Most of you probably know the following problem: You edit an HTML, view the result in your browser and happy with it.Then, you send it through different mail providers (AOL,YAHOO,GMAIL...), and discover that after going through their mail servers it may look
completely different (not to say worse) than you've expected it to. The view differs not only between what you see in your own browser before and after sending the HTML as an email, but between different email providers as well. A short "view source" will convince you that each email provider CHANGES (generically) the HTML.
My question:
A.I've heard there's an application allowing you to check how your html would look after going through each one of the US main email providers, so I can edit my html respectively. Can you tell me where I can find it?
B.Alternative ingenious solution? (less preferable..)
The only application I know which checks a lot of email providers is MailChimps' Inbox Inspector: http://www.mailchimp.com/features/power_features/inbox_inspector/. It sends screenshots of your email from several different inboxes. However, it's not free.
Alternatively, you can use appropriate HTML for emails, which will result in the same email in almost every inbox. Apprpriate HTML for emails are:
Use tables instead of divs
Use inline styles
Don't use background images
Do not float
Related
I am a newbie and this it is the first time that I have created an html and css code.
I have written a newsletter and now I would like to send it but I do not have idea about how.
Right now the situation is as following:
I have a folder with an HTML file, a folder with the CSS file and another Folder with all the images.
Now I would like to send it, but as I said before I do not know how.
I have red that I need to make a unique file HTML and CSS (HTML with an in line CSS). Is that the only way to go?
Which program do you suggest to send the newsletter?
Where should I store the images in order to make them visible to the recipients?
Any suggestion???
Like everyone above me, I would recommend Mailchimp too.
Now why it would be ideal in your situation is 'cos:
Since you've already created a separate html and css file, merging it into inline styles is going to take considerable effort if you have a lot of content. Mailchimp has a wide variety of templates to choose from where you can just pick a template which suits you and add just the content part.
Newsletters are very tricky to code since all email clients display content in a different way unless you're really proficient at writing newsletter html files from scratch. For eg, the email client Outlook (Microsoft) will ignore margins and some other css properties. The templates from Mailchimp have been perfected to show your content exactly like your design across almost all major email clients.
If you're going to send out a big number of newsletters, your newsletters might go into spam folders based on a variety of reasons. Mailchimp has authentication so that unless you go against some obvious law, your newsletter will land in your recipient's inbox.
You can also host your images on your own server and ask Mailchimp to reference that location. I do this when I send out newsletter for my website.
Its even got free plans to help start you out and see if it works out for you.
Try Mailchimp it is faster, easier and gives more options.
There are many tools availbale which gives services for sending emails also many other features.
As your HTML mailer is ready with image folders. Try to use inline style and for the images use full path like http://company.com/image/name.jpg ofcourse you have to place this HTML file and image folder on the server as well. And then you have to copy all the HTML code and place in any marketing tool and then you ready to send emails.
Mailchimp
Pardot
Constant Contact
you can choose constant contact to sending email.they offer 30 days free trial.
MailChimp is a good bet. Their API is wide enough to get into customising the hell out of their standard templates. Watch their pricing though, it can get out of hand the larger your cliental gets!
How do you add HTML into an email in Blackberry?
I've tried multipart emails, but that does not seem to work. I am asking how to send an HTML formatted email from an application running on a Blackberry, if I am wording too vaguely, please let me know how to rephrase my question
All HTML emails work the same way - the HTML is in the email body and any images must have a fully-qualified url (http://...).
CSS support is limited and must be defined inline statements (style="") on each element (no stylesheets). Background images are not supported. Tables must be used for layouts (awful but true).
You are talking about the HTML mailers, which are tricky and depend on the client Machine, where they will be eventually seen. Your HTML should be fully table layout based, Styles need to be inline. Below is an HTML mailer that is like almost perfect to display correctly on any device, whether it is MAC or PC or iPad or Blackberry.
http://www.dreamincode.net/iem/display.php?M=2016&C=f945ef50b90408df6b2eb3054df75e79&S=63&L=1&N=25
If you view the source of this page, you would come to know how the mailers need to be build out.
To send the mailers as a mass mailing list you need an Email Marketing Software's.
I'm trying to figure out where to put some code in an email. You know how you can get newsletters with styling and images, etc? I wanted to send some out but I cant figure out where to put the code. Do you add the images as attachments? Do you put the code in the body?
or should you upload the .html file as well?
Build the page as a normal HTML page. Use TABLES (yes, TABLES) for your layout. You can use inline CSS, but you cannot use a stylesheet. All images must be fully-qualified (http://yoursite.com/images/). Don't make it wider than about 650 pixels. No JavaScript.
View your newsletter HTML in a browser
Do a select-all, and copy
Paste it into a new message and send it to yourself
See what you end up with
Try other mail clients
Various mail clients will mess with your markup and your styles. What works on Gmail will look like poop on Outlook etc. It will be an exercise in frustration. Test, test, test.
