The Email Wars

The Challenges with email and a lack of email standards across all the inboxes is that from time to time we can experience what we term an email blow out. What is an email blow out? Well is it quite simple. When you design an email there is the opportunity for it to hit an email client or inbox and go to hell in a hand basket. What you thought you might have designed has an issue you did not design for and will cause a table, a tag or an image to throw a wrench into the works and kill your formatting. 

What went wrong here? Well I am quite sure that it was a combination of a table and data feed error. I get this campaign every week and it has not had this issue ever before. What it looks to me what occurred is that the data being pulled from the CRM, CMS, or RSS feed had a character in it that did not play well with the formatting that this automated email template was prepared to handle. 

Not much that they could have done to prevent this except test it prior to send. We have an RSS to emailROI system that has been working and helping clients and partners automate data fed email campaigns from XML/RSS feeds they are producing in their site. Many large publishers and large blog driven sites use this as why would you need to copy and paste the same data twice. Also why would you want to not automate some of your work flow if you can for a daily, weekly or monthly campaign? BUT what we built in from the beginning was a test system that can one show you the feed or data in real time how it looks OR if you have it automated will send you an example/test minuted before it is set to go out where you can react if you see a data blow out. 

Testing rules and automation is king in a world where we are creating so much content that needs to be delivered in multiple formats and communication points. So steer clear of the email marketing blow out and set up the tests prior to the automation.