Email marketing size applied correctly converts more. This happens because the better you can make use of the available space for your communication, the more engaged the lead will feel.
But it’s important to know that email marketing size can be interpreted in two ways: from the email provider’s perspective and from the user’s perspective, meaning the people who receive the messages.
From the provider’s conception, the email format requires technical specifications that presuppose the weight of the layout when loading on desktop and mobile screens. Emails with many images, for example, become heavy and go straight to the spam folder.
From the user’s angle, email marketing size is the length of the message, which can be longer or shorter.
It is worth noting that a very long email marketing message (a newsletter, for example) can cause loading slowness, as well as represent a risk of disfiguring the layout.
Let’s start by understanding the technical standards and then see how to work with email size according to recipient expectations.
Table of Contents
Email marketing size in technical dimensions
Most desktops and mobile devices accommodate 600 pixels in width as the ideal size, so that the user does not have to click on the scroll bar to view the entire layout.
It is important to remember the importance of creating a responsive layout, so that there is automatic adaptation to mobile phones. Thus, it is not necessary to configure different layouts for each device.
In addition to the email width, providers require that images be lightweight. Let’s see below what these specifications are.
Image size in email
In email marketing design, the size of an image means the weight of a photo. If the images in the email do not meet the providers’ technical requirements, the messages go straight to the spam folder.
The requirements and penalties of providers are strict, and anti-spam filters work to track emails that do not meet their quality expectations.
The ideal weight of an image is only 100kb each. And the maximum weight of images in an email marketing supported by providers is 500kb, adding up all the images together.
That is, for an email to be delivered to the user’s inbox, it is necessary to pay attention to the application of all images used in the piece.
Optimize
So that the weight of the images does not interfere with your email marketing, it is necessary to compress the files. But what is the ideal compression? Check below which ones are most used:
Jpeg: this is the format for photos and illustrations that contain details, and this type of compression does not interfere much with the image quality. Although it makes the email lighter, it should be considered that the entire email image will be compressed, and this can destroy some visual data of the smaller images.
Animated gifs: widely used in emails, however, to avoid weighing down your email marketing, the ideal is that each image has a maximum of 70kb, remembering that the maximum is 500kb in the whole piece. In the case of animated buttons, the recommended image size should not exceed 15kb.
PNG: stands for Portable Network Graphics. This format exists precisely so that images used on the Internet become lighter while maintaining resolution. Its best feature is the transparencies without loss of quality in the images.
Why lightweight images?
The main advantage of lightweight images is the speed of loading the email, which becomes faster.
And the sooner the lead can see the message, the more chances you have to engage them, thus avoiding them giving up, closing, and deleting the email.
Ideal size for the recipient
Email marketing design, along with copywriting, are the tools responsible for the success of an email campaign.
But before thinking about design and copy, it is necessary to know how to communicate with your buyer persona.
We saw that the ideal width of an email marketing is 600 pixels, but what is the amount of information you intend to convey to the audience?
If you are working on a newsletter, for example, certainly your email marketing layout will have more length space than a transactional email.
The ideal email marketing size will depend on the type of email you are working with in your communication, as we discussed above.
Just to remind you, the main types of email marketing are: e-commerce (promotions); transactional (concluding an action); informative (newsletters); and seasonal (Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.).
Text size in the body of the message
The body of the message concentrates on the main information to be communicated. Therefore, it is important to remain attentive to both excesses and suppressions.
This space is the heart of the piece and it is where the lead will concentrate their attention. Therefore, the message needs to be fully understood and quickly.
Generally, a transactional or seasonal email contains a total text of 200 characters, at most.
However, defining the ideal text size for your email marketing is totally linked to the type of email you are working on in your communication, as we discussed above.
Email marketing size: what not to do
Many people use attachments as an extension of the message, causing communication to be better distributed, but the recommendation is to never use them as an email marketing resource.
Anti-spam filters detect mass emails with attachments and send them directly to the spam folder.
For cases where the message extends to other points beyond the email, it is recommended to use landing pages or links to files to be downloaded from the website.
And for those who collect data online and work with landing pages, the application of real-time email verification API is necessary. This way, invalid emails are prevented from being part of email lists.
Bonus tips
- Avoid falling into spam boxes by using a higher proportion of text in the piece. Most email marketing design professionals apply 60% text and 40% images in the composition of an email.
- Add alternative texts: also called “alt tags” or “alt description,” they are used to describe an image that is not loaded for any reason. Thus, you prevent undesirable surprises.
- Be careful with font colors: applying white to texts is risky because it merges with the background if there is a failure in image loading. That is, if the image fails to upload for any reason, the user will not see the texts, which will remain in the same color as the background.
Conclusion
Although it may seem like just a detail, email size does not go unnoticed by providers. And the user also perceives an email that is trying to communicate in a format that is not suitable.
Therefore, pay attention to the technical peculiarities that your email marketing must comply with, always considering a positive experience for the user.