Assume all images will NOT BE SHOWN when the user originally views the email.
Here's a good guide to what works and what doesn't:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
My advice: keep it simple - a logo and some text and a link to the real newsletter. Making email newsletters is a fine art, and frankly, people prefer to read them in a browser where they behave like a web page.
Sending out HTML emails eigh?
There can be a lot of problems you will quickly encounter, mostly revolving around each email client having their own different way of handling things. The aim here is to keep your email as small, simple, and unbroken as possible.
The message:
Each language has it's own requirements, you need to check with the language you are using to see what is easier, to do it inline as part of the mailing script, or to have it inserted through a HTML file, etc. So for more details here, post the language you're using.
Layout:
This is where message simplicity comes in. The best layouts are usually the most simple ones, especially considering not all email clients are 100% HTML standards compliant. You won't know how big your client's viewing window for the email will be nor can you force it to any size or pop it out. Remember that it's goal is to be a message, not a webpage. Usually simple flexible/elastic tables will do the trick just fine if you have anything more advanced than simple paragraphs.
Images:
Link everything statically (statically means http:\\www. ....mypicture.png as opposed to dynamic linking which looks like this \images\mypicture.png) hosted from your server. The reason for this is so that you will have no broken links, your email will be smaller in size (as opposed to attatching). The downside is that some clients may ask about showing pictures. The cold hard truth is that this cannot be avoided no matter which method you use (See for more details).
Links:
Again, link everything statically. Local/dynamic link's won't work and your recipients will be mighty unhappy.
CSS
Either have your CSS classes at the top, or everything in-line (< ... style="..." />). You don't want to attach a CSS file, it's messy and unconventional.
Scripts
Inline or at the top of your file, for the same reason as above.
Additional Documents
If you want to include PDF's or DOCX's, etc, the best and most common methodology is just like images, to host on your server and simply include a static link in your email to them. It keeps file size down and you don't have to worry about what each and every email browser/reader is going to do.
First, why (historically) was conversion tracking implemented by html pixel tracking versus using other small and able-to-be-made-nearly-invisible html elements which could provide the same information? Curious why html images were used as opposed to other methods.
Second, many email clients, e.g. Outlook and Gmail don't display images in html emails by default as a means to "protect your identity". Why do images provide greater exposure of information than the other markup elements in the page? They all show up in some server's web log as a GET from some IP address with some possible query string parms, so I'm not sure why images represent additional risk.
versus using other small and able-to-be-made-nearly-invisible html elements which could provide the same information?
Name one! I can't think of one except images, at least not in good old HTML 4, which still is the standard for rich E-Mail until this day. External style sheets would be a possibility nowadays, but don't get loaded in E-Mails. Background images could be disabled. iframes came later.
They all show up in some server's web log as a GET from some IP address with some possible query string parms, so I'm not sure why images represent additional risk.
When an image resource is embedded into an E-Mail, the time when that image is loaded is the time when the user reads the E-Mail. Plus, the IP the image is pulled from is the IP the recipient is logged on to the Internet with at that moment. A badly patched Windows installation might be enough to facilitate an attack with this.
From the request, it is also maybe possible to determine the recipient's operating system, whether they're behind a Firewall / router, which Internet provider they're with, where roughly they are located.... All already very, very sensitive information.
When you load an image from a site, you make a request to that sites http server. The request contains header information which is pretty extensive.
Images were there from the first HTML spec, which explains their common usage. <iframe>, <object>, <script> and all the other embeddable elements came in later editions and were not always supported or enabled in the browser.
Displaying images in HTML Emails can be seen as a "security risk" as confirmation for spammers that somebody actually reads their spam mails.
I have seen some mails which has HTML content embedded in them. The content of the mail changes as the corresponding webpage in their site change(for example price of stocks which keeps updating in the mail itself). How to link such webpage content into emails?
In other words how to link a web page into an email so that whenever I change the html page, the mail content also changes.
Thanks...
A thought: maybe they are using an image that is downloaded from the server?
As you can't have JavaScript in an email or even most CSS, I'm guessing this might be one of the only ways. I'm pretty sure that one email client or service removes every piece of "special" HTML: iframes, JavaScript, CSS, Flash, etc.
You could place an image in your HTML - which was updated by you on your server.
This may be impossible due to security limitations, but you may be able to use an iframe element.
Not a solution, but a quick answer from my site on this topic as a user: Beside the point that Javascript/Image/IFrame/Flash solutions doesn't reliable work in all email clients, but are a general security risk, I dislike the basic idea of changing the looks of an email after you have send it without the receivers approval. Additionally you make it very easy for the user to be tracked (working hours, locations, view) and that is definitely NOT in the interest of the users. If you have something important or interesting to tell just provide a link to your site plus a short description...