Email Marketing Campaigns: HTML vs. Text

One of the most common questions that I heard when first starting to work on customer-facing emails was why we have to create both HTML and text versions of each email. The short answer to this question was that our email marketing tool required it; and for good reason.

According to the research from Email Labs, approximately 95% of email users receive their emails in HTML format. In my opinion, HTML is a good way to advertise to the “visual type” of customer. Sometimes images help with email content, but it’s important to be aware that there can be too many.

Ninety-five percent seems like a large number, but that measly 5% could be a large number of users if the customer has a sizable contacts list. Those five percent of customers may use text-only email for a variety of reasons, such as: using an older version of an email client, subscribers may read their emails on PDAs, or even offline. It seems unnecessary to refuse these users information simply because of their user preferences.

Speaking of user preferences – many of those text-only email subscribers may be technical users, and as such, they are likely aware of the use of spam emails tracking users by receiving a notification if the email was read; thereby assuring that the email address is monitored regularly. So, depending on your audience it could be a very large share of your customers that would not view an HTML email.

The best way to ensure full coverage of an email list is to offer both HTML and Text versions; and to know the needs of your customers to provide the best solution to the largest audience.