How to Avoid Broken Links, Broken Layouts, and Unhappy Subscribers

My talk for Digital Marketing Day 2015, going over the usual stuff - the importance of email, what can break, and how to avoid it all.

Transcript

1. How to Avoid Broken Links, Broken Layouts and Unhappy Subscribers
2. tl;dr TEST ALL THE THINGS!
3. #DMDay15 Jason Rodriguez Community Manager, Litmus @rodriguezcommaj
4. #DMDay15 EMAIL IS DEAD
5. #DMDay15 2.4 Billion email users in 2013
6. #DMDay15 182 Billion emails sent per day
7. #DMDay15 ROI by Channel EMAIL $44.25 SEARCH $22.24 DISPLAY $19.72 SOCIAL $12.90 CATALOG $7.30
8. What needs testing?
9. #DMDay15 WHAT MOST PEOPLE FEAR
10. #DMDay15 WHAT EMAIL MARKETERS FEAR
11. #DMDay15
12. #DMDay15 TOP 10 EMAIL CLIENTS #1 Apple iPhone #2 Gmail #3 Apple iPad #4 Outlook #5 Apple Mail #6 Google Android #7 Outlook.com #8 Yahoo! Mail #9 Windows Live Mail #10 AOL Mail emailclientmarketshare.com
13. #DMDay15 Rendering Engines
14. Common Rendering Issues
15. Broken Layouts
16. #DMDay15
17. #DMDay15 The Usual Suspects Desktop Lotus Notes Outlook 2007-2013 Gmail Mobile Gmail App Android Clients Windows Phone
18. #DMDay15 The Fix: Use modular, table-based designs Ask questions on litmus.com/community Test constantly
19. Missing Images
20. #DMDay15
21. #DMDay15 43% of Gmail users have images disabled
22. #DMDay15 The Fix: Use absolute paths for images Use ALT text Have some fun
23. #DMDay15
24. #DMDay15
25. Blue Links
26. #DMDay15 Blue Links and Design
27. #DMDay15 Blue Links and Usability
28. #DMDay15 The Fix: Wrap text in a class and override with CSS <span  class="apple-­‐footer”>123  Main  St.  Anywhere,  MA  01234</span>       .apple-­‐footer  a  {  color:  #333333;  text-­‐decoration:  none;  }  
29. Functionality
30. Broken Links
31. #DMDay15 Ever type one of these? goole.com faceboook.com twitter.om
32. #DMDay15 Imagine sending those links to 2 million subscribers…
33. #DMDay15 The Fix: Always check your links Use automated link checks
34. Manual Link Checking = Lots of Clicking
35. Link Validation = Lots of Saved Time
36. Color Blindness & Contrast
37. #DMDay15 5% of the population is color blind
38. #DMDay15 campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/4267/color-blindness-accessibility-and-the-vision-impaired-in-email-design
39. #DMDay15 vs.
40. #DMDay15 The Fix: Check for contrast & color blindness Tools Color Oracle (Mac & PC) Color Contrast Check (Web) Colorblind Web Page Filter (Web)
41. So how do we avoid all of these problems?
42. Make Email Testing a Part of Every Campaign
43. New Content Can Affect Even the Best Templates
44. Email Clients are in a State of Constant Change (and they never tell us about it)
45. It’s Dangerous to Go Alone
46. Try Litmus Free Visit litmus.com/giftcard and use coupon code DMDay15