips fall where they may” kind of an attitude, here’s why you should be more concerned with your Black Friday email performance.

Why Black Friday email marketing matters

We probably shouldn’t have to tell you why Black Friday and Cyber Week are such a big deal. (Oh! See what we did there?) But these astronomical numbers are kind of a tradition. And after all, the holidays are all about traditions. So, here goes…

The biggest reason why Black Friday emails matter is because there is a lot of money on the table in terms of consumer spending. According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. shoppers dropped $240.8 billion during the 2024 holiday shopping season. That’s an 8.7% year-over-year increase from 2023.

A sizable chunk of that holiday consumer spending happens during Cyber Week with noticeable spikes on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Interestingly, Cyber Monday typically outpaces Black Friday, but the day after Thanksgiving is when things really start cooking.

The reason Black Friday email marketing matters so much in all of this is because email is the most preferred channel for receiving promotional communications from brands.

We’ve got plenty of original research to back this up. Let’s take a look at what the surveys say…

Consumer preferences for brand communications

According to Sinch Mailgun’s report, Email and the customer experience, 75% of consumers in the U.S. UK, France, Germany, and Spain chose email as a preferred channel for promotional messages.

Almost as many of those survey respondents (74%) chose email as a preferred channel for transactional messages. And transactional emails are unsung heroes of Cyber Week. They keep your customers informed about their purchases and shipments during the hectic holiday season.

You may notice that text messaging was the second most popular option among these consumers. Another study from Sinch, The art and heart of meaningful customer connections, found different yet somewhat similar results.

Rather than selecting all channels they preferred, Sinch’s survey asked U.S. consumers to pick just one preferred channel for brand communications. In this case, 40% of people picked email while text messages came in second at around 22%.

So as an email marketer, this should be reassuring. Your holiday email campaigns are going to drive tons of BFCM results and revenue. When the company breaks things down after everyone gets back from break, you’ll be the hailed as a hero,  right?

But wait… it’s not that easy compadres… and you know it. The challenge email marketers face is getting good engagement in those increasingly crowded inboxes.

Sinch Mailjet’s report, The path to email engagement 2024, found that 49% of consumers only open a few emails from brands on a typical day and 8% don’t open any at all.

Let’s be honest, Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t exactly “typical days.” Consumers may be more likely to engage with promotional emails on these days. However, it’s also true that there will be more emails in their inboxes during Cyber Week and beyond.

To get the most out of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday email campaigns, you need to be on top of your game. You don’t want silly mistakes tripping you up.

12 Black Friday email mistakes marketers must avoid

While there are plenty of ways to make Black Friday mistakes with email marketing, we’re going to focus on a dozen different issues that could be disastrous. Before you hit send on your Black Friday campaigns, make sure you’ve addressed these possible problems.

1. Unresponsive Black Friday emails

Once upon a time, there was a difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, people poured into shopping malls and big box stores, trampling each other for deals. On Monday, people slacked off at work while taking advantage of online promotions. Now, we’ve mixed it all together into an entire week of consumerism.

Today, not only does even more shopping happen online, it happens on mobile phones. More than half of online holiday spending is attributed to mobile. Adobe Analytics forecasts $128.1 billion of that $240.8 billion will be mobile spend.

You know where this is going. If you expect good Black Friday email performance, those campaigns better be responsive and mobile-friendly. Sinch Mailjet’s email engagement report found more than 70% of consumers primarily use a mobile device to check email.

Unfortunately, coding responsive emails is still a top challenge for many email teams. In fact, Sinch Mailjet’s Inbox Insights report found it is the top design and development challenge.

A smart move is to take a mobile-first approach to email design and development. That means thinking about how your campaigns look and function on smartphones and then adjusting those layouts for desktop. The best way to do this with email code is to use min-width media queries to adjust for screen size rather than max-width (IYKYK).

2. Generic Black Friday email subject lines

Everyone is going to write Black Friday email subject lines with urgency. And they’ll all be talking about sales, discounts, BOGO offers, and limited supplies. If your Black Friday email subject lines sound the same as every other special offer out there, your campaigns will be easily ignored.

So, you’ve got to get creative. Maybe that means personalizing subject lines, using emojis, or taking advantage of preheader text. But “Our Black Friday Sale Starts Now” may not do the trick.

According to Sinch Mailjet’s consumer research, people say the brand or sender name is the most important factor when deciding whether to open an email. However, nearly 80% of those surveyed also indicated the promise of a discount in the subject line was at least somewhat important.

If you can work details of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer into a concise, clear, and compelling subject line, that might be the best way to cut through the noise.

Need some ideas? Here are several Black Friday email subject lines we like:

• Crate & Barrel: Leftover turkey can wait. Black Friday can’t.
• Groupon: The Black Friday VIP List 👀 Use code BLACK30
• Gap: TGI-Black Friday — 50% OFF EVERYTHING. ALL. WEEK.
• Victoria’s Secret: Black Fri-YAY 🙌 Buy One, Get One 50% OFF
• IKEA: [Firstname], escape the Black Friday chaos
• Timberland: 👇Better Than Their Deals☝️ Up To 40% Off

While you’re working on those creative Black Friday email subject lines, don’t forget about writing creative calls-to-action (CTAs) too. The design and copy of those CTA buttons needs to encourage your customers to click and tap their way to your website for some shopping.

3. Dark mode color inversion

A lot of Black Friday email templates contain… well, the color black. A little on the nose, sure. But according to color psychology, black is also a good way to convey luxury and exclusivity.

If you’re familiar with dark mode email development challenges, you already know that some email clients will automatically invert the colors you’re using in your HTML email background. That means it is possible that a dark background could be inverted into a light background when a recipient has dark mode turned on.

That’s not the effect you wanted, and it’s not what subscribers using dark mode want to receive either.

Now, most email clients will recognize that you’re already using a dark theme. However, Outlook 365 may not, and Gmail may mess with some of your colors too.

One way to handle this problem is to make use of the media query prefers-color-scheme: dark. This detects if the email recipient has dark mode turned on, and lets you tailor your CSS styles for dark mode.

However, be aware that Gmail does not support prefers-color-scheme. For some expert advice on how to handle dark mode and Gmail, check out these tips from Rémi Parmentier.

4. Inaccessible holiday email designs

We are big proponents of email accessibility around here. People with disabilities may be even more likely to do their holiday shopping online. So, it’s the responsibility of email marketers to ensure that the inbox experience is inclusive to all.

That includes coding accessible emails for those using screen readers. But another important consideration is color blindness.

Red-green color blindness is the most common. It impacts 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women. And what are two of the most popular colors to use during the holidays? Yep – red and green.

Black Friday email campaigns don’t have to be holiday-themed, but many are. While you don’t need to eliminate red and green in your email designs, try to avoid using those colors to convey meaning or in a way where important information gets lost. If you want to make sure your holiday emails hit the mark, check out the co-branded webinar on email accessibility from Sinch Mailgun and Mailjet – it’s a great place to start.

5. Image-only Black Friday emails

Another accessibility issue with Black Friday marketing campaigns is an abundance of image-only emails. It’s a bit shocking to see how many big brands are sending promotional emails that are one giant graphic with no live text.

Screen readers can interpret the alt text of an image. But it’s highly unlikely you’ll be communicating an entire email campaign in image alt text (not to mention it’s a bad idea).

According to acccesiBe, more than 7 million Americans use screen readers. That’s around 2% of the population, which may not sound like a lot, but it could represent a sizable chunk of your list that can’t engage with image-only emails.

Besides accessibility, some subscribers may have image downloading turned off. That happens by default in Outlook inboxes. If your entire message is in the image, campaign performance could be disastrously disappointing.

6. Blasting instead of segmenting

A Black Friday email blast to every subscriber on your list might make sense in some situations. However, in most cases, you’ll be able to deliver more relevant holiday shopping promotions with segmentation.

Take advantage of the zero- and first-party data you’ve collected through your website and online forms to understand what kinds of Black Friday email promotions and products different segments will find engaging. Don’t forget that lots of people are shopping for others rather than themselves.

Can you segment for parents and grandparents buying gifts for kids? How about spouses trying to find the perfect presents for their significant other? Past purchase behaviors can also inform what subscribers are interested in buying this time of year.

