Troubleshooting Email Like a Pro

Troubleshooting Email
Like a Pro
#LitmusLive

Get the Resources
You can ﬁnd the slides, examples, and more at:
litmus.com/lp/troubleshooting-london
#LitmusLive
Wiﬁ: litmuslive Password: weloveemail

Jaina Mistry
Email Marketing Specialist, Litmus
@jainamistry
Jason Rodriguez
Product Manager, Litmus
@rodriguezcommaj

Agenda
• 8:15 - Background Info
• 8:45 - Troubleshooting Workﬂows
• 9:10 - Common Bugs & Fixes
• 10:00 - BREAK
• 10:20 - Quick Review
• 10:30 - Exercise Time
• 11:00 - Email Optimization
• 11:30 - Q&A Session
• 12:00 - LUNCH

Why Problems Happen
or The Crazy State of Email Rendering

— Me, now
“Email is unique.”

✔ Iterative
✔ Testable
✔ Personal
✔ Forgettable

The problem with email
client icons background

IMAP & POP
WebDav
Exchange
Domino
Preprocessor
Trident (IE)
WebKit
Gecko
MS Word
Inbox
Server Sanitization Rendering Inbox View
The Rendering Pipeline

EMAIL DESIGN WEB DESIGN
<table> <div>
<td> <h1>
<td> <p>
px em
style=“” <style>
bgcolor background-color
padding margin

EMAIL DESIGN WEB DESIGN
#ffffff #fff rgba hsa
individual properties shorthand
width=“100” width: 100px;
align=“left” text-align: left;
style=“” <style>

All emails consist of:
HTML and CSS

Tags
<a> <h1> <table>
Attributes
width="" cellpadding=""
HTML = Structure and content

Rules
padding color font-family
Values
100px #333333 sans-serif
CSS = Style and Manipulation

Most of your problems will come
from issues with your code.
At least the ones you can ﬁx.

A Guide to
Troubleshooting
Determining What's Going On

Email Troubleshooting 101
1. Test your email
2. Check your images
3. Check your HTML
4. Ask for help

During Development
(in browser, in Builder, do
test sends (PutsMail))

Images in Email Require:
1. Absolute paths
2. Publicly accessible servers

Relative Path
<img src="/img/img.jpg">
Absolute Path
<img src="http://example.com/img/img.jpg">

Check the File Type
JPG PNG GIF SVG TIFF

Highlight Tables
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="1">
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

Remove Other Sections
HEADER
HERO SECTION
CTA BLOCK
FOOTER

Reintroduce Components
HEADER
HERO SECTION
CTA BLOCK
FOOTER

Modularity FTW
HEADER
HERO SECTION
CTA BLOCK
FOOTER
+
+
+

Common Syntax Issues:
1. Missing tags
2. Incorrect tags & values
3. Lack of HTML/CSS support

Override Client Defaults
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

Override Client Defaults
<body style="margin: 0; padding: 0;">

See What Clients are
Doing to Your HTML

litmus.com/community/discussions

Helpful Hashtags:
#emaildesign
#emailmarketing
#emailgeeks
#litmuscommunity
#litmuslive

Common Bugs
and How to Fix Them

Missing ImagesImage not displayed.

Prevent Collapsing
<img src="" width="600" height="200">

Alternative Text
<img src="" width="600" height="200"
alt="20% off coupon">

ALT Text Guidelines:
1. Include on most images
2. Keep empty for non-essential images
3. Keep it short
4. Can be styled using inline CSS

Cached Images
table ﬂip, what can you
do?

Removing Download Button
<a href="https://litmus.com">
alt="20% off coupon">
</a>

Removing Borders
<a href="litmus.com">
alt="20% off coupon" border="0">
</a>

Removing Gaps
<a href="litmus.com">
alt="20% off coupon" border="0"
style="display: block;">
</a>

Where is my
background
image?
Where is my
background
image?

Background Images
1. Not supported everywhere
(Outlooks, Gmail IMAP)
2. Can use VML for Outlooks
3. Always use fallback colors

Animated GIF Isn’t
Animating

Ensure Alignment
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="center"></td>
<td align="right"></td>

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipisicing elit.
Tempora harum maiores totam
possimus vero. Quaerat nemo
maxime fugit quas aliquam
earum amet sequi omnis nihil,
quos ipsam quasi, reiciendis
repudiandae?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipisicing elit.
Tempora harum maiores totam
possimus vero. Quaerat nemo
maxime fugit quas aliquam
earum amet sequi omnis nihil,
quos ipsam quasi, reiciendis
repudiandae?

Use MSO Conditional CSS

Blank Media Query FTW
@media screen {
@font-face {
/* FONT DECLARATIONS */
}
}

Wrap Suspect Text
.nolink {
text-color: #c0c0c0; text-decoration: none;
}
<span class=“nolink”>866-787-7030</span>

Use a CSS Reset
<style>
a[x-apple-data-detectors] {
color: inherit !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
font-size: inherit !important;
font-family: inherit !important;
font-weight: inherit !important;
line-height: inherit !important;
}
</style>

HTML Lists Don’t Look
Right
This is a list of information:
Item One
Item Two
Item Three
Item Four
This is a list of information:
• Item One
• Item Two
• Item Three
• Item Four

Full Email Not Shown
in Gmail102kb
Clipping in Gmail

What if tables look
bigger than expected?

 &zwnj;
= width of 1 character

Hide Unwanted Preview Text
<div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overﬂow:hidden;”>

</div>

<div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overﬂow:
hidden;"> &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj;&nbsp
;&zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &zwnj; &
zwnj; &zwnj; </div>

Quick Refresh
What have we learned so far?

These guys cause a
lot of problems…

Understanding
what's supported where
is your ﬁrst line of defense.

Exercises
Let's look at some code…

The Plan:
1. Quick assignment
2. A few clues
3. 3 minutes of troubleshooting
4. Review

Exercise #1
Fix the Missing Images
Hints:
https://img.litmuscdn.com/images/next/illustrations
File Formats

Exercise #2
Fix the Layout
Hint:

Exercise #3
Fix the Blue Links
Hints:
HTML Classes
Style Resets

Exercise #4
Fix the Responsive Layout 1
Hints:
See if something's missing…

Exercise #5
Fix the Responsive Layout 2
Hints:
See if something's wrong…

Exercise #6
Fix the Styles in Gmail
Hints:
[ hey="wtf" ]

Troubleshooting Email Like a Pro

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