When’s the final time you took a have a look at your electronic mail templates?
Should you’re like most electronic mail entrepreneurs, it’s perhaps been some time. It may be so tempting to “set and neglect” one thing like your electronic mail templates. In any case, the entire level of making them is to make the e-mail sending course of extra streamlined. However if you happen to don’t commonly audit and check your templates, you might be sending emails with errors…and you’ll by no means know.
Why templates can’t be “set and neglect it”
That’s as a result of inbox suppliers always change their software program, so code that labored sooner or later could not work the following time you ship. Simply final month I used to be testing certainly one of our welcome templates and saved seeing this bizarre bug pop up in Outlook 365 that I might have sworn wasn’t there the day earlier than.
One other time, a brief outdated bug broke the whole lot in Yahoo! for a number of days. It was a simple sufficient repair to deploy, however as soon as the Yahoo! workforce rolled again that change, it was my repair that began to interrupt the whole lot.
Wouldn’t it’s good if electronic mail purchasers would inform you forward of any main releases? Sigh. Possibly sometime.
Within the meantime, you should set up a set routine for auditing and testing your electronic mail templates. That’s why it’s so essential to return to your tried-and-true templates and retest them, particularly as you’re making new electronic mail campaigns, since you simply don’t know when one thing like that’s going to occur.
7 issues to search for when testing templates
At Electronic mail on Acid, we check each single time we ship an electronic mail, in order that covers our publication and one-off marketing campaign templates. However it’s essential to set a reminder in your calendar as soon as a month — or at a minimal, as soon as 1 / 4 — to shortly run your templates via one other check. Right here’s what to look out for:
1. Outdated code
First, have a look via the code of the emails. Does it match the way you’re at the moment coding new ones? Are you using hacky workarounds that you simply don’t want to make use of anymore? Have a look and clear up any code if you happen to can — it’s going to solely make your job simpler later.
With outdated code, you wish to take into consideration the minor parts that get handed down yr to yr. Initially of each calendar yr, verify the copyright date and your footers. Some ESPs like MailChimp do have shortcodes that mechanically replace, however you’ll most likely have to do that manually every January.
Ensure you verify and check any customized tokens that seem in your electronic mail. You by no means know when a change in knowledge construction inadvertently reveals FIRST_NAME as an alternative of … the person’s first title!
2. Damaged hyperlinks
The worst factor in an electronic mail is a damaged hyperlink. Not solely does it present a irritating expertise to your subscriber, it usually defeats all the function of the e-mail.
As you construct new net pages, replace outdated weblog posts, or transfer from one CMS to a different, it’s a good time to double verify these templates. You by no means know when a redirect doesn’t work proper or breaks.
One other factor to look out for? Double-checking your hyperlink monitoring in your templates will get switched out as wanted (and ensuring they’re there within the first place!) If you wish to understand how properly you’re performing, it does no good to have six completely different emails with the identical UTM since you forgot to vary out the monitoring final time you copied the template.
3. Lacking photographs
Lacking photographs could be brought on by modifications in electronic mail consumer assist, nevertheless it will also be from extra mundane points like a picture file degrading or being by chance deleted inside your ESP or content material supply community (CDN). Double-check that sizes nonetheless work, that photographs nonetheless load on all purchasers, and that your GIFs stay optimized.
4. Darkish mode assist
One surefire option to know if you final examined your templates is that if they’re coded for darkish mode assist. Launched for each Android and iPhone in 2019, it’s nonetheless a comparatively new factor of electronic mail assist — nevertheless it’s change into so fashionable that it’s value confirming that electronic mail purchasers aren’t inverting colours, eliminating distinction, or typically trying bizarre. We put collectively a full darkish mode guidelines right here.
A 2021 survey from Ascend2 and Pathwire discovered 59% of entrepreneurs are testing emails in darkish mode. One other 20% deliberate to start out darkish mode electronic mail testing within the close to future. Should you’re unsure whether or not or not your templates work in darkish mode, now is a good time to verify.
