Retail Email Messaging Rendering Report
June 13, 2008 – 8:27 pmA recent report by the eec and SubscriberMail brings to light startling information regarding design and rendering of retail email messages.
Despite the growth of image-blocked emails, only 42% of the 104 top online retailers included in the study designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images, and only 63% used alt tags adequately or extensively.
What does this mean for those emailers? Most of their messages, are difficult, if not impossible to read. (23% were deemed completely unreadable when images were blocked - not exactly a comforting statistic.) If a recipient can not read your email, or have access to your offer without downloading the images, there is a very good chance that you’ll be moved directly into the trash folder.
As a customer, I’d also think less of the retailer who didn’t take the small amount of time it takes to create an email blast that could be read with images disabled. The problems grow even more if you consider email delivery to mobile devices.
Read more from the report from the eec’s Retail Email Blog (includes a link to download the full 41-page report.)
One Response to “Retail Email Messaging Rendering Report”
I still send text only email, mostly because it is easily read on mobile devices. Most my messages are a teaser line or a Johnson Box type overview with a link to my blog.
Adding the ability to comment on the article does wonders for me, bringing me tons of feedback.
By Chris Lang on Jun 14, 2008