Whenever you plan on building a new eNewsletter, it's recommended to adhere to best practice so your eNewsletter will render and function correctly in the widest range of email clients.
In this guide, we'll take you through a range of different topics to help ensure the best compatibility.
Image Sizes
Try not to use an image which is drastically larger than it needs to be. Our eNewsletter builder will scale your images down, however using large image files can lead to problems with various email clients as well as making the eNewsletter slow to load for recipients.
Instead, determine how big (typically how wide) in pixels the image needs to be and arrange for it to be saved exactly or very close to that width.
Tip: Our eNewsletters are 700px wide by default. So sizing your image to 700px wide before uploading will optimise your image size for 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 word processing application (such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft 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 from your word processing application into a plain text editor, such as Notepad, first. This will remove any unusual formatting that word processing applications tend to add.
(Word processors will generally add in lots of additional and unnecessary code that won't work in an eNewsletter and can make the eNewsletter appear differently than expected.) - Pasting text from PDF files can cause spacing issues, or create new lines & paragraphs where you don't intend them to appear (this is due to the way PDF files work).
eNewsletter Size
The size of your eNewsletter can impact your eNewsletter 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/or rendering speed. A large eNewsletter body might cause a long-lasting message loading process, and/or might be rendered just partially, so your recipients will see just parts of images or clipped content.
The common recommendation is to keep 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 can be seen in a recent Sporty eNewsletter:
Our eNewsletter 'News Article' widget makes the 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 (example below).
In the above example you can see we've kept our eNewsletter clear and concise. The most important information is above the fold, so our recipients can easily digest our message right after they open the eNewsletter.
Image - Only eNewsletters
We don't recommend making your eNewsletter only out of images.
Users with screen-reader software (such as persons with a vision impairment), as well as users with voice assistants such as Google Assistance, Siri, etc will not be able to detect anything usable inside your eNewsletter and 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's 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, it’s always best to test it. Send an eNewsletter to yourself and/or your colleagues to see how your eNewsletter will appear in your Inbox.