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Sending email as text or html?

by DaveSmith2020
10 replies
I will be sending out link building emails. Should I send them as text only or can I have a pic of myself in there, to make it more personal?
#email #html #sending #text
  • Profile picture of the author ragstworiches
    Hi,

    I don't think a picture will make much difference its more about the content which will convey how personal the email is. If you have a nice email template with your picture and company logo, no harm in using that.

    Phil
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  • Profile picture of the author TrumpiaTim
    I always preferred HTML over Text Only.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Mensah
    Send your picture it will help build credibility and your customers will put a face to your emails now mind you most email providers have Images automatically disabled.
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  • Profile picture of the author apeee
    If you send both the versions, then the email has better chances of NOT hitting the spam box.
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Text is the recommended way, but html will mean you can have clickable links.
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  • Profile picture of the author orlly
    I would send in HTML and allow the user the option of displaying images.
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  • Profile picture of the author tdanz
    make the html in such a way that if the user has images turned off, the email still makes sense.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      The text vs. html debate has been going on for a long time. In the "olden days" most subscribed to the idea that text only was best for email. The reason cited was that most folks were limited to seeing text only by their email platforms.

      But in today's world, I don't think that limitation is anywhere near what it used to be.

      I can tell you that a number of very big name marketers still use text only.

      Maybe part of the decision can be based on what your email contains. For instance, if I were a graphic designer, an artist, or photographer, I think I would stick with HTML exclusively so that I could feature my work.

      Another thought is that you can send both and let the subscriber choose how he/she wants to read what you have. Track and test is nearly always a great solution to such dilemmas.

      Good luck to you all.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Fabian Tan
    I am using purely text now.

    Why? Because in Yahoo mail, images are only set to show from contacts and "certified senders" (probably big companies) by default in one's Yahoo mail box (unless one changes the setting in options). Every other promotional HTML email gets a big RED "This message contains blocked images" warning, which immediately distracts the reader from the email message and may prevent him from clicking, cause him/her to unsubscribe or send it to the spam folder. Either way, it is not conducive for sales and clicks.

    And considering that Yahoo makes up almost 20% to 30% or more of all email addresses, it is better to use text emails unless one is a big company which people inherently trust or has a really specific and necessary reason for using HTML (if you are an e-commerce company, newspaper company, or you want to use contextual links/bold text etc).

    And also for Gmail, there is of course also a slightly distracting "Display images" text above the email when using HTML. Unless you have real images in the email (other than the open tracking pixel), subscribers may wonder what images are there in the email when it looks like a text email with maybe "anchor text" contextual links. This is a big reason why open rates are not accurate as well, as most people don't turn on images in email by default.

    So to conclude, only use HTML if there is a really good reason for doing so (for example, if you want real images in the email, want to bold text etc or you brand yourself as more of an e-commerce company).

    Fabian
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  • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
    You'd be surprised at the difference in deliverability rates.

    I'm a big believer in "test first, ask later" and so when I tested sending out the same message to 2 similar lists of mine... I sent one as text and one as HTML.

    The text one kicked the butt of the HTML, in terms of deliverability AND response rate.

    The text only one got 2 times the open rate... but like with everything, every marketer can get different results.

    I think if you ask most of the big players... you'd find text wins out MOST of the time.
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