Zrinity Email Marketing Blog

More discussion from the Ultimate Email Design Guide:

{B2C ALERT}: Use inline CSS text‐decoration property to underline in the tag of
every link where you wish to have the link underlined.

• Some email recipients such do not underline hyperlinked text so the underlines must be forced in the code. I have also noticed this with some of the blogging systems where they do not automatically underline hypertext. I do not understand the logic since our observances indicate that underlined hypertext and any other aid that can be utilized to scream that the text, or image, is a link is highly successful. Images that say click here or even images in general tend to get more clicks than plain text or images with no “Click Here” type of call to action. No matter what the reason, you do need to tell the email recipients such MSN that hypertext is linked to someplace.

Use tables and nested tables for layout. Don’t use background images or spacer images.

• Images don’t do much when they are typically not there. Those who are already defined as somebody likely to click on your email will “Click to View Images” or better yet “Always Show Images From This Sender” but what if they might be on the edge? In this case you need your layout to be well defined. Don’t use tables to try to get too fancy, but the basic layout should remain in tact no matter who it is delivered too.

Always assign colors! Even if the text color you desire is black, always define it as black.

• It is better to over define your HTML. Always define colors since some default color settings can wreak havoc with your email campaigns.

More Resources: Ultimate Email Design Guide, Email Best Practices Case Studies, On-Premise Email Marketing