Alt Tags, Alt Tags, Alt Tags
Dec 10 2008
Just a friendly reminder for you to check to make sure your the images in your email have HTML “alt” tags, which displays a text description when the image does not display. Here is why…
Images Off (click to enlarge)
Images On (click to enlarge)
Need I say more? Well yes, I will say more. I have been on Reebok’s list for quite a while. The reason the images were blocked is because they changed the email address used for email. That removed the inbox whitelist I had previously setup. While they do have a link to “If you can’t read this newsletter, view the HTML version online”, with no ability to see anything referencing email content, why should I click that link? Because of the subject line?
This leads me to another topic: Image only emails – Why? With all of the chatter from ESP’s and the Blogosphere on email rendering and conversion increases from well designed/coded emails, why do people still do it? I will tell you why, because it is easy. It takes time to code email for optimal rendering. In an image only email, you can create a unique and dynamic experience. But is that going to pay the bills?
Make sure that your designers are aware of the complexities of the inbox BEFORE they start designing.
- Posted by Alex Williams
- @alexcwilliams
- at 4:34 PM
Published in Email Design, Email Marketing Strategy, Email Rendering, Missed Opportunites
Tags: Email Design, Email Rendering, HTML email coding, images off, images on, Layout
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December 10th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
That’s definitely a great call. As you mention, the majority of email clients do not load images by default so relevant alt tags are a necessity. There are also a lot of good alternate ways to use them beyond the obvious ones. We wrote a short post a little while back on it: http://success.pardot.com/make-sure-your-fulfillment-tech
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Just curious, what could have been used for alt-tags in that situation that would have made your experience any better? If the images didn’t come through, alt-tags would appear as plain text but would still look fairly ugly and not get any kind of message across.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:29 am
[...] Spell-check. ☐ Re-read to check grammar, re-write anything unclear and shorten copy. ☐ Place alt text behind any important images. ☐ Make sure you have a text version of your email that has been [...]