Solving Hotmail-Firefox Email Issues
More than half of major online retailers have not correctly coded their emails to avoid a common rendering problem with Hotmail displayed in the Firefox browser, according to a recent white paper [pdf] from Smith-Harmon. However, the problem can be resolved with simple coding.
Because email clients support different CSS and HTML coding, ensuring that promotional emails render correctly in all the major email platforms can be challenging for online retailers, especially since support tends to change without notice. Rendering challenges are compounded by the fact that the browsers used by subscribers can also affect how an email displays. Smith-Harmon advises that email marketers failing to account for the vagaries of rendering risk brand damage from broken designs and poor subscriber experiences from broken functionality.
Hotmail Border Issues
One rendering challenge facing online retailers sending promotional email arises from how Hotmail displays emails when viewed in Firefox. If emails are not coded properly, a border is added to every image.
An examination of emails from 102 major online retailers revealed that 55% of them had not properly coded their emails to circumvent this problem. For emails that are one single image or include product grids with plenty of spacing between the images, the effect can be subtle. However, when emails feature lots of stacked or adjacent images in tight designs, Smith-Harmon warns the effect can be dramatic.
Smith-Harmon quotes figures from Fingerprint indicating that 17% of consumers use Hotmail. Factoring in browser usage, 3% of consumers are using the combination of Hotmail and Firefox, and therefore exposed to Hotmail-Firefox rendering issues, if left unaddressed. A retail brand’s exposure could be higher or lower than this percentage, depending on its subscriber base.
An Easy Solution is Availalble
According to Smith-Harmon, to solve this problem, retailers should include the following coding immediately after the “body” tag within the HTML code for their emails: style tag, img, space, open curly brace, display: block, close curly brace, close style tag.
The style tag must be placed after the body tag instead of within the head section as normal web coding practice dictates. This is because Hotmail strips out any code within the head section. Although CSS style definition tags have limited support across webmail clients, in this case it will have no negative impact in any other email clients and will ensure that promotional emails render correctly in Hotmail with Firefox.
Retail Email Volume Jumps 9% in March
A notable recent increase in the volume of promotional retail emails makes it even more imperative for retailers to fix any rendering issues with their emails. Top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 2.7 promotional emails on average during the week ending March 26, 2010. This represents a 9% increase in average promotional email volume from 2.5 emails the week ending February 26, 2010, according to Chad White, Responsys and author of the Retail Email Blog.
Compared to March 2009, year-over-year promotional email volume increased at an even higher rate. Retailers increased their promotional email volume 13%, from an average of 2.4 emails in March 2009. Top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 2.7 promotional emails on average during the week ending March 26, 2010.