How To Create A Successful Email Newsletter

The Success Formula

1. Always Use Tables
2. If you have to use CSS, use Inline CSS, padding, borders, fonts, colors, but NOT background-images or margins
3. If you need background images, they only work in TD table cells, coded traditionally, not CSS.
4. 'Body' background images... won't work. Better to have a big Table width 100%, height 100% with a background in the TD.
5. Need a specific height? It'll only work as a traditional height='x' & width='x' not CSS.
6. Use images for text as little as possible and if you do, make sure that you use good alt tag descriptions of the images.
   

Gmail Tips

User Selected Gmail Themes

Problem: The introduction of Gmail Themes—which allows users to change default background, text and link colors in their inbox—has made it even more difficult to code HTML emails so that they render consistently in Gmail. The problem arises when subscribers use certain Themes and marketers don’t define the color of every background, text and link. Under certain circumstances you can end up with light text or links on a light background, or dark text and links on a dark background, making the email difficult or impossible to read.
Solution: Define all background, text and link colors. More themes and layouts.

Alt Text Traps

Problem: Gmail displays more than just the sender and subject in the user's inbox. You also get a snippet of text from the email's body appended to the subject line.
Solution #1: Place the text you want Google to pick up at the top of your email.
Solution #2: Gmail doesn't just pick up free-standing text, it also reads the text in the alt attribute listed in your image code: alt = '' You can exploit that by putting a transparent 1x1 pixel image at the very top of your email and giving it the alt text you want Gmail to display.