Question about HTML & CSS In Emails

Hey everyone, I have a client that sent me a design that she wants to send out in a mass email list. The design has limited text and rather large images.

Does anyone know the best approach to building the email template in a way that the spam filter would let these images through. She's paying a decent amount for this email list, and I don't want the recipients miss the email. Also can you use inline css for background images and layout? Or is it better to use an embedded style-sheet of some kind. I've never done email templates, so any advise would be appreciated.

 

Embedded Style sheets in a HTML Email will be your better choice in my thoughts. It makes it alot simpler to do.

Make sure the images have a description, that filters can read and not automatically block out a image with no description, that way it will know (in theroy) as to what the image portrays.

 

Thanks for the reply, I have a question about the name for the images, are you referring to the name attribute or the alt attribute?

 

And is there a standard width that the background image or wrapper should be

 

There is tons of advice for sending out html emails available at places like mailchimp, campaign monitor etc. The short n sweet of it is if you are counting on a graphical presentation you are wasting money. If you have to use images, keep the filenames short and host them on a webserver (versus trying to sending them with the email, since they will be treated as attachments). Inline CSS works best. That's from practical experience. It sucks but it works. And the usual advice, test them in all major free email providers and the big email applications. Then you have to avoid the spam trap. Some specific keywords will get you assigned to the bulk folder (Free is a bad word, viagara is another )
Believe they were referring to the ALT attribute. And far as a width for bg images, I would error on the side of caution and go with a solid background color in a table. Which of course is the best method of controlling html email layouts.

 

shallowink, thanks for the advice! Do you guys think using a table structure is the best practice or can I get away with Xhtml divs, spans, etc..

 

Email clients differ in what they handle. Tables is the safe route.

 

Also, remember to send it as a multipart email and not just pure HTML for those of us that use text only clients like some mobiles.