How To Design The Perfect HTML Newsletter

hongkiat.com

21 points·jakerocheleau··5 comments

Relevant and quite useful: http://htmlemailboilerplate.com/

there is little worse in this industry than having to build an html newsletter.. i've got a bit of sick in my mouth just thinking about it.

I wonder, has there been any research into whether HTML newsletters lead to better engagement than plaintext ones? Intuitively, it feels like plaintext mails should work better because they look less like a commercial message and more like the sort of thing your friends would send you, but that's just a hunch.

I remember reading this http://whichtestwon.com/archives/15976 (I managed to view it before you had to pay) - and plaintext won.

This site summarises the test: http://www.blueglobalmedia.com/blog/which-converts-better-te...

I've seen a lot of articles on it with varying data and results, but I think the answer is it depends on your audience and goals. Your intuition is dead-on and is usually the main argument for plaintext emails. I run Hacker Newsletter (http://hackernewsletter.com) and had looked into doing just plaintext, but found it was too hard to skim because of all the links.

The other big factor is how much you want to track. For me, it is key to know what is popular so I can adjust what I pick over time to include what my subscribers like more.

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