Even geographic locations can help you decide what to promote in Black Friday emails. For example, subscribers in Florida and Arizona may not be as interested in warm and cozy winter sweaters compared to the Minnesotans on your list.

7. Black Friday email and landing page mismatches

What happens after online shoppers click on a Black Friday email CTA? Sure, you did your job as an email marketer. But if the website experience doesn’t jive with the email campaign, your results in terms of online sales may suffer.

Emails and landing pages need to work together to effectively earn conversions. Now’s the time to make sure the assets you’re using in Black Friday emails match what subscribers see when they land on your ecommerce site to shop. Here are a few quick tips:

• Use similar or complementary graphics, imagery, and messaging.
• Reiterate the coupon code or offer from the email on the landing page.
• Make sure your landing pages are mobile-friendly and accessible too.
• Continue the personalized experience from the inbox on the website.

If your email and web teams work separately, this is a good time to break down those silos and start collaborating on Black Friday digital marketing strategy together.

Most importantly, make sure your emails do not send subscribers to the wrong landing page – or worse yet – a 404 page.

8. Inaccurate Black Friday email metrics

When the insanity of Black Friday subsides, the next item on the agenda will be evaluating how your campaigns performed. You’ll want to attribute as much as you can to the email channel. But marketing metrics can get messy if you’re unprepared.

One important way to track email marketing performance is with UTM parameters on links in your campaigns. Make sure you’re on the same page with the web or data team about what those parameters should be, including how UTMs are formatted.

Beyond tracking the email channel, what else do you want to know? If you’re sending multiple campaigns, use parameters that help you identify the success of one email from another. You could even track whether subscribers are clicking on specific elements like buttons, text links, or product images.

Another challenge with tracking Black Friday email performance relates to increased privacy measures from mailbox providers. Yes, we’re still talking about Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). These features can inflate open rates, making it unclear how well your subject line really worked. However, you may be able to use email analytics to see which subscribers are using MPP.

Discover how Sinch Email on Acid can help you find out which of your subscribers are using Apple’s MPP. Once you know, you can segment those contacts so you can review their metrics separately, giving you a clearer picture of open rates.

9. Ignoring abandoned cart emails

The holidays are hectic, and everything goes into full gear right after Thanksgiving. Black Friday shoppers are getting tons of emails, visiting loads of websites, and inevitably… some items will get left in their online shopping carts.

If you aren’t already using abandoned cart emails, now is a good time to start. And if you do send these reminder emails, you may want to adjust your strategy for Black Friday. That could mean different messaging that adds urgency to bring people back before a promotion ends. Or it could mean adjusting the timing of these automated messages. Maybe your abandoned cart emails need to be sent sooner – before the shopper makes a purchase somewhere else.

According to TechReport, the global cart abandonment rate (CAR) is over 75%, and it’s at its highest during holiday shopping. Abandoned cart emails can help with that.

According to statistics from the ecommerce personalization platform, Bariliance, abandoned cart emails see open rates as high as 49%. So, nearly half of those messages get opened. The average click rate is close to 9% and the typical conversion rate (meaning a recovered transaction) is around 8%.

10. Transactional email deliverability issues

When your brand does earn those Black Friday sales, email comes into play once again. Transactional emails keep your customers informed with order confirmations, shipping updates, and more.

These messages can be extremely important during the holidays when getting a package on time matters more than ever. But what happens when transactional emails land in spam or get blocked from delivery? That’s a huge Black Friday mistake.

One way to prevent transactional messages landing in spam is to separate transactional mail streams from promotional emails using separate subdomains. For more on this approach,

A sudden spike in email volume and sending frequency during Black Friday may also prompt mailbox providers to filter your messages into spam, especially if you’re using a new IP or domain. So, an IP warmup may be necessary first.

Get more Black Friday email deliverability advice in a free, on-demand webinar from Mailgun.

11. Failing to follow new sender guidelines

Speaking of email deliverability, Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft announced new bulk sender guidelines that you better be following if you want to reach inboxes on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

These updated sender requirements are designed to make the inbox a safer and all-around-better place for email recipients. Here are three of the most important things to know.

1. Use email authentication: Bulk senders (aka anyone sending mass email marketing) must use the SPF and DKIM email authentication protocols. You also need to implement DMARC using a policy of at least p=none.
2. Make it very easy to unsubscribe: Bulk sender must have one-click unsubscribe functionality following what’s known as RFC 8058. This lets your contacts unsubscribe from inside their inbox provider’s user interface – not just that little link in the footer.
3. Keep spam complaint rates low: Senders should try to keep user-generated spam complaints below 0.1% (that’s 1 out 1,000 emails sent). Your spam complaint rate should never reach or exceed 0.3%.

Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft are three of the most popular mailbox providers. Unexpected deliverability problems to either one this time of year would definitely be a Black Friday email disaster.

12. Forgetting to test and preview Black Friday emails

One of the most common email marketing disasters involves problems with email client rendering. The way your Black Friday email looks in Apple Mail might look quite different in Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or AOL inboxes.

Emails can also render differently based on the mobile operating system as well as when dark mode is turned on. But unless you know how to sneak inside other people’s inboxes, you probably have no idea how everything looks after delivery.

Thankfully, there is a way to help prevent these disasters during Cyber Week. Email Previews from Sinch Email on Acid let you see how your big holiday campaigns render in more than 100 clients and live devices. That’s how you can find out if you need to make code or design adjustments before launching a Black Friday email. Unlike your other options, every Sinch Email on Acid user gets unlimited testing.

Optimize Black Friday emails with Sinch Email on Acid

Our email quality assurance platform does a whole lot more than show you inbox previews.

Sinch Email on Acid also helps you optimize everything from inbox display and email images to deliverability and email accessibility checks. You can even run a final check for typos and accidental profanities (yikes!) and get detailed analytics that help you measure Black Friday email campaign performance.

There’s still time to run your Cyber Week email campaigns through our pre-send email testing software. Sign up for a 7-day free trial today to find out how beneficial our email testing tools can be.

The post Black Friday Email Marketing: Avoid These 12 Disastrous Mistakes appeared first on Email on Acid.

Red and green are absolutely everywhere during the holidays – on signage, in decor, in magazines and catalogs, on websites, and in emails. In fact, you’ve probably used this color combination in your own holiday marketing campaigns. However, according to Healthline, about one out of twelve men and one out of 200 women have red-green color blindness. 

It’s the most common color vision deficiency (CVD) in the world, and it could represent a significant portion of your subscribers. So how exactly does this affect your holiday email campaigns and what can you do to create more accessible holiday emails?

What is red-green color blindness?

People without color blindness are able to see and tell the difference between three colors: red, green, and blue. Nerves in the retinas of our eyes called “cones” perceive the colors, send a message about them to our brains, then convert them into color vision.

People with red-green color blindness are born with either no cones to perceive red or green, or simply a shortage of those cones. All About Vision lists four ways this occurs:

• Red-blind (protanopia) – Red can’t be seen.  
• Green-blind (deuteranopia) – Green can’t be seen.
• Red-weak (protanomaly) – Some red is visible; green and blue are normal. 
• Green-weak (deuteranomaly) – Some green is visible; red and blue are normal. 

So, depending on the type of color vision deficiency a person has, they might see things that are red and green all in a kind of murky green tone. Or they may have trouble differentiating between shades. 

How people with color blindness see the holidays

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of an email subscriber with color blindness. How would this person experience your holiday email designs? First, here’s how someone with a color vision deficiency might see one of the most popular figures at Christmastime, Santa Claus. Notice how the vibrant colors are muted and there’s no clear distinction between red and green. The jolly old elf looks a little more like the Grinch, doesn’t he?

Now, it’s true that someone who’s dealt with red-green color blindness their entire lives may be accustomed to seeing Santa like this. However, the color choices you choose to use over the holidays and throughout the year could affect the way certain subscribers engage with your emails.

The impact on holiday email designs

Take a look at a couple of holiday email campaigns through the lens of someone who is color blind. Here’s a campaign featuring the famous red cup from Starbucks.

Notice that pretty much everything is red or green. A red, white, and green holiday cup sits on top of a background that fades from green to red. Now check out the filtered version of this email that simulates how someone with protanopia sees the campaign. This holiday email certainly doesn’t have the same impact for someone with red-green color-blindness.

