Email Sizes: Specifications for Your Emails and Newsletters

When it comes to creating and sending email campaigns and building newsletters, email size matters. 

There are several technical considerations to keep in mind to ensure your emails are delivered effectively and look great across various devices and email clients. Email size is one of the more important technical considerations.

In this blog post, we’ll delve into the importance of email size specifications for your emails and also ideal newsletter size and provide guidelines to help you optimise your emails and newsletters for maximum impact.

The total size of your email, including all its components (text, images, HTML, and attachments), should be kept within reasonable limits. Ideally, try to keep your emails below 102KB, as many email clients may have restrictions on the maximum size they accept.

So, how wide should your email and newsletters really be? It’s the age-old question.

600px – 650px is often floated around, mainly due to the legacy of Outlook. We’ve witnessed a revolution in email design since the early days of Outlook. Many communications professionals and marketers want their emails to look like websites.

So the idea of 600px being the max width is not incorrect, but we can branch out a little and expand on the width up to 650px, with 650px being the advised maximum if you want to ensure your emails render across most email clients.

 Images are often the largest contributors to email size. To reduce image size, use compressed and optimised images. Aim for image files to be less than 200KB and use the appropriate file format (JPEG for photographs, PNG for graphics with transparency, and GIF for simple animations).

Keep your HTML and CSS code clean and efficient to improve your email size. Minimise unnecessary code and use inline CSS styles where possible to reduce external file requests.

You can ask Swift Digital designers to design you an email that uses inline CSS styles to improve email size and load speed. This not only helps with size but also ensures consistent rendering across email clients.

Avoid sending large attachments directly within emails. Instead, host the file on your website or a file-sharing service and provide a download link. This helps keep your email size down and ensures better deliverability.

Wherever possible, use text instead of images for critical content like headings and calls-to-action. Text is more lightweight and loads faster.

Design your emails and newsletters to be responsive, meaning they adapt to different screen sizes. This ensures your message looks good and is easy to read on both desktop and mobile devices.

Always test your emails across various email clients and devices to ensure they render correctly and load quickly. Consider using email testing tools like Email on Acid and Litmus to identify and resolve any email size-related issues.

Download Now -> Free Email Newsletter Best Practices Guide

Now that you understand the importance of size specifications in email marketing, let’s explore some best practices to help you manage email size effectively:

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can help distribute the load of loading images and other assets, making your emails load faster. Swift Digital have a built in CDN on their platform that ensures images are optimised, helping your emails and newsletters to load faster.

Use image optimisation tools to reduce image file sizes without compromising quality.

• Compress HTML and CSS: Minify your HTML and CSS code to reduce unnecessary characters and whitespace.
• Limit the Use of Large Attachments: As mentioned earlier, avoid sending large attachments directly in emails.
• Keep It Simple: Don’t overload your emails with excessive content, images, or features that may bloat the size.

Monitor Analytics: Pay attention to email performance metrics, such as open rates and click-through rates, to gauge the impact of your email on engagement.

In conclusion, understanding and adhering to email size specifications for your email marketing campaigns is essential for ensuring your emails and newsletters reach their intended audience, load quickly, and provide a positive user experience.

By following email size best practices and optimising your email content, you can improve email deliverability and engagement, ultimately driving better results from your email marketing efforts.

Download Now -> Free Email Newsletter Best Practices Guide