THINKing

We Got Trouble Right Here In Email City

A new study is a blinding glimpse of the obvious: marketers’ HTML emails aren’t making it to the inbox as designed. The Email Experience Council, the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), released “Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study,” which says:

The study found that 23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked. Of the 77% that sent intelligible emails, there were significant variations in clarity based on their use of HTML text and alt tags. Only 42% of retailers designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images, and only 63% of retailers used alt tags on their images adequately or extensively. A marketer’s use of HTML text and alt tags are major determinants of the intelligibility of their emails.

There are a number ot technical reasons for increasing problems with deliverability. One of the major ones is Outlook 2007. I’m working on a white paper currently on email marketing and we’ll cover the topic of technical considerations in email design. More later…

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