Here’s another holiday email that uses lots of red and green in the design. This time, however, there’s an important element that red-green color blindness could affect – the email’s call-to-action (CTA), which is green and stands in stark contrast to all the red. That’s an effective way to draw attention to the button and increase the click rate, but it won’t have the same impact for subscribers with a color vision deficiency.

The example below shows how someone who struggles to perceive the color green (deuteranopia) sees this email campaign. That CTA button doesn’t have quite the same pop, does it? There’s really no contrast at all. Of course, this isn’t the end of the world. But when every click counts, it’s worth considering how color choices and accessibility go hand-in-hand with email engagement.

We’re not trying to say you should never use red and green in holiday email campaigns. However, it’s wise to avoid using those colors for important elements or to convey essential information. That’s solid advice for the entire year – not just the holidays.

Using certain combinations for your email campaign’s text and HTML background colors, for example, could render the message unreadable for certain people. A good email accessibility best practice is to avoid using color to convey meaning.

Tips and alternatives for accessible holiday emails

Inclusive email marketing means keeping subscribers of all types in mind as you design and develop templates and campaigns. So, it’s worth considering ways to create holiday email campaigns without focusing too much on red and green.

Here are a few brands that found other ways to deliver emails that are merry and bright.

1. Rely on holiday-themed copy and icons

Instead of sharing holiday cheer through color, consider using things like symbols. Think wreaths, candy canes, snowflakes, gifts, and stockings. Apple did this in a really unique way in one of their email campaigns:

Though they stuck to their typical brand colors, they turned their products into wreaths and snowflakes, highlighting the holidays in a fun way.

Bicycle accessory brand Rapha didn’t even get close to traditional holiday colors in this email. Yet, it still captures the spirit of the season because the copy makes it clear what their gift guide is all about.

The brand uses phrases like “bike bells ringing” and “all the trimmings” to get in the festive spirit without typical red and green color schemes.

2. Consider other holiday color combinations

There are other colors that can communicate that Christmassy feeling.

You might use blue and white to depict a snowy scene, silver and gold for a classy Christmas, or black and white in Black Friday emails. Not only will this make things easier for your entire audience to consume your emails, it can also help you stand out from the hundreds of red and green emails they’ll get this season.

BarkBox embraced this concept in their holiday email:

They went with a blue color scheme, adding white snowflakes and music notes to make it seem wintery. It still feels festive but works for everyone on their list.

3. Use patterns or textures

Patterns and textures are another great way to add holiday flair without using red or green. Create your own, branded pattern or find a great texture from a stock library. BathLife used a classy gold pattern as the background of their holiday email:

This design choice is sort of like creating your own gift wrap for an email. Find out how to code background images in email so you can pull of a look like this.

4. Use more than color to distinguish links and CTAs

The goal of most holiday email promotions is to convince your contacts to click links and CTAs that send them to a landing page on your site.

While it may be tempting to make your links red or green this holiday season, make sure you’re distinguishing them in other ways, too. Consider adding an underline, an arrow, or another symbol to make links stand out.

To someone dealing with color-blindness, your green or red buttons may look the same as the rest of your email. But you want them to stand out. So think of other ways to highlight them:

• Make them big
• Add an icon
• Include a border
• Switch up or emphasize the font
• Place them in their own area of the email

And of course, writing creative email CTAs can do a lot to boost your clicks. Instead of “Buy Now” or “Read More”, write CTA copy that gets a laugh, makes a promise, or stirs up curiosity in your subscribers.

Accessible email matters now more than ever

Accessibility isn’t just good practice; it’s becoming law in some regions. Starting June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) requires digital communications, including email, to meet accessibility standards. If you’d like a full breakdown, check out Sinch Mailgun’s webinar recap on what the EAA means for email. 

The best way to know that your emails look good for every single one of your subscribers is through pre-deployment testing. That’s where Sinch Email on Acid shines. The accessibility features in our email readiness tool check your email for color contrast, code for screen readers, title attributes, alt text, and other accessibility factors. You can even preview the email with filters that display different color deficiencies.

Enjoy unlimited testing with every one of our plans. That means you can preview campaigns on more than 100 clients and live devices, and you can do it as many times as you need before hitting send. That’s not a holiday promo, my friend. It’s just how we do things around here.

The post How People with Color Blindness See Your Holiday Email Campaigns appeared first on Email on Acid.

Deals! Coupons! Discounts! Codes! That may be what shoppers want. The only problem is, practically every retailer is sending them the same thing. You would never shout at customers in your retail store to “buy now before it’s gone!”  Yet that’s exactly what many retail email marketers do.

It’s time to make email work for your retail business. Email has one of the highest returns on investment of any marketing channel out there, especially for retail.

That’s why our friends at Sinch Mailjet asked more than 2,000 consumers about their email marketing preferences for their recent Path to email engagement report. In this article, we’ll share some insights from the survey and offer advice for a retail email marketing strategy that cuts through the clutter.

Why retail and email marketing are the perfect pair

Customers no longer “go shopping” as a verb the way they did in the mall hey-days of the early aughts. With the exception of grocery items and foodstuffs, shoppers often turn online first.

Retail industry research shows 39% of consumers say they “can’t live without online shopping.” Even if they do visit a store IRL, they’re still split on how they purchase, with 53% telling Shopify that they’re likely to look at an item in a store before buying online (or vice-versa.)

It doesn’t matter whether you’re running a primarily brick-and-mortar business or operate 100% online. Shoppers expect a cohesive brand experience – and that’s exactly what email marketing can do. While email is technically a digital marketing channel, it’s a much more personal experience than other marketing channels. Retail brands can build relationships with customers through the inbox, increasing loyalty and repeat purchases.

Of course, the email channel also has functional purposes for retail brands. Transactional emails are unsung heroes that improve the customer experience. Online shoppers rely on and expect things like order confirmations, shipping updates, and other messages that help your retail brand conduct business online.

Retail email marketing: Promotional vs. transactional messages

Part of why email marketing is so powerful? Because your customers want to hear from you there. Sinch Mailjet found around three-quarters of consumers prefer email marketing for both transactional and promotional messages.

These types of messages are very different but both critical for your retail email marketing strategy:

Transactional emails relate directly to the completion of a sale, such as email receipts, shipping confirmations, or return information. These emails are sent based on specific actions from the customer and are limited in scope. If it’s a true transactional email, retailers don’t need an opt-in to send it because the transaction indicated implied consent.

Promotional emails include every other kind of email you would send to a customer or prospect – such as deals and upcoming sales, showcasing new arrivals, or recommending new products. These emails are sent to all (or a segment) of your email list and can be customized for just about anything. Mailjet’s survey found  62.8% of consumers say exclusive deals and offers are the most valuable thing they get from B2C brand emails.

There are some messages that blur the lines between transactional and promotional. For example, abandoned cart emails seem related to a transaction. However, since cart abandonment and the follow-up email happen before a purchase, it’s more about pushing for the sale. That’s promotional.

On the other hand, welcome emails can be a transactional email when they’re triggered by an initial purchase or account creation. Above all, retail email marketers should avoid adding too much promotional messaging into transactional emails.

5 retail email marketing strategies to increase sales

Whether you’re operating an ecommerce or brick-and-mortar retail business, email marketing should be a major part of your strategy. Let’s talk through some of the building blocks for sending strong, relevant email marketing campaigns to your subscribers so they’re more likely to buy from you:

1.   Retail email subscriber acquisition

Of course, to make the most of email as a channel, you’ll need to build your email list first. Shoppers sign up for emails primarily because they’re interested in receiving regular deals and or one-time discounts.

In retail, that means focusing on two key areas of the customer journey:

• The casual browsing process: When a customer is bouncing around your site looking at merchandise, you can still capture their email address through opt-in forms in your footer, an exit or welcome pop-up with a discount promotion, or through “notify me” email forms for items that are low-stock or coming soon.
• The check-out process: Both in-store and online checkout processes should have options to collect an email address and an explicit ask to be able to use it to send promotional emails (to comply with data collection regulations.)

For both, make sure customers understand the value they receive by giving their email address.

