New York Show Tickets Email HTML Specifications for 2010
Below are the email specifications and requirements for sending promotional emails through the nytix.com email system
 This document is intended as a check list for ad-agencies creating email promotions;
Specifically the web and email developers at SpotCo, Serino Coyne, Situation Marketing. MSG, Cirque du Soleil and Disney.
Email Blast Content and Design:
- Please send your email over in 2 versions - HTML and short text versions (This is for clients who have opted for “text only” emails)
- The HTML version should be as compact as possible
- The short text version should be no more than 50 words long
- The content for both should effectively capture the spirit of the offer
- Please supply a message subject line that summarizes the offer in a compelling way without being misleading. No more than 30% CAPS and keep it short and sweet with no punctuation marks.
- The HTML version must contain at least 150 words in text and be navigable and understandable without its graphics loaded, otherwise email recipients who receive HTML but block graphics will not be able to see the offer.
- Please do not put the offer expiration date in a graphic form - keep it in text form- you will be amazed how many times that the date is extended and significant graphic changes will be required.
 HTML Requirements:
- The HTML format needs to be 580 pixels wide, length to be around 1500 or so (This can vary depending on the content)
- The deliverable files should be sent over attached to email (all files can be zipped for efficiency)
- The attached deliverable files should contain HTML code, associated graphics and a short text version in ascii format
- Graphics should be in JPG format and correctly native-sized for use in the HTML code with no HTML resizing.
- All graphics should have appropriate alt-tags set, including the description of the graphic
- Please include a “buy now” link
- All graphics must have border value set - in most cases it will be 0, but it must be set.
- Don't allow graphics and text to share the same space - blocked graphic wraparounds throw the whole email out of whack across a slew of email readers.
The Please "Do Not Use" Rules
Web designers often get carried away and use inappropriate HTML elements in their email code to try to satisfy a clients graphical requirements.
Items that may work in one or two email systems fail miserably in most of them, destroying look and feel consistency of the email across email platforms. Unless the web designer intends to write separate HTML code for every email platform (Of which they often have little knowledge)
The following do-not-use rules apply to all emails:
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- Font styles
- BODY attributes (including body link, vlink, alink). Each link must be colored separately.
Your HTML will be part of a larger email format that you cannot dictate.
- Style sheets, CSS
- Hotspots for links, image maps
- DHTML Code
- Javascript
- Flash
- Animated GIF's
- Background images (Most email systems will reject)
- Certain color text/background matches like green/red, red/green, white/green and green/white
- DIV elements
- Non-standard HTML tags
(Usually generated by the Microsoft amateur-hour products like Frontpage, MS word and MS Publisher)
- Relative URL's:
- IFRAMES
- HTML image size override of the native image size
- FORM code
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Testing The EBlast
Often web designers will test their newly created eblast in a browser like IE9, Chrome and Firefox. The problem with the results is that web browsers are far more tolerant of HTML errors than the actual email clients like Blackberry, Gmail, Eudora Pro, Yahoo Mail, Outlook etc. The only true way one can test an email is to send an email to multiple email clients and properly review the results
The Ampersand "&" in Telecharge Sales Hyperlinks
 A well documented problem with Telecharge hyperlinks that use the ampersand character in the URL can cause problems with the eblast functionality.
Telecharge sales links often contain an "&" that passes additional information on the link. Discount codes or affiliate codes are the most common passed elements .
The ampersand character is automatically converted to "&" in many web development tools (Including all versions of Dreamweaver) because that is in fact the correct HTML standard. The problem is that the link may no longer function correctly after its been converted to "&". What makes it even more tricky is that some email systems are just fine with the change, while others balk at using the HTML "correct" version URL.
Email developers need to be sure that the links that they have provided in the email HTML do not contain "&" at the HTML code level. Otherwise it's a pain to remember to remove them every time - If you overlook removing the offending code just once its a potential problem eblast with many clients unable to open the link. An error on a web page can easily be rectified in seconds, but errors in emails are forever, you have no way of getting them back.
Example of a Well Developed Email Ready For Eblast
For an example of a good email ready for the eblast portion of the marketing process Click Here.
The email featured finds a happy medium between HTML and text, ensuring deliverability and ultimate promise of success.
To view the email in raw HTML click here |
