Direct Marketing Email

Beliefnet recommends all direct marketing email clients follow the HTML guidelines below to create the most email client friendly creative. Additionally, following the guidelines will limit the number of edits and therefore decrease the turnaround time for all of us. Exclusion of the items listed below may as well increase the deliverability of your mailings.

  • Recommended total maximum width of 550 pixels or less for all creative.
  • Minimal to no use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Many email clients do not allo/handle CSS, whether it is via an external style sheet <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”some.css”>, internally using the <style> … </style> tags or using inline styles, such as <a href=”…” style=”…”> …</a>. We understand for certain things like borders or placing padding/margins, style sheets may be the easiest way to format: however, this may produce issues (i.e. incorrectly formatted HTML) that are out of our control due to the particular email program the recipient uses. At minimum no styles should be used for formatting text.
  • Please use tags such as:
    • <font face=”verdana, arial, sans-serif” size=”2” color=”#000000”> … </font> to set the font type/face, size and color for text
    • <b> … </b> or <strong> … </strong> to bold text
    • <i> … </i> or <em … </em> to italicize text
  • In the <body> tag we suggest adding the following code:
    • <body text=”#000000”> or <body text=”black”> to set all the default color fo the documents text to RGB value #000000 which is also black.
    • <body bgcolor=”#FFFFFF”> or <body bgcolor=”white”> to set the default background color fo the document to the RGB value #FFFFFF which is also white.
    • <body link=”#000FF” alink=”#00FF00” vlink=”#FF0000”> to set the link state (to #0000FF/blue), alink/active link state (to #00FF00/green) and vlink/visted link state (to#FF0000/red) for all links (i.e. <a … > …</a> tags). Unfortunately there is no way to control the hover state of a link without using style sheets.
  • Please do not use <u> … </u> as normally only links are underlined and that is handled automatically by the <a…> … </a> tag.
  • JavaScript is not allowed. Most email clients strip it out or do no execute it. This applies to other scripting languages as well.
  • Macromedia Flash files are not allowed. Most email clients strip them out or do not execute/display them.
  • Embedded Video files are not allowed. Most email clients strip them out or do not display them.
  • Form fields should not be used.
  • The number of different links (i.e. to unique URLs used in any email creative should be limited to a maximum of 5, not including an unsubscribe link. Additional links will cost $50 per link.
  • Advertisers are allowed one piece of email creative per mailing. There is a charge of $250 for each extra piece of creative.
  • Creative for mailings should be submitted 48 hours prior to the time the mailing is scheduled to be sent out. If creative is not received with the required 48 hour lead time, Beliefnet has the right to deploy the email drop on the next closest weekend.
  • Cancellations of stand alone email drops require a two week notice.
  • When sending creative, please include the following information:
    • Subject Line
    • From line
    • Client test line
    • Supression list
    • Unsubscribe language and link (if not included directly in the creative)

 

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