Do they have access to a new account where they can collect loyalty points, get special deals, or receive free shipping? Will they be saved from having to enter all their details again? Do they get access to a special experience in your store?

Your customers know that you’ll be emailing them. Make it worth their while.

2.   Retail email marketing segmentation

What separates annoying email campaigns from exciting ones for subscribers is a laser-focused, highly targeted segmentation strategy. Email list segmentation is as much about avoiding email fatigue as it is about sending highly relevant communications.

Every email that you send that doesn’t positively engage a subscriber risks your future relationship with that subscriber.

Email lists can be segmented in many different ways. The most obvious way to segment your lists is based on previous purchases and perceived customer personas for email marketing. For example, a gaming retailer who previously sold a customer an Xbox console may find very little success if they start sending that same customer emails relating to PlayStation games and accessories. Knowing who you plan to target before you send an email pays off in the long run.

3.   Retail email marketing personalization

Segmentation is the first step toward sending more relevant emails to your shoppers, but it’s personalization that takes it to the next level. Mailjet’s survey found more than 80% of consumers view personalized content as important when deciding whether to open a B2C email campaign.

While addressing shoppers by their first name is a great start, they expect more from you.

You’re already collecting tons of data on your shoppers, from what kinds of products they purchase to which items tend to be paired together in their carts. Use data on past purchases, content consumption, and website browsing to your advantage. Something as simple as a birthday email can inspire brand loyalty.

4.   Retail email marketing engagement

If you want to drive sales with your email marketing campaigns, then your shoppers have to open your email in the first place. And inboxes are crowded already with your retail competitors. How can you stand out and improve your open rates?

Writing compelling subject lines matters for your metrics, but your brand’s reputation and anticipation about what’s inside the message are also key considerations for shoppers. In fact, 94.5% said recognizing the sender or brand was at least somewhat important when deciding whether to open emails. Around two thirds of consumers said the same about subject lines promoting a limited time offer.

Once they open your retail email promotion, the next step is convincing consumers to click. More than 45% of survey respondents told Mailjet the chance to use a coupon code or claim a deal. However, wanting to learn more about what was in the email or the chance to check out a featured product were also popular reasons for clicking.

To increase clicks, make sure you generate some curiosity with your retail email marketing. You want subscribers to be interested enough to click that CTA button because they just have to know more.

5.   Retail email marketing and the Promotions tab

What about the Gmail Promotions tab? Don’t panic! Landing there is nothing like ending up in spam. In fact, it may even give you an advantage.

According to Sinch Mailjet, more than 50% of shoppers who use Gmail check their Promotions tab every day. Let’s be honest, if you’re sending promotional emails, the Promotions tab is where you belong. Gmail may actually be helping you out here. It organizes emails for users and helps you avoid getting lost in the main inbox. If an email user visits their Promotions tab, it’s a sign they’re willing to start shopping. And that’s a good thing if you’re a retail email marketer.

There are also ways to optimize retail emails for the Gmail Promotions tab. You can use Schema markup to showcase coupon codes, deal expiration dates, product carousels and more. This happens at the inbox level – before people even open the campaign.

10 common types of retail and ecommerce emails

Need a little inspiration for your retail email marketing efforts? We got you. Here are some of the most common types of emails retailers send:

1. Welcome emails for retail brands

Welcome emails are a classic email automation that can kick off a great relationship with a customer without a lot of effort. Your welcome email should clearly set up what kinds of emails you plan to send your subscribers so they know what to expect from you. New customers want to feel good about their purchase, too.

While not every welcome email needs to include the founder like this one, it makes sense for Little Sleepies, a family sleepwear brand. The more personal you can make your welcome, the better. (And a discount doesn’t hurt, either.)

2. Education and brand-building emails

Shoppers say they sign up for emails because of deals, but talk too much about discounts and you’ll only cheapen your brand. Instead, sprinkle in educational content that matches what you offer. For example, a food retailer might want to share recipe ideas to sell more seasonal ingredients. Similarly, a sports store might want to share tips about improving a customer’s sporting performance and how specific products can help them find those marginal gains.

This example does a great job of promoting a new product release without really promoting it, instead offering wellness tips that align with their brand. When a retailer positions themselves as a thought leader, they’re much more likely to build a loyal fan base of customers than those who only promote deals. You can still include a CTA to shop in your email design, though it should be less prominent than a product-specific email.

3. Retail email newsletters

Never underestimate the importance of sharing useful information with your community of customers. Emails highlighting changes to store opening hours, new store locations, and essential information about store operations (particularly during the ongoing pandemic) are incredibly important for setting customer expectations and building relationships. This information gets included in special announcement emails as well as a retail brand’s regular email newsletter.

Gift guides like this one are a great example of this. You’re communicating something that customers are interested in hearing more about (especially during the busy holiday season) while promoting your products. Win-win.

4. Seasonal promotions

Retail email marketing strategy thrives on seasonal promotions, whether it’s curating an all-green lineup for St. Patrick’s Day or sending out summer swimwear for spring break. But the biggest seasonal promotion of them all? Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

While you’ll have a slate of emails for the entire season planned out to follow-up your original campaign, keep it as simple as possible, like this example.

While promotional emails get all the glory during BFCM, remember that your transactional emails matter, too. When Sinch Mailjet asked shoppers about confirmations and shipping updates during the busy holiday shopping season, more than 80% of consumers said transactional communication is either very important or somewhat important.

5. New product releases and product recommendations

Some of your shoppers eagerly await your next drop. Others have no idea a product launch is happening. Either way, sending an email for new product releases, especially if they’re seasonally appropriate, can help you encourage repeat purchases. These emails are a great place to include personalized product recommendations based on purchase history as well.

This email example showcases what could be a very boring flavor (vanilla) in an exciting, eye-catching way. From swirling design to calling out the fact that most people think vanilla is boring (and explaining why it’s not), this is an email that makes you want to buy.

6. Abandoned cart emails

Abandoned carts are a common online behavior these days (can you imagine what your store would look like if everyone left behind shopping carts in person?) Sending a quick automated email to your shoppers to let them know they’ve left something behind can be a great way to tip them into making the purchase.

Cart abandonment emails like this one don’t need to be interactive to make an impact. This email is a great example of staying true to your brand, even if it’s a triggered email. Bonus points for creating a personalized email with the actual item the shopper left behind in their cart.

7. Order confirmation emails

Because order confirmation emails are transactional in nature, retailers are more limited in what they can include – but you can still make them easy to understand and pleasing to the eye. Obviously, you’ll want to make sure there’s a clear confirmation of the order, the cost, and any shipping details you’re able to provide up front.

Audible does a great job of including what an order confirmation needs to have (credits used, total cost, etc.) while adding a little bit of flair at the bottom with a few recommended next listens.

8. Shipping and inventory updates

Shoppers want to know when you’ve shipped an item and when they should receive it. In today’s retail world of get-it-same-day, the more you can communicate about the status of their package, the better.

This is also true of merchandise – especially if there’s an item you know a shopper has been looking at or is already in their cart. Sending a “back in stock” email to subscribers who have been poking around certain product lines is a great way to underline urgency and get them to purchase right away.

This example does a great job of promoting urgency (sold out 3x!) and making shoppers feel special that they have access to order now.

9. Customer feedback emails

Few customers make it to the ideal conclusion of the customer journey: Raving about your product online post-purchase. Make it easy for them to let others know how you did with a targeted customer feedback email. For these, you want to get them to your review platform of choice as quickly as possible, whether it’s on your own site or through a third-party service.

This example keeps it short and simple, with a clear call to action up front to leave a review.

10. Retail rewards and loyalty program emails

A robust retail email marketing strategy drives customer engagement and brand loyalty. Retail email marketers regularly use email to execute certain details of a customer rewards program, notifying subscribers about points earned and how to take advantage of them. Remember, these are your loyal customers – an incredibly valuable segment to your retail business’ bottom line.

This email is a great example of how to showcase perks for customer loyalty programs, clearly stating the current balance at the top while detailing each freebie in a fun, eye-catching design.

Deliver email perfection to retail customers

One thing you may notice about a lot of retail email marketing campaigns is that they often rely quite a bit on eye-catching design and unique layouts. What you may not realize is that some email clients and mailbox providers may be messing all of that up for your brand.