5. Accessibility modifications
It’s all the time value double-checking your templates for accessibility. That is about greater than complying with guidelines and laws (which can themselves have modified) however about ensuring everybody in your viewers can learn and act in your emails with the absolute best subscriber expertise.
Which means enthusiastic about these and different facets of electronic mail accessibility:
- Coloration distinction for hyperlinks and branding
- Alt tags on photographs
- Font sizes
- Video captions
- Common readability
- White house and total padding
6. Outdated branding
What you’re most certainly to search out, although, with templates, is just a operate of time: Outdated messaging and branding. Even if you happen to haven’t just lately rebranded your colours, fonts, or different kinds, the feel and appear of your emails evolves over time.
You wish to be sure you’re staying constant all through your whole electronic mail templates for:
- Emblem utilization
- Fonts
- Branding colours
- Taglines
- Model, product, and have names
- Fashion conventions, like capitalized headers
Past normal model parts, it’s essential to guarantee that the outcomes of your A/B assessments filter down into your templates. If a design factor constantly wins out — say, a particular CTA button shade or publication structure — then it’s essential to verify your templates replicate that change. Equally, if you happen to discover that you simply not use a sure shade (bear in mind when everybody had orange CTA buttons?) it’s time to make these modifications.
7. Adjustments in consumer assist
It typically appears like electronic mail consumer assist modifications with the whims of the wind.
However if you happen to’re seeing one thing break in your common electronic mail campaigns for a particular consumer, then it’s positively time to have a look via your templates. With Electronic mail on Acid, you may see tons of of previews of your emails in the entire most-popular mailbox suppliers and units, so that you’ll know in seconds if one thing isn’t working.
Should you establish any points…
Okay, so that you’ve recognized a problem along with your templates. Now what?
If it’s one thing actually wonky, it’s all the time a good suggestion to verify in with the e-mail growth group and see if Outlook is wreaking havoc once more (let’s be actual, it’s nearly all the time Outlook) or if it’s a missed curly-brace bracket or one thing easy in your finish.
Should you discover damaged hyperlinks or outdated branding, be certain that to loop in your electronic mail designers and another stakeholders within the advertising and marketing workforce — they might wish to take the chance to utterly revisit the template, or at the very least have a look at the info and see if one thing is value A/B testing.
That’s additionally why it’s so essential to have an electronic mail fashion information or design system in place, so you recognize precisely what conventions you ought to be working with. Embrace the whole lot from button sizes to padding to title case so you might have a guidelines. Electronic mail advertising and marketing is tough sufficient with out having to recollect these tiny particulars!
Discover out extra about how electronic mail builders and designers can work collectively.
Take a look at your templates with Electronic mail on Acid
Whether or not you select to check your templates each month or each quarter, Electronic mail on Acid makes it simple so that you can verify for damaged hyperlinks, lacking photographs, consumer assist modifications, and extra.
Our automated electronic mail pre-send guidelines walks you thru every space and gives dependable electronic mail previews with options for suggestions and collaboration. Plus, our customers take pleasure in limitless electronic mail testing. So, check as a lot as you should. You’ll by no means hit a restrict.
Writer: Megan Boshuyzen
Megan is a graphic designer turned electronic mail developer who’s labored on all facets of electronic mail advertising and marketing. She believes good emails for good causes make a constructive distinction on this planet. Megan is at the moment working as an electronic mail developer for Sinch Electronic mail. Go to her web site and study extra at megbosh.com.
Writer: Megan Boshuyzen
Megan is a graphic designer turned electronic mail developer who’s labored on all facets of electronic mail advertising and marketing. She believes good emails for good causes make a constructive distinction on this planet. Megan is at the moment working as an electronic mail developer for Sinch Electronic mail. Go to her web site and study extra at megbosh.com.
