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 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 [...]