Emails render differently on different clients and devices. That means your email may look great in your drag-and-drop WYSWIG editor, but it could be a hot mess in Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo Mail inboxes, or it could look be unreadable in dark mode.

That’s why you’ve got to test and preview every retail email campaign before you hit send. Sinch Email on Acid offers reliable email previews on more than 100 live clients and devices as well as many other pre-send checks to help retail marketing teams with email quality assurance. Gain send-button confidence with our industry-leading platform and make sure your retail email marketing lands in consumers’ inboxes looking like a million bucks.

The post Retail Email Marketing Strategy: Keys to Success in 2025 appeared first on Email on Acid.

This article aims to provide practical guidance and insights to individuals new to email development. Whether you’re a marketer seeking to expand your skill set or a beginner in email coding, our goal is to equip you with the knowledge needed to create effective templates.

Throughout this guide, we’ll explore the fundamental principles of designing and coding email templates, offering actionable tips to overcome common challenges. By the end, you’ll have the skills and confidence to create engaging email templates that drive results and streamline your future email production process.

5 benefits of using email templates

Email templates serve as a foundational tool for email development. They provide structure and consistency to your communication efforts. Email templates are pre-designed layouts that help streamline the process of creating emails and offer some important benefits:

1. Efficiency

By providing a pre-designed framework, email templates streamline the email creation process, saving valuable time and resources. Marketers can focus on crafting compelling content rather than starting from scratch with each email campaign.

2. Consistency

Email templates ensure brand consistency across all communications, maintaining a cohesive look and feel that reinforces brand identity. Consistent branding builds trust and familiarity with recipients.

3. Speed

With ready-made templates at their disposal, marketers can quickly deploy email campaigns, responding promptly to time-sensitive promotions or events.

4. Error avoidance

Templates help mitigate the risk of errors in email campaigns by providing standardized layouts and formatting. This reduces the likelihood of typos, broken links, or design inconsistencies that could undermine the effectiveness of the message.

5. Reusable customization

Email templates can be customized and reused for various campaigns, enabling marketing team members or clients to leverage your coded templates for their specific needs. This empowers senders to maintain brand consistency while tailoring content to suit different audience segments or campaign objectives.

7 tips for developing email marketing templates

For those new to email development, navigating the intricacies of coding email marketing templates can be daunting. Unlike web development, email template coding faces limitations due to varying HTML and CSS support across email clients. This often leads to inconsistent rendering, especially when viewed on different devices. Factor such as dark mode emails and accessibility add even more complexity.

Despite these challenges, mastering email coding is essential for creating templates that deliver a consistent and engaging experience for recipients across all platforms. As you start coding and designing your templates, here are some key considerations:

1.   Plan ahead

When it comes to creating email templates, it’s much like creating any other email, the major difference is that we know our template is going to be reused and repurposed for multiple different emails.

Whenever I’m coding a new email template I’m always asking myself “how will this template be used?” by making a point to think about this ahead of creation it lets me plan out all the use-cases for my template and informs every other decision around a template.

Start by making a list of all the different types of emails you send. For example you may need a newsletter template, a product announcement template, transactional email templates, and more.

2.   Choose your code approach

Once we have our template planned out and our use-cases mapped out, it’s time to dive into the nitty-gritty of creating the template.

When it comes to email development, there are several methods and options to consider, each with its own advantages and considerations. Two primary decisions that email developers often face are whether to use divs or tables for layout, and whether to use a framework like MJML or stick with traditional HTML and CSS.

Divs vs. Tables for email template layouts

Historically, the <table> has been a go-to choice for HTML email layouts due to better support across email clients. They provide more consistent rendering, especially in older clients like certain desktop versions of Outlook. However, table-based layouts can be cumbersome to work with and less flexible in terms of design.

Layouts using <div>s offer more flexibility and are preferred by many web developers due to their cleaner code structure. However, div-based layouts may face compatibility issues in certain email clients. Once again, coding emails for Outlook is one of the primary reasons email developers use tables over divs. However, email geek Mark Robbins told us about a future of email in which we no longer have to code emails like it’s 1999.

Ultimately, your decision around divs vs tables comes down to a personal choice, which should be based on your subscriber base and your own skill level and comfort with different techniques.

MJML vs. HTML + CSS.

MJML is a markup language designed specifically for email development. It offers a simplified syntax and pre-built components that streamline the email creation process. MJML templates are inherently responsive, ensuring consistent rendering across devices and email clients. However, there may be a learning curve for developers transitioning to MJML, and customization options may be limited compared to traditional HTML and CSS.

Traditional HTML and CSS remains the popular choice for email development, offering full control over the design and layout of email templates. While HTML and CSS provide maximum flexibility and customization options, you must be mindful of email client limitations and compatibility issues.

For more on using MJML for email development, check out this episode of Notes from the Dev, featuring tips from Nicole Hickman.

3.   Code you need in every email

In every email, regardless if it’s a one-off email or a template like we’re creating, there are essential pieces of code you’ll want to include that ensure proper rendering and functionality across various email clients and devices. Here’s a summary of the key elements:

HTML Boilerplate:

The HTML email boilerplate provides a foundation for your template and includes essential elements such as the <!DOCTYPE> declaration, <html> and <head> tags, and character encoding declaration (<meta charset="utf-8">). It also includes the <body> tag where the email content resides.

Media Queries for Responsive Design:

Media queries allow you to create responsive email designs that adapt to different screen sizes and devices. By applying specific styles based on the viewport width, you can ensure your email templates look great on both desktop and mobile devices.

Fallback Font Stacks:

Fallback font stacks ensure readability by specifying a list of fonts that should be used if the preferred font is not available on the recipient’s device. This helps to maintain consistency in typography across email clients and ensures your content remains accessible.

4.   Consider mobile-first email templates

In today’s mobile-centric world, it’s imperative to prioritize mobile responsiveness when developing email marketing templates. A survey from Sinch Mailjet found that a staggering 71.5% of global consumers primarily view emails on mobile devices. Adopting a mobile-first approach ensures that your email marketing templates are optimized for the devices most commonly used by your audience.

To implement a mobile-first strategy, start by designing your email templates with the smallest screens in mind. This means creating a layout that is clear, concise, and easy to navigate on mobile devices. Use single-column layouts, larger font sizes, and spacious touch targets to accommodate smaller screens and touch interactions.

Utilizing CSS media queries, you can apply specific styles based on screen width to ensure a seamless transition from mobile to desktop. Min-width and max-width media queries allow you to target specific screen sizes and apply different styles accordingly.

Incorporating these best practices into your email template development process will ensure that your emails are optimized for mobile devices and provide a seamless user experience across all screen sizes.

5.   Prioritize accessibility in template creation

In email marketing accessibility is not just a best practice – it’s a fundamental aspect of ensuring that your messages reach and resonate with all recipients, regardless of their abilities or assistive technologies.

Prioritizing accessibility in template creation is crucial, ensuring that your email content is accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities such as visual impairments or mobility limitations. By designing with accessibility in mind, you create a more inclusive experience for all recipients, fostering a sense of belonging and engagement with your brand.

Accessibility features, such as descriptive alt text for images and semantic HTML structure not only benefit users with disabilities but also improve the overall user experience for all recipients. Clear and well-organized content makes it easier for everyone to consume and interact with your emails.

6.   Create templates for different layouts

In email marketing, one size rarely fits all. Tailoring your email layouts to suit the specific goals and content of each campaign is essential for maximizing engagement and driving desired actions from your audience.

Different email campaigns serve different purposes, whether it’s promoting a new product, sharing educational content, or delivering transactional updates. By crafting layouts that align with the content and objectives of each campaign, you can ensure that your emails are relevant and resonant with recipients’ interests and preferences. Personalized layouts that speak directly to the recipient’s needs and motivations are more likely to capture attention and drive engagement.

7.   Testing your templates

Testing your email templates is a critical step in the email marketing process, guaranteeing that your messages render correctly, function as intended, and provide an optimal experience for recipients.

Email clients vary widely in their rendering capabilities with differences in HTML and CSS support that can affect how your emails appear to subscribers. Test your templates across multiple clients, including popular ones like Gmail, Outlook, and iOS Mail, to ensure consistent rendering across platforms.

