Whenever you plan to build a new eNewsletter, we recommend following best practice so that it renders and functions correctly in the widest range of email clients.
In this guide, we cover the following topics to help ensure the best compatibility:
Image Sizes
Try not to use an image that is drastically larger than it needs to be. Our eNewsletter builder will scale your images down; however, large image files can cause problems in some email clients and make the eNewsletter slow to load for recipients.
Instead, determine how wide (in pixels) the image needs to be, and save it at exactly that width or very close to it.
Tip: Our eNewsletters are 700px wide by default, so resizing your image to 700px wide before uploading will optimise it for your eNewsletter.
Content & Text
The content (text) in your eNewsletter is generally the most important part, as it is the crux of what you’re communicating. Some things to consider when working with content in our eNewsletter builder:
- Creating content in another application (such as Microsoft Word or Outlook) can cause issues when pasting that content into the eNewsletter you’re building. We generally recommend writing your eNewsletter inside the editor provided, or pasting your content into a plain text editor, such as Notepad, first. This will remove any unusual formatting that word processors tend to add. (Word processors will generally add lots of additional, unnecessary code that won’t work in an eNewsletter and can make it appear differently from how you expect.)
- Pasting text from PDF files can cause spacing issues or create new lines and paragraphs where you don’t intend them to appear (due to the way PDF files work).
eNewsletter Size
The size of your eNewsletter can affect its deliverability and rendering. Large eNewsletters can trigger spam filters, and some providers have their own limits for receiving emails. For example, Gmail clips the body of messages over 102 KB.
Another aspect of large eNewsletters is their loading and rendering speed. A large eNewsletter body can take a long time to load, or may render only partially, so your recipients will see only parts of images or clipped content.
The common recommendation is to keep the eNewsletter body size between 15 KB and 100 KB. You can check this by sending a test to yourself and reviewing the size of the eNewsletter from your inbox.
With this in mind, it’s best to keep your eNewsletter concise and to the point. You can optimise your eNewsletter body size by removing unnecessary content. For example, instead of putting all your information or news in the body of your eNewsletter, use links to direct recipients to your Sporty News Articles or website.
A good example of this is this Sporty eNewsletter:
Our eNewsletter News Article widget makes use of Read More links, so you can effectively share news while also driving traffic to your website.
Aim to keep your eNewsletter clean and clear. The shorter the message, the higher the probability that it will be read to the end. Sometimes extra sections confuse the reader and blur the main idea of the eNewsletter.
Ideally, your recipients should be able to understand what your eNewsletter is about right after they open it. Put the most important information above the fold, which is the part visible without scrolling (see the example below).
In the example above, we’ve kept our eNewsletter clear and concise. The most important information is above the fold, so recipients can easily digest our message as soon as they open it.
Image - Only eNewsletters
We don’t recommend making your eNewsletter out of images only.
People who use screen-reader software (for example, people with a vision impairment) or voice assistants such as Google Assistant and Siri will not be able to detect anything usable inside your eNewsletter. These systems will ignore it or mark it as spam/junk.
It’s not possible to search for text inside an image, so if someone is trying to find your eNewsletter in their inbox, it will be almost impossible for them to do so.
Additionally, an eNewsletter with very little text may be filtered into the spam folder by some email clients.
Test Your eNewsletter
Before sending your eNewsletter, always test it first. Send a test to yourself and/or your colleagues to see how your eNewsletter will appear in an inbox.