Email Best Practices
Overview
The following are recommendations to consider when designing emails in Sugar Market.
Email Names
We recommend you construct a naming convention to be used for all emails across your entire organization. For example, CampaignName_Region_Date (SummerPromo_Northeast_07042020). This improves productivity by making it easy for any user to locate a desired email throughout the platform.
Email Subject
Make email subjects compelling, but straightforward (e.g., Tomorrow's Webinar), to increase deliverability and open rate. If you choose to include emojis in your subject line (copy and paste), be aware that some email clients may not render them properly.
Templates
Templates allow you to save frequently used styles to reduce time, increase consistency across all emails, and ensure conformity to company standards when you create new emails. We recommend you create at least one template, which you can do in both Email Builder 1.0 and Email Builder 2.0.
Styles
The following are recommendations for various email style options:
- Font size: Size 14 is the optimal font size for all displays.
- Email width: 600 px is the optimal width for all displays. This setting is only available in Email Builder 2.0.
- Buttons vs links: Buttons have a higher click-through rate than links.
- Aligning elements: Use spacers to help you align elements, which you can choose to hide on mobile. This setting is only available in Email Builder 2.0.
- Background images: Since some email clients do not support background images (Outlook 2013 and 2016, earlier versions of Android, Office 365 mail, Windows 10 mail), it is important you conduct advanced testing for all email clients to ensure your emails will display as expected.
Merge Tags Proper Case
When using merge tags in your emails, use the Proper Case merge field modifier option to avoid sending mails that include all capital letters and lower case proper nouns (e.g. Hi KEN, Hi ken).
Accessibility
It is very important to include Alt text in your images to ensure you meet accessibility requirements and to improve deliverability. Set Alt text when you add images in both Email Builder 1.0 and 2.0.
Sending Emails
- Scheduled emails: While you can recall a scheduled emails if there is enough of a time buffer, it is best to leave emails in Draft status until you are ready to send. If you attempt to unschedule a email 30 minutes before the scheduled send, for example, it may be too late to cancel the send.
- Large distribution lists: When your email includes a large distribution list, we recommend you use the batch option to improve deliverability. The batch option is available in both Email Builder 1.0 and 2.0.