By rigorously testing your email templates across various dimensions you can identify and address any issues before deploying your campaigns, ensuring a seamless and engaging experience for your subscribers. Remember to document your testing process and any findings to inform future template optimizations and improvements.

Working with pre-designed email templates

Creating custom email templates can offer unparalleled flexibility and uniqueness but leveraging pre-designed email templates found online presents an alternative for those seeking convenience.

While using these templates you can find online have benefits like the ability for rapid deployment, utilizing their professional designs, and the fact that there are a wide variety of free templates to choose from, it’s important that we remember the drawbacks:

• Limited Customization: While pre-designed templates offer convenience, they may have limitations in customization.
• Compatibility Concerns: Pre-designed templates may not always be optimized for compatibility across different email clients and devices.
• Risk of Uniqueness: Since pre-designed templates are widely accessible, there’s a risk that emails created using these templates may lack uniqueness or fail to stand out amidst competitors’ campaigns.

Leveraging pre-designed email templates available online offers a convenient and cost-effective solution for executing email campaigns. While they provide benefits in terms of rapid deployment and professional design, you should be mindful of their limitations and drawbacks.

The next step? An email design system

A design system includes a set of standards used to create a collection of reusable components. These components (or email modules) share a consistent visual style, which typically follows brand guidelines.

It’s helpful to think of a design system like a set of building blocks or Lego bricks. Each component is a block, and you can use those content blocks to build a variety of things. 

Often, designers and developers will start with just one template, reusing components like the header, a certain content module or way of showing a feature and build that out to be a complete email design system.

By adopting an email design system, marketers can elevate the quality, consistency, and effectiveness of their email campaigns while optimizing their workflow and collaboration processes.

Test your email templates before you hit send

While it’s tempting to assume that templates are flawless after initial testing, the reality is that factors such as evolving email client updates, changes in rendering standards, and shifts in user preferences can impact template performance over time.

Prioritizing continuous testing and previewing of your email templates is not only a smart practice but a necessary one for maintaining the success and relevance of your email marketing efforts in an ever-evolving landscape.

The post How to Create Your Own Email Marketing Templates appeared first on Email on Acid.

People have been checking their email on mobile devices for decades, yet developing mobile-friendly emails remains a challenge for many senders.

Sinch Mailjet’s report on email engagement found that 71.5% of consumers say they primarily check their email on a mobile device. That’s why we strongly encourage taking a mobile-first approach to email development.

No matter if you are a B2B or B2C company, your emails need to look their best and function properly on both desktop and mobile. That’s why in this article, we’ll give you the information and code snippets you need to code your own responsive HTML email template.

What makes an HTML email responsive?

Mobile responsiveness refers to the capability of an email to adapt its layout and content dynamically across various screen sizes and devices. This ensures that emails are readable and function correctly on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

Depending on the size of the screen on which a subscriber is viewing your email, you can code things so that the size of the text, number of columns, size of images, and other factors adjust accordingly.

Responsive HTML email design ensures your campaigns are not only easy to read but also easy to engage with. Your subscribers can avoid excessive zooming or scrolling and instead view the email in a way that’s ideal for the screen they’re staring at. This delivers an acceptable user experience and ensures your engagement rates don’t plummet.

Emails that are not responsive will always perform far worse then those you’ve optimized for mobile. If people can’t read it, they won’t get the message. If they can’t click, they probably won’t convert. If the layout is a hot mess, it’s going straight in the trash – because the cute garbage-can-shaped delete button in their email app is definitely optimized for mobile.

Mobile-Responsive vs. Mobile-Friendly vs. Fluid-Hybrid Emails

What’s the difference between a responsive email and one that’s mobile-friendly? Where do fluid-hybrid emails fit into the picture? You may hear these three terms used when discussing ways to optimize emails for mobile. Here are some quick explanations to clear things up…

Mobile-responsive emails: These typically use CSS media queries to adjust the email layout based on the device’s screen size. This method ensures that the email looks great on all devices by dynamically changing its structure.

Mobile-friendly emails: Designed with mobile users in mind, these emails are generally simpler and use larger fonts and buttons but do not adjust to different screen sizes dynamically. The key difference is that you can code and design an email for mobile, but that doesn’t make it responsive.

Fluid-hybrid emails: This is a way to develop responsive HTML emails with minimal use of media queries and breakpoints. Instead, fluid-hybrid coding involves using percentages for widths so that elements of the email expand to fill the screen. A max-width media query is still used to limit how much things expand on larger, desktop screens. This is a more advanced approach, but it also an effective and consistent way to develop emails. Check out Nicole Merlin’s guide for some expert advice.

In this article, we’ll explain how to build a responsive HTML email template using min-width media queries. Doing it this way, rather than using max-width, means you code for mobile first and expand the layout for larger screens.

3 steps to create a responsive HTML email template

Let’s start looking at the code you’ll need to build a responsive HTML email template. We asked Megan Boshuyzen to show us how she’d develop a mobile-first email that expands to two columns on desktop.

Of course there’s more than one way to do it. But if you need an easy (and dare we say lovely) way to code a responsive email, this is all you need.

1. Start with HTML <table> structure

Begin with a clean, table-based layout, which is widely supported across email clients. Use nested tables to control the structure and layout of your email content. Using <div>s instead of <table>s is also a valid way to approach this. However, we’re using tables in our tutorial to make sure your template works in desktop versions of Outlook.

For more on the email geek debate over tables vs divs, check out a fun “Battle of the Devs” between Megan Boshuyzen and Anne Tomlin at Parcel Unpacked.

                            

                                <table class="container" role="presentation" width="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse;max-width:600px;width:100%;">
	<tr>
		<td align="center">
            <!-- Email content goes here -->
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>
                            
                        

Don’t forget to set the table role to presentation (role="presentation"). This makes your email more accessible because screen readers will know the <table> is being used for layout purposes and not to display data.

2. Add your mobile styles first

Many people still use a max-width media query to code emails for desktop first and then apply mobile styles for smaller screens. We recommend flipping that process on its head and starting with code for mobile.

Megan often points out that coding for desktop first requires more code. Plus, when you use a min-width media query for responsive email design, if your desktop styles don’t work, the design will still look fine. You can’t say the same for how desktop styles display on mobile.

Here’s code that makes mobile styles the default in a responsive HTML email template:

                            

                                <style type="text/css">
    body, table, td, a {
        -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;
        -ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;
    }

    body, html {
        margin: 0;
        padding: 0;
        width: 100% !important;
    }

    h1, h2, p, a {
        font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
        line-height: 1.3;
    }

    img {
        max-width: 600px;
        width: 100%;
        display: block;
    }

    .container {
        width: 100%;
        padding: 10px;
    }

    .content {
        display: block;
        padding: 1em;
    }

    h1, h2 {
        margin: 0;
    }
</style>
                            
                        

Be sure to use display:block; for the content in your columns. This ensures email elements in the table layout will stack on top of each other for mobile viewing.

3. Add your desktop styles

Here’s where the media query comes into play. Once again, we’re using a min-width media query so that, beneath the hero image, our mobile styles expand into two columns for desktop.

Basically, what a min-width media query does is define what to do when a device’s width is greater than the breakpoint. We’ve set the breakpoint below to 600px, which is an ideal width for most mobile phones as well as tablets.

                            

                                @media only screen and (min-width: 600px) {
    .container {
        width: 100% !important;
        max-width: 600px !important;
        margin: 0 auto !important;
        display: block !important;
    }


    .content {
        width: 50% !important;
        font-size: 16px !important;
        display: table-cell !important;
    }
}
                            
                        

For desktop styles, you’ll need to change display:block; to display: table-cell; in the media query. This makes it so the content expands to two columns. Of course, setting the content width to 50% ensures what’s in the two columns fits neatly side-by-side.

You can also use media queries to make other enhancements for mobile or desktop viewing. That includes resizing images, adjusting text size, and modifying the email’s padding and margins for certain viewports.

If you ever need to target a range of screen sizes or a specific device, like a smartwatch for example, you can use both min-width and max-width media queries.

The complete code for a responsive email template

Finally, here’s a look at all the code you’d use to build exactly what we showed you at the start. You’ll need to customize this code to meet your needs. That includes adding your own font stack for email, replacing the placeholder image, as well as updating the information and links in the email footer.

