The Email Wars

Let me lead with the fact that I like the company used as the example in this post. What happened can happened to anyone, even with testing prior to a email campaign. I know from talking to them that they did not see this in campaign pre-tests before they sent this email. I feel the pain.

Now having complete control over the rendering of an email campaign is something that most all of us test and account for prior to sending. But there can be factors in the set up of any random user’s inbox that can tweak your creative. We have seen it many times. This is a simple table blow out on the right hand side that should be able to be controlled but at times tables go wild in email clients. This might not happen even in all of the users that use this email client, but it can happen from time to time.

Testing it important but the purpose of showing you this is that is happens, even to the best of us.

Now the saving grace is that is was not horrific. It did not drop images, blow it out so that it was unable to be read, or even preclude me from getting to the action. It was not a total loss.

And on the good side of this email I did really like the new action buttons on the top header of the email. Nice graphic images that connected with me about what they were for.

So in the end it was not a complete failure, just a lesson learned. Not sure if anyone else beside me saw it. But then, if it was an important part of the email OR I was unable to complete the desired action it would have hurt.

Lesson: test, test test. And then test again and pray.