Want to make sure your marketing emails actually reach the inbox and engage your audience? It's not just about compelling copy; the design and format play a crucial role. Here's a breakdown of content and format best practices to optimize your email deliverability and engagement:
Text-to-Image Ratio
The Golden Rule: Aim for a healthy balance of text and images. A good starting point is 60% text and 40% images. This refers to the proportion of text to images in your email's overall content. Think of it like a pie chart: 60% of the pie should be text (headings, body copy, etc.), and 40% should be images.
Why it Matters: Email providers can flag emails with too many images (or no text at all) as spam. Plus, some email clients block images by default, leaving your readers with a blank email if there's not enough text.
Image Optimization
Size Matters: Keep your image file sizes small to ensure fast loading times. Aim for images under 200KB whenever possible. Use tools like TinyPNG to compress images without sacrificing quality.
Dimensions: While dimensions depend on your email template, a good rule of thumb is to keep images around 600-800 pixels wide.
File Type: Stick to common web-friendly formats like JPEG and PNG.
Responsive Design: Ensure your text and images scale properly on different devices using the mobile preview option in the template builder.
Overall Email File Size
The Lighter, the Better: A large email file size can slow down loading times and even cause emails to be clipped or not delivered at all. A specific size limit hasn't been provided by email clients, but we should strive to reduce the overall file size as much as possible to give our emails the best chance of reaching the inbox.
Content Formatting
Structure is Key: Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to break up text and make your email easy to scan.
Font Choice: Stick to web-safe fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia with a font size between 14-16 pixels for easy readability.
Mobile First: Most people check their email on their phones. Design your email with a mobile-first approach, ensuring it looks good on smaller screens. Consider using a single-column layout for optimal mobile viewing.