                            

                                <!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
	<title>Responsive Email</title>
	<style type="text/css">
		body, table, td, a {
			-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;
			-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;
		}

		body, html {
			margin: 0;
			padding: 0;
			width: 100% !important;
		}

		h1, h2, p, a {
			font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
			line-height: 1.3;
		}

		img {
			max-width: 600px;
			width: 100%;
			display: block;
		}

		.container {
			width: 100%;
			padding: 10px;
		}

		.content {
			display: block;
			padding: 1em;
		}

		h1, h2 {
			margin: 0;
		}

		@media only screen and (min-width: 600px) {
			.container {
				width: 100% !important;
				max-width: 600px !important;
				margin: 0 auto !important;
				display: block !important;
			}


			.content {
				width: 50% !important;
				font-size: 16px !important;
				display: table-cell !important;
			}
		}
	</style>
</head>
<html lang="en">
	<body>
		<div lang="en" dir="ltr" style="padding:0; margin:0;">
			<table class="container" role="presentation" width="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse;max-width:600px;width:100%;">
				<tr>
					<td align="center">
						<h1><img src="https://fakeimg.pl/600x300/" alt="" width="600" /></h1>
					</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>
						<!--[if mso]>
						<table role="presentation" align="center" width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;">
							<tr>
								<td>
						<![endif]-->
									<table role="presentation" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;max-width:600px;width:100%" width="600">
										<tr>
											<td class="content">
												<h2>Lorem, ipsum dolor.</h2>
												<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Beatae, consequatur itaque? Quaerat sunt, repudiandae magnam ipsum atque officiis, fuga molestiae itaque vitae tempore sit iste aut expedita similique consectetur repellendus?</p>
											</td>
											<td class="content">
												<h2>Lorem, ipsum dolor.</h2>
												<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Beatae, consequatur itaque? Quaerat sunt, repudiandae magnam ipsum atque officiis, fuga molestiae itaque vitae tempore sit iste aut expedita similique consectetur repellendus?</p>
											</td>
										</tr>
									</table>
						<!--[if mso]>
								</td>
							</tr>
						</table>
						<![endif]-->
					</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>
						<table role="presentation" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="600" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse;">
							<tr>
								<td class="content" style="border-top:thin solid #000;">
									<p>123 Main Street<br />Main City, USA 00000</p>
									<p><a href="#">Unsubscribe</a></p>
								</td>
							</tr>
						</table>
					</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
		</div>
	</body>
</html>
                            
                        

A responsive email template like this could be modified for a newsletter that showcases your articles in two columns on desktop and stacks everything for mobile. It could also be useful for an email featuring multiple products and descriptions or for an email listing speakers and bios at a webinar or live event.

Test your responsive email templates before you hit send

While you can fire off a test email to a few colleagues to see if your responsive emails respond as expected, there are better ways to find out if they look good on mobile devices.

Sinch Mailgun Inspect gives technical users a detailed look under the hood, catching broken links, missing headers, and rendering issues before they cause problems. It leverages the same industry-leading rendering engine behind Email on Acid, built into the Mailgun platform.

Meanwhile, Sinch Email on Acid remains a top choice for marketing teams focused on visual QA. Use it to see previews of how your email renders on more than 100 clients and popular devices like iPhones and Google Pixels.

As a complete pre-send email testing platform, Email on Acid also includes tools for checking deliverability, validating images and URLs, and testing email accessibility. Take advantage of a 7-day free trial to see how it can help you put your best email forward.

The post Code a Responsive HTML Email Template in 3 Simple Steps appeared first on Email on Acid.

It’s likely you already realize how email supports the customer experience and has perhaps the best return on investment (ROI) of any marketing channel. Email handles everything from delivering transactional messages to boosting brand loyalty.

But isn’t a reliable email service provider (ESP) or a good customer relationship management (CRM) platform enough to cover everything? What’s so important about email testing services?

To help you see the full picture and decide which email testing tools your company needs, let’s explore the different reasons for testing and what’s at risk if you choose to ignore them.

4 types of email testing services and how they help

The kinds of email testing that will be most beneficial to your company depend on your industry, the types of emails you’re sending, the size of your program, and your overall goals for email marketing.

You may not need every type of email testing service. However, as you budget for the most important pieces of your martech stack, you should consider not only the price tag but also the cost of not testing.

Planning for the worst-case scenario is always a safe bet. Because as Murphy’s Law states: If it can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Here are four types of email testing, the basics of how they work, and the associated costs:

1. Email validation

Email address validation is a type of email testing that verifies the legitimacy of your contact data. There are plenty of reasons your company may need to validate email addresses:

• People make typos and syntax errors when subscribing to your list.
• Contact data becomes outdated over time.
• People use fake, temporary, or disposable email addresses to opt in.
• Bots can spam your signup forms.
• Questionable list building practices may lead to spam traps in your contacts.

Email validation is an important part of list hygiene best practices. There are solutions that help senders verify contacts across their entire database as well as email testing that uses an API to verify addresses at signup.

How does this email testing help?

Clean contact data, including valid email addresses, helps you run an efficient email program. But more importantly, a list of valid contacts supports deliverability. By that we mean sending emails to verified addresses helps you avoid the spam folder.

Here are a few reasons why email validation is connected to deliverability:

High bounce rates: When you attempt to deliver mail to an invalid email address, it bounces. A high hard bounce rate leads to a bad sender reputation. When mailbox providers notice this, they see you as an irresponsible sender or even a potential spammer. So, spam is where more messages end up.

Low engagement rates: If there’s no one behind an email address, there’s nobody to engage with what you’re sending. A list that contains too many invalid addresses is full of dead weight that drags down email engagement metrics like open rates and click rates. When mailbox providers see low engagement, it’s a sign your emails are unwanted and may belong in spam.

Spam traps: Mailbox providers use fake email accounts to catch spammers. One type is known as a recycled spam trap. For example, Gmail could reuse an abandoned account that was valid once upon a time. Now, however, if you send to that contact, it shows you’re not keeping up with list hygiene and your sender reputation could take a hit.

How much is it likely to cost?

While you can find “free email testers” out there, these tools aren’t going to cut it for most senders. That is, unless you like manually testing one email address at a time.

If you have a large list or are actively adding new subscribers, more robust email validation tools can be very valuable.

Most email validation services are based on volume. Some ESPs may include validations as part of paid plans. For example, users of Mailgun Send’s higher-tiered plans get 5,000 validations per month while enterprise users can customize to meet their needs. Email validations can also be purchased as an add-on, ranging from $0.80 to $1.20 per 100 validations.

Those who need a significantly higher volume of validations can leverage Mailgun Enterprise options to get the perfect plan for their needs whether it be email validation as a stand-alone or combined with other plans.

Start With Mailgun Send For Free >>

What’s the risk of not testing?

So, what could go wrong if you choose not to validate email addresses? Two words: email deliverability. All sorts of deliverability issues can be traced back to a failure to maintain good list hygiene:

• Inbox placement rates could plummet.
• You could end up with a recycled spam trap on your list.
• Your bounce rate could get too high, and you end up on an email blocklist.
• You’ll waste resources sending to invalid addresses.

To put it simply, a list full of invalid addresses will damage your sender reputation and reduce your ability to reach the inbox.

Let’s say you’re a B2B sender and Outlook starts filtering your messages into the junk folder because you’ve been sending mail to outdated contacts who’ve switched jobs.

If 30% of your B2B contacts are using Outlook, that’s nearly a third of your list that won’t be able to engage with newsletters, lead nurturing campaigns, product announcements, and more. It’s easy to see how that would negatively impact marketing efforts.

2.  Email pre-send testing

Want to see into the future and find out how your HTML email campaigns look inside subscribers’ inboxes? That’s one thing email pre-send testing can do. But why would you need to do this?

The way an email promotion or newsletter looks before you hit send may not be how it looks when someone opens it. That’s because email clients have different ways of handling code and different levels of support for HTML and CSS.

This is known as email rendering. Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo, Outlook, and all the rest have their own rendering engines and limitations. That’s why many marketing teams use tools to view email previews on various clients, devices, and mobile operating systems.

