How Do Your Emails Look to Your Customers?

A recent report reveals that email renderability is the key element which determines the response rate to email communications. What do we mean by ‘renderability’? - how well does your email recipients’ computers render the code that comprises your email. In other words, does your email look the same on your customers’ screen as it does on yours?

When you design your email newsletter – particularly if you’re using a lot of graphics – what looks good on your screen may not look the same to your customers according to a report published by the Email Experience Council (EEC).  What you see is not necessarily what they get.

There are a number of reasons for the variations in renderability. Top of the list is the increased use of spam filters – most of which can be set to either filter out emails containing images or to remove images from an email before rendering on screen. In some cases where users are employing aggressive spam filters, email newsletters can often end up being rendered as totally blank or at the least, lacking any graphics or links.

The Rendering Report by the EEC analysed 1,000 B2B and B2C emails and assessed their renderability. A staggering 21% of the emails tested were found to be blank, with an additional 28% containing failed hyperlinks.

So what can you do to avoid similar issues with your own email marketing communications? The solution of choice is to offer 2 versions of the email: one HTML version and one in plain text. Be sure that the key messages – for example contact details or calls to action – are displayed prominently. Test the results and make sure your links are clickable and pointing to the right places.