Re: Sending Emails vs. Links

From: Andy Connor <andy_at_wizzmail.co.uk>
Date: Tue 15 Mar 2005 17:40:49 -0600

Carmen Paulino said:-

One of my firm's developers asked that I post her clarifications of some
incorrect assumptions concerning the HtMail (aka HTML email) and Plain Mail
issues.

1. When you disable HTML email, you are not changing the effect of
bandwidth. Your email client does not know if the email contains HTML
formatting until AFTER it has been downloaded. An email's header does not
contain information on the format, so you have no choice but to download.

Not true - if you specify your smtp server not to deliver to your e-mail
client anything other than plain text, then it will not. Also, if you have a
G-Mail account for instance, external images will not be shown until you
have accepted them to be shown, therefore saving your bandwidth. I could go
on and on..........

2. When you disable HTML email, you are actually reading the "MULTIPART
ALTERNATIVE" section of the email... if it is present. Some bad email
clients do not transmit this and then you end up seeing junk on the screen.
Remember that more than 80% of the email being transmitted is in HTML format
with a Multipart Alternative for reading plain text.

Multipart MIME. Also not true, the html code does get downloaded but, again,
the images do not.

3. When you disable HTML email you do avoid downloading externally linked
items, such as stylesheets and images. Newer email clients don't download
these items unless you tell them to. The email consortium recommends that
people embed the images and external items in the email, which allows them
to be displayed without user interaction. This means that while you may not
be aware of it, you ultimately download these items even though you are
reading plain text.

Half true. What 'email consortium' are you talking about? They are VERY
irresponsible suggesting that images be embedded - I would like to see how
long their ISP will stand that for.

4. In good practice, email recipients should always have the right to opt in
to the email format they prefer. While many people prefer plain text email,
there are many more these days who prefer HTML.

True

Those are proponents (like
myself) of the opinion that a company that doesn't format its email into a
nice presentation (such as HTML allows), is not presenting itself in the
best light.

Your choice, I cannot argue, other than the fact that I have seen some awful
html creatives that actually do very little for a company's image.

Others are annoyed by HTML emails and should of course be
provided an opt-out opportunity, which is the best method to ensure they
don't download extra alternative information. Just "killing" HTML email does
not fulfill your goal of saving bandwidth.


5. Poor formatting of an HTML Email such as in the example of background
images (my screen is 1920 x 1200) is just that; poor design. It is not a
good example of why HTML Formatting is bad for business. Just as in your
website design, you should ensure that your presentation looks good in all
sorts of scenarios.

Agreed.

I hope this has been useful.

!!





Received on Tue Mar 15 2005 - 17:40:49 CST