Email previews are screenshots of how your campaign renders in different scenarios. That could be on the Gmail App with a Pixel 7 using Android 13, or in Apple Mail with an iPhone 13 in dark mode on iOS 15 – just to name a couple of examples.

This type of email testing also goes beyond previews. Pre-send testing can include comprehensive email quality assurance (QA), using an automated checklist to do a complete review. That includes:

• Checking links and UTM parameters
• Validating images in emails
• Evaluating email accessibility
• Running basic deliverability checks
• Optimizing inbox display (subject lines, FROM name, and preview text)
• Catching typos, grammatical errors, and accidental profanities
• Viewing emails in dark mode on popular clients and devices

Note: There is another kind of email QA in which IT and software developers test SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers for sending email.

How does this email testing help?

There are plenty of reasons to conduct pre-send email testing. Three of the most significant are protecting your brand, supporting good email engagement, and maximizing email marketing ROI.

Email campaigns with broken layouts, broken links, and inaccessible content reflect poorly on you as a sender and brand. If people are unable to read your copy or click on your CTAs, your engagement rates will suffer. And if people can’t engage with email campaigns, they can’t convert. That reduces the impact of email and its potential to generate revenue.

On the other hand, an email that’s optimized for every inbox is also optimized for better performance and results.

If your team uses an automated email checklist, they’re more likely to catch problems before a big campaign hits inboxes. Email QA testing platforms typically include ways for teams to collaborate throughout the review and approval process so that everything gets signed off before launch.

How much is it likely to cost?

Once again, there are free and cheap testing options for previewing HTML emails. However, they tend to be very limited in the scope and volume of previews available. These free email testing tools also don’t offer any QA checks beyond the previews – which may or may not be reliable.

Starter plans for two of the most popular email pre-send testing solutions range from $74 to $99 per month. Some SaaS platforms use an email preview API to include client rendering test results as a feature of the software that adds value to users.

One thing that sets Sinch Email on Acid apart from alternatives is that it provides users with unlimited email testing. You can preview campaigns as many times as needed without any added charges for overages.

View Email on Acid Pricing >>

What’s the risk of not testing?

Email marketing QA prevents many problems. For example, a broken link in your CTA button could bring the ROI of that campaign down to zero. But let’s imagine what could happen if there are rendering issues.

What if you’d planned a big Black Friday email campaign but failed to test and preview it before sending? Turns out the campaign was unreadable on the Gmail app in dark mode. But that can’t be too many people, right?

Sinch Mailjet’s report, The path to email engagement 2024, found that more than 72% of consumers have a Gmail account, 71.5% primarily check email on a mobile device, and nearly 25% usually view emails in dark mode.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say this problem impacted just 20% of your list of 20-thousand customers. That’s 4,000 people who are very unlikely to engage and convert.

Your typical open rate is 30%, that means 1,200 of those 4,000 subscribers likely opened it. But when they did, the text disappeared into the background (including the coupon code). So, most people just delete their email. If you’d normally expect a 10% click rate on a BFCM campaign, that’s 120 online shoppers who won’t be able to take advantage of your Black Friday promotion.

3. Email A/B testing

Another way to boost email performance is to conduct split testing or email A/B testing.

This form of email testing lets marketers experiment with different ideas to find out what prompts contacts to take specific actions. The things you test are called variables and can include:

• Subject lines
• Headlines
• Send times
• Imagery/visuals
• Calls to action (CTAs)
• Button colors
• From names
• Messaging and content
• Personalization

For example, you may want to test if your CTA gets more clicks when it’s higher up in the email. Or you could split test a highly designed version of a campaign against a simple version that’s more like plain text.

How does this email testing help?

With A/B testing, you can stop guessing about what’s most interesting to your subscribers because you will know what makes them respond. Over time, you’ll gain a much deeper understanding of how to get your contacts to engage with email campaigns.

Sometimes, even the smallest changes can lead to impressive results. Other times, you’ll make what feels like a major change and your metrics barely move at all. That’s the fun of email A/B testing. You’re always learning and uncovering surprises.

How much is it likely to cost?

Many popular ESPs include email A/B testing as a feature of the software. However, some providers only offer basic subject line split tests. Because it’s for more advanced programs, comprehensive A/B testing may not be included in the free or trial versions.

For example, Sinch Mailjet offers A/B testing with its Premium plans, which start at $25 per month and come with a host of other plan upgrades. Mailjet A/B testing lets you experiment with up to 10 versions of an email simultaneously. Plus, you can define the criteria and parameters for the winning variable.

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What’s the risk of not testing?

The biggest risk of failing to split test email marketing elements is missing out on better performing campaigns. It’s hard to say how much regular A/B testing will affect email ROI. But one thing is for sure … It can only help, not hurt.

Let’s say you A/B test button copy using a more creative CTA in your email. Imagine you find the new copy increases click rates from 3% to 6%. If 7,500 people from your list of 25-thousand contacts open this email (30% open rate), that doubles the clicks to your website from 225 to 450.

Had you never taken a chance and tested the alternate CTA, you’d be missing a bunch of web traffic you could’ve attributed to email marketing efforts.

4. Inbox placement testing

This form of email testing may be called a spam test or seed testing. The point is to find out the likelihood of emails being filtered into spam rather than reaching the inbox.

Inbox placement testing is also known as seed testing because the process makes use of “seed mailboxes.” These are email accounts created for the specific purpose of testing inbox placement. You send your message to a collection of test mailboxes or “seedboxes” and receive a report with predictive results on inbox placement.

How does this email testing help?

Reviewing inbox placement reports shows you if a specific mailbox provider like Gmail or Outlook is likely to filter a message into spam or if emails are going missing due to a blocklisting or other issue.

Depending on the email deliverability tool, you may also be able to see your score from major anti-spam filters such as SpamAssassin and check to make sure email authentication protocols are working correctly.

All these email testing features help you catch deliverability issues before they cause serious problems.

How much is it likely to cost?

There are more than a free spam testing sites or “spam checkers” online. The problem with these free tools is they only examine individual emails for potential spam signals. At the very best, they’ll provide a spam score. But that’s far from the same thing as actual inbox placement testing.

Even when they use the same anti-spam technology, mailbox providers and email administrators can customize the settings. Ultimately, it’s up to the provider to decide how your emails are filtered. That’s why inbox placement testing is more reliable.

If you really care about reaching the inbox, consider a more comprehensive email deliverability solution. Mailgun Optimize offers inbox placement testing along with blocklist monitoring, email address/list validation, and even email previews. Plans start at $49 per month, and the first month is free.

Mailgun Optimize also provides users with actionable insights on how to improve inbox placement based on why it appears your emails are being filtered into spam. An inbox placement test takes less than 60 seconds to run, and it could save you from an email disaster.

View Mailgun Optimize Pricing

What’s the risk of not testing?

Imagine you run an ecommerce store and Gmail starts blocking your emails. You’ve been added to a blocklist and will spend a week trying to get delisted. In the meantime, you’ve got a weekly email promotion going out on Thursday that usually generates around $10K, that’s attributed to the email channel.

Let’s say 35% of your list of 30-thousand subscribers have Gmail addresses. That’s 10,500 people who won’t receive the weekly promotion, and some of them were eagerly anticipating it.

If 30% of your list doesn’t receive the promotion, it stands to reason that engagement and conversions will drop by the same percentage. So too could the revenue generated from that email. You’ll end up losing $3,000 because of a preventable deliverability issue.

Why email testing is good for business and your brand

Each one of these email testing options provides important benefits that give your email program an advantage. Now that you’re armed with some knowledge, you can decide what type of testing your company truly needs.

If you need to test email addresses, Mailgun Validate is one of the fastest and most reliable email verification tools on the market.

Want to optimize your email marketing campaigns for every inbox and every subscriber? Sinch Email on Acid’s unlimited previews combined with other features help you put your best email forward.

If you could use a little of everything, Mailgun Optimize provides validations, previews, and a host of deliverability features like inbox placement testing and integrations with Google Postmaters Tools as well as Microsoft SNDS.

In the end, you’ll find that investing in your email program is worth every penny. 75% of global consumers say they prefer getting promotional and transactional messages from brands via email. Email testing ensures you get delivered to the inbox and deliver your best.

The post Email Testing: The Risks, Costs, and Benefits Explained appeared first on Email on Acid.