SUBJECT LINE
- Maximum 80 Characters
- Most important words should appear in the first 5-7 words
- HTML not allowed in the subject line
EMAIL CONTENT – TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- Format: HTML
- Maximum file size: 150KB (html + images)
- Recommended width: 500 – 700 pixels
- Recommended height: 500 – 1000 pixels
- Use inline-CSS only
- All the content must reside BETWEEN <body> and </body>
o Some email clients purge everything outside of <body> tag, including the attributes defined in <body> tag.
- Image formats allowed: GIF or JPEG only
- All the graphics used must be 72dpi
- Text: Maximum 300 words
**NOT ALLOWED**
- Background images
- Nested background colors
- Flash, or other plugins
- Javascript
- Animated GIF
- BMP, TIFF, and any other formats besides PNG, GIF or JPEG
- <object>, <embed>, <form>, <style>, <script> tags
- CSS floats, CSS positioning
- Web Fonts as HTML, use default System fonts
DESIGN TIPS
- Instead of using cellpadding to create margins, use <div style=”margin:5px”>.
- All the hex numbers for colors must start with #.
- Defined alt attribute in all the main images.
- Include the most important message at the top of the email.
- Use text instead of graphic for your tagline or important message.
- The email should make sense even without the graphics for those recipient who block images by default.
- Avoid thick borders, spam-like words, and excessively large fonts
PLEASE NOTE
There really isn’t a standard for HTML email. What appears fine in one email client doesn’t look right in another. This makes it almost impossible to create a dynamic HTML email that will display well in every email client application.
The guideline provided above will help ensure your mailing will appear as intended ( or close to it ) on major email clients such as MS Outlook 2003, MS Outlook 2007, Hotmail, Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and AOL.
Different email clients have different limitations and restrictions. To list a few –
- Outlook 2007 does not support:
o Animated GIF, background images, nested background colors
o CSS floats, CSS positioning
- Yahoo! Mail and Gmail:
o Renders only the content between <body> tags