HTML Vs. Text Emails: Anyone tested here?

Text is clean, you get your message across, and you don't run the risk of a ruined layout when someone opens an unsupported HTML message.

The message is more important in my opinion.

I think most lists in the IM niche uses plain text.
HTML emails can be a pain for some users and most email clients disables images automatically.

I would agree with most others.. It realy depends.

I have some clients that have 20,000+ members and most those members prefer html but then again under the same type of site I have other clients that have only 4,000 members and they prefer text..

So really is just depends upon many different factors and you are best to test within your niche..

James

Here's something that I discovered that may be of intrest to some here:

I watched my deliverablity with both deliverymonitor and with senderscore
and both show that I got better delivery with plain text messages.

The real answer is to test it. Because, there is really no blanket
statement here.

But, I have personally found that plain text emails work better for me.

Plain text works better for me.

Focus on using psychological triggers without hype to get clicks
to your sales page and sites.

Here's something that will help.

hunteridge.com/download/SixSecretPersuaders.zip

Enjoy!

Mark Hendricks

It's not as simple as HTML vs Text.

HTML used sparingly can be a real benefit.

Get carried away with HTML and your message may not make it past the spam filters, may end up looking like junk, or (gasp!) get flagged as spam.

For me, the best way to use HTML has been sparingly so that the message looks clean (almost like plain text) but still has some nice formatting to cause headers, sub-headers, etc... to stand out.

I can format my bullet points nicely with HTML and I think that helps the message stand out a bit more, as well.

My main concern is that my emails are not automatically marked as spam.

I basically have always used Aweber, and it has worked quite well for me. Their spam analyzer seems to work quite well. A lot of times when testing new lists I will sign up for other email accounts and then sign up to my own list just to make sure everything is working correctly. I have never noticed a problem as long as I have a decent spam analyzer score with Aweber.

Text emails are by far the easiest to make sure are not marked spam, but html emails can easily be done as well.

Like I said, my number one concern in this area is to make sure that my email is seen and not marked as spam, and this has worked quite well for me. Also, I feel having rather plain text emails, for the most part, works best for most niches. I kind of look at it as a squeeze page. Basic ones that get the point across quickly work the best.

The point of an email to a list is generally to do one of two things: provide information to help your list while building your credibility or tell a story and warm them up to purchase. Mostly plain seems to work the best for this in a lot of niches.

I will point out there is one niche I have come across that this does not seem to work well for... Poker/Gambling. This is from my own personal testing, others may have had different results.

Will

I was emailing out a very nice looking HTML email to my list. I changed it to a plain text format and tried to make it look more like a personal email and not an advertising email. The response went up over 300%

It's hard to say. I use HTML with plain style because I want to track open rate and click rate.

But overall, the priority comes in this order:

deliverability -> open rate -> click rate

If your email is not delivered, open rate and click rate become irrelevant. You have to get passed in the above order first before you talk about something else. Again, to find out what is best, testing is the only way to tell.

As far as I know, HTML gives you a free spam point to help your message get in bulk. Try to use plain text.

I own the site theinterviewwithgod.com and I have tested text vs html and what I have found is the text emails have a better deliverability but I get higher actions, therefor making more money, with HTML. I htink with this site becuase it is so graphic in nature and creates a "feeling" the graphics brings the viewwer back to the web site experience.

If this helps any, I will post my own observations. Many of you know buy.com, the electronics online giant. The only time I buy anything from them is when I get those cool html emails.

TomG.

To be honest i have no experience yet of building lists and e-mailing customers.

However, whenever i log into my Hotmail and read a message it blocks all the images and some of the HTML coding. - This leaves the message looking messy and all-over-the-place. You can view the HTML message properly if you click "mark as safe".

Where as if you just wrote a plain text e-mail then Hotmail customers would not have to click "mark as safe"

This may be worth taking into consideration. It's the only piece of help i can give you im afraid.

Steven.

Definitely use text, HTML can create way too many hassles. Spam guards love catching HTML, not so much plain text.