Re: Text vs. HTML Emails Ads

From: Michael Kimsal <michael_at_tapinternet.com>
Date: Mon 11 Feb 2002 17:01:32 -0600

Daniel Limbach wrote:

----------------------
Text: Pros
1) Fast delivery (very light on bytes)
2) Ubiquitous (all email programs accept it)
3) Flexible (easy to use in most text-based publications)

HTML: Pros
1) Measurable (we can track when emails are opened)
2) Stylish (supports graphics and formatting)
3) Brand-friendly (can be consistent with website style)
----------------------

With a good writer, short text ads can be consistent with
the 'brand' in many cases. The 'voice' of the text can
vary widely among writers, even with only 100-200
characters.

I'd take exception to a couple points here with HTML mail:

Measurable: Only if I read my mail while connected to the
internet. When I'm offline and reading a mail forces me to
dial up just to get a silly spinning logo or the same damn
clipart picture of some woman with a magnifying glass, I'm
nothing short of annoyed. And you can't measure my
annoyance.

To work around that annoyance you could simply embed all
your images in the mail, but you're then increasing my
download (and your sending bandwidth requirements)
immensely.

Some companies are filtering mails with attachments these
days, so your message may be delayed or dropped, or your
graphics stripped if you do this.

Stylish - highly dependant on the viewpoint of the
subscriber. and this seems to tie in with your #3 anyway.

The primary benefit to delivery HTML/graphics ads is it
gives jobs to people who create those graphics. I'm not
so cynical as to say it's the ONLY benefit, but there's
obviously a whole industry promoting it because they're
selling the tools to do it and need customers.

The rule I'd use is if the mail is going out in HTML
anyway, it's not too bad to have HTML ads in it. Strictly
speaking the ad will be HTML anyway, but I'm meaning have
the ad be based on graphics rather than text alone. If
the publication is text-based, getting the publisher to
insert an HTML ad will probably be pretty hard
anyway, and most likely not worth it anyway.

Biggest question to ask with any ad you send is what are
the benefits to the customer? If you can't get that
across in text, and HAVE to rely on graphics, perhaps
you need to rethink the message.


---------------------------
Michael Kimsal
http://www.tapinternet.com/
734-480-9961









Received on Mon Feb 11 2002 - 17:01:32 CST