|
Posted by PTM on July 26, 2006, 11:11 am
Please log in for more thread options
> Adrienne Boswell wrote:
>>> hi,
>>>
>>> I'm designing an HTML email for a client.. I know general guidelines
>>> (no CSS, no JavaScript... although I do use limited CSS, inside tags
>>> (as in <span style=".."> we do this at work and it works fine, so I
>>> figured it's ok..)
>>>
>>> but I have a few more questions, for example, is it ok to do
>>> client-side image-maps? is there a web page somewhere with general
>>> guidelines for HTML e-mails? (and what is best way to test HTML
>>> e-mails? (I look @ pg in browser, of course, but well, how to tell
>>> how it'll look in diverse e-mail clients?)
>>>
>>> thank you..
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Remember that a lot of people do not accept HTML email, or are unable to
>> view it. There are also a lot of people on dial-up connections, that
>> they might even have to pay for by the hour, so downloading HTML email
>> takes a lot longer than plain text email. Even some web mail services
>> (Yahoo, for one) will block images, mostly
>> to prevent email tracking, so image maps could be a real problem.
>
> yes, I have noticed that some web mail services (even webmail for my own
> POP acct) does that (and there's usu a msg saying "for your privacy we
> have deleted this image" or something like that.. why is this? what is
> "e-mail tracking"? how are images used to do this?
>>
>> The best is plain text, with a link to the information.
>
> yes I know, but well, folks in the corp world are very fond of sending
> HTML e-mails.. I just follow orders...;) where I work we send tons of
> newsletters every day... all of them HTML emails.. now as far as sending
> them, I don't how they send them at work, but the way I usu. do it is load
> it in browser and then do file --> send --> page by e-mail.. is this best
> way to do this? (yes of course this is a proper way to test, but you can't
> really know how it'll look for everyone.. but I guess Harlan is right, if
> it looks ok in Outlook and a mozilla-based client (such as Thunderbird) it
> should look ok in most situations.. thank you for your response..
>
>
if you're only sending one or two emails a day to a few people, then doing
it the way you are now is fine.
however if your doing many mails to many recipients, then some sort of
script or mail merge would be better. I've never used mail merge before so
not sure how to do that. I run my mailshot through an smtp server and use
my own php script to generate the emails. both these solutions also allow
you to limit the sent-to email address to just one person, this helps
maintain privacy. of course if you go the php route you need access to a web
server with php installed.
Phil
| 
XML Sitemap