The finer details
Things like image weight and preview text can hinder the inbox experience with awkward cutoffs and long load times. If your emails aren’t optimized, customers are more likely to move on to the next item in their inbox.
Lighten up
Heavy HTML can cause email clients to cut you off before you’ve finished your point (email). Clipped emails, in addition to being unsightly, can effect click-thru-rate if compelling content is at the bottom.
What are you scoring, anyway?
Our 8-point email scoring follows email marketing best practices, allowing you to ensure your email program is set up for inbox success:
Inbox friendly subject line length
- Your subject line has one job: to get the email opened. It’s very difficult for your subject line to do it’s job when it gets interrupted (aka: truncated) halfway through. This is why we recommend using shorter subject lines.
Mobile optimization
- 62% of emails are opened on mobile. It is vital to engage with recipients on their turf.
Optimized preview text
- If the subject line is Batman, then the preview text is Robin: It’s the sidekick you need to get emails opened. The native iPhone email app displays 30-40 characters of a subject line and twice as many characters of preview text. Optimize this marketing space by avoiding wasteful words such as “click here” or “view online.”
Replyable email address
- Using catch-alls like `no-reply` is a `no-no`. Make subscribers feel like an individual – not just another email address by opening up a line of two-way communication. Even if you don’t have the bandwidth to respond to these replies, you can still use a replyable address.
G-mail friendly HTML weight
- While it may seem geeky, the size of the HTML code in an email does matter. Gmail, one of the largest email clients, “clips” emails at 102KB of HTML. Try keeping your HTML weight (excluding images) to less than 100KB. A good trick is to remove tabs and spaces — this can account for ~30% of the email weight.
Sensible image weight
- Large, heavy, images load slowly in subscribers’ inboxes. This is particularly a burden for those on mobile or with slow connections — which can lead to lower engagement. Optimize your emails to load quickly by keeping images to under 800KB. Pro tip: When including animated GIFs, consider removing any unnecessary frame from the GIF.
Passing DKIM and SPF checks
- Failing DKIM or SPF can lead to dramatic deliverability woes. Make sure all your email records are properly set.
Spam filter compliancy
- Ensure the content and structure of each email is not “spammy.” Misspellings, spammy words, all caps, and plenty of exclamation points (!!!!!!) are big spam red flags. Pro tip: Check potential spam issues for free here.
