Testing Your HTML Email Messages

When you are preparing to send an email message using text and HTML versions, Sparklist highly recommends that you test your messages on multiple email applications before you send. This is because many people use many different email applications, similar to how many people use different browsers. (Just like there are multiple versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera, etc., there are different kinds of applications people use to send and read email — for example, Eudora, Outlook, Hotmail, etc.) Several email client applications are available to download for free, which makes them especially useful for testing purposes.

The screenshots below are samples of the SAME email message sent to accounts using 8 different email client applications. These samples are intended to illustrate the variances between different applications, and to highlight the need to test your messages before they are sent. To start, view the original message.

Sample Tests That Match The Original

The first four samples displayed below show HTML versions that look just like the original.

Email client: Outlook

This message looks good...

Email client: Eudora

This message also looks good. Notice the extra headers.

Email client: Incredimail

This message also looks good...

Sample Tests That Do NOT Match The Original

The next four samples show messages that do NOT look like the original:

Email client: PocoMail

Notice the white text appears black! For this reason, we recommend that your email designs use a light background and dark text, (rather than a dark background and light text).

Email client: Goldmine

Notice that this email client can read HTML, but does not display the graphic. For this reason, we recommend that images include "alt tags" in order for text to be displayed when graphics do not appear.

Email client: Yahoo!

Notice that the dark background appears white, and the white text appears black! This is another reason why testing your email messages on multiple email applications is highly recommended!

Email client: AOL 9

AOL 9 will pop-up a warning if HTML email messages contain images, prompting the recipient to select "yes" to open the message or "no" to skip the message. After clicking "yes", the HTML version will be displayed withOUT images, as shown above. (To view the images the recipient will have to click another link for "show images & enable links".) Learn more about images in HTML emails.

Email client: Hotmail

There are two things to note about this message in Hotmail: 1) the white text appears black, and 2) the entire message appears BLANK when <html> and <body> tags are included.

Summary

As shown in the samples above, the appearance of HTML email messages can vary, based on the email application that is used to view them as well as individual user settings. Sparklist recommends that you test your designs before sending them, in order to provide the best user experience possible for your HTML-enabled list members.

Additional Testing Resources

Check this list of email client applications
Read about how images are displayed in your HTML email messages