Top 10 Problems with HTML Email

By all accounts, HTML email is a great thing, right? After all, there are many studies proving that HTML email generates better click-thru rates than their text-only counterparts (DoubleClick’s 2002 Q2 Email Marketing Trend Report cited click-thru rates for text-only emails for certain industries at 7.1%, while HTML email click-thru rates were 10%).

While I won’t dispute these findings, one still needs to be aware of problems and issues with sending HTML emails. If not done well, an HTML email campaign can actually hurt rather than help your marketing efforts. So, in the style of David Letterman, let’s count backwards and list of the Top 10 Most Common Problems Encountered When Sending HTML Email:

#10 – HTML email doesn’t “digest” well.

Discussion lists that send out digest issues discourage and sometimes even block HTML since it appears as a jumble of code in the digest.

#9 – It can slow download time.

Any HTML email is at least twice the size of its text equivalent, which means tying up more bandwidth space during delivery and receiving. This is particularly noticeable for recipients using dial-up connections.

#8 – HTML is far more susceptible to security problems.

Viruses are transmitted primarily in email and although both text and HTML are both able to carry malware attachments, HTML email easily holds the most risk since it is possible for attachments to automatically execute code without officially opening an attachment.

#7 – HTML doesn’t translate well off-line.

Consider the fact that there are still users out there who routinely download their emails and then disconnect from the Internet before reading their email. When this happens, many of the graphical components you selected HTML for in the first place will not be able to be displayed. They’ll just appear as blank boxes with icons indicating that graphics should appear there. The same goes for any copy that’s presented in a graphical format. If you were trying to use HTML to show a product or gussy-up your ad copy and someone reads your email off-line, you might as well kiss your email marketing effectiveness goodbye. Also, sometimes just opening an HTML email will cause a default connection to the Internet to launch, even if the user didn’t intend for it to and this can annoy or anger your recipient.

#6 – Measurements can be deceiving.

With HTML, email marketers are given another standard of measurement, the “open rate,” meaning the number of times a recipient theoretically opens an email and is exposed to your message. The problem is that many people review their email using their preview pane. Do so means that an HTML email will be counted as opened regardless of if the user truly meant to read that email or not. Touting the success of a campaign based on open rates, therefore, is not statistically accurate.

#5 – HTML email is not always readable.

Imagine the blunder of sending a marketing message your recipient can’t even read. That’s the case with some email programs (“clients”) which simply don’t have the capability to read HTML email at all (like Pine) or some which have difficulties displaying it properly (like AOL or Outlook ’97). If you don’t know for a certainty that the majority of your recipients will be able to receive HTML email, you may want to use text-only messages. At the very least, you could always host a page on your site on which your HTML message resides and provide that link at the beginning of your email saying, “Click here if you have problems viewing this email.” Also noteworthy is that HTML doesn’t work at all for PDA and Internet-capable cellular phone users.

#4 – It’s hard to forward and quote.

For any email effort aiming to be “viral” (generating buzz and awareness of your promotion, offer, or news through the forwarding of your email by the original recipient to her friends and family), HTML email may not be the best way to go. For many incompatibility reasons, forwarded HTML email may not be received by its recipients looking the same as it was received by its original owner. Besides, quoting (clipping and including only a portion of a received email in a newly composed one) sections of an HTML email formatted with tables is next to impossible. Forget that!

#3 – HTML does not alone guarantee success.

With HTML there are so many more variables involved in creation that sometimes the options overwhelm the message. For example, do you know if the font you’ve chosen is one that everyone can view? Do you know if your typeface will be visible against the colored background you’ve selected? Is your layout and design overwhelming your message or is your message hidden beneath all the fancy HTML bells and whistles? Plan carefully and test when possible.

#2 – It’s more challenging to maintain three lists.

To successfully maintain an HTML list, you must also still produce and manage two others, a text version and an AOL version. Larger corporations are able to use database-driven mailers with “sniffers.” A sniffer senses at the inbox level what the recipient is able to receive and then sends only that version. Still, sniffer technology is also flawed, for example your recipient may receive an HTML email at another computer which is not compatible with HTML and they won’t be able to read it.

#1 – The current lack of email client standards leads to problems.

While there is one dominant Web browsers (Internet Explorer), there multiple email clients, all with different capabilities and numerous settings, preferences, versions, etc. that makes it difficult if not impossible to predict your user’s experience.

For example, a Shockwave piece will begin streaming when viewed in the preview window of Outlook, and then begin again when the email is opened. Several web-based email clients place their own re-directs on your links causing any of your own re-directs on urls or query strings to break or show up as plain text in the middle of your email. Also, the capabilities of web-based email clients (Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL) tend to be less robust than program-based email clients, so there are limitations of what will work and what won’t.

When it comes to email marketing, if you want to be truly effective you may want to put the control in the user’s hands and give a choice at the time they sign up: HTML or text, which would you prefer?

Our thanks to the following for their contributions to this issue:

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