In this issue

Microsoft is tightening up its flagship email program, Outlook.  It impacts anyone who is sending out graphics emails or who is trying to measure the usage of emails.

To illustrate the problem here is an screenshot of an email I received from a popular e-zine as displayed by outlook 2003. Here is what it is supposed to look like.   (these screen shots are about 80k each). 

Microsoft has two email programs, Outlook Express (free) and Outlook (comes as part of MS Office).   I am talking about Outlook here, which is more likely to be seen on corporate desktops than home desktops. 

Lets talk about HTML emails.

Until a few years ago mails were just text.  They looked like they had been typed on a cheap typewriter (generally) because they use the courier font.  Then it all changed - you could create your email as if it were a web page and the email program would display it in all its glory.  

This opened up all sorts of possibilities:

• The first and most obvious is that you could now brand your email and make it look as if it came from your company.
• The email could look more attractive and easier to read.
• As each email is unique, links to your web site could have the recipients identity built-in so you can monitor the effectiveness of different emails in generating traffic to your web site.
• When images are loaded into the email from your server you could monitor usage and deduce that a specific person receiving the mail had opened it.  Within minutes you could be on the phone to re-enforce the message.
• You could overcome spam filters by putting text into graphics which the filters can't read. 
• You could write fancy Javascript that screwed up the recipients machine, maybe even mailed out viruses.

So a mixed blessing then!  

Over time some of these have been addressed,  for example Javascript in emails hasn't worked for some time.  Now in Outlook 2003 Microsoft have removed most of the other loopholes by blocking anything that is downloaded from a web server. 

Where an image would be is a message 

"Right-click here to download pictures.  To help protect your privacy Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture"

Also at the top of the email in a grey box is a similar instruction.

If you right-click on the image if gives you four options

1. Download pictures
2. Change automatic download settings ...
3. Add sender to safe senders list
4. Add the domain to safe senders list

What do we do about it?

The first and most obvious thing is to put something like this in your email message:

"Outlook 2003 users: You may find that images have been blocked by your email program.  To prevent this happening in future Right-click on a blocked image and select "Add sender to safe senders list."

Maybe you can find a better wording. 

Another option is to include the images in the email itself as attachments rather than download  them from the server.  While this is technically possible it is not supported by some important email programs, so very few people use this.   However it works with Outlook 2003 so if you could find out what programs your recipients are using there may be an option here.

The other part of the solution is design. 

• Minimise your use of graphics by using tables and style sheet elements as much as possible. 
• Give images height and width tags, but make sure that at least one image towards the start of the email is big enough, or doesn't have these tags, so recipients can read the text.  I wouldn't rely on them finding the grey box.
• If image sizes are unpredictable,
• put them at the right hand side of the mail (so the 'right-click here... stuff goes off to the right beyond the edge of the email).
• or put images so they occupy a whole line to themselves.  That way they can't shoot text off the right hand side of the window

I have Outlook 2003 on my PC, so if you want to mail a sample to me I would be happy to take a screen-grab for you. But give me a call first so I know whats going on (020 8400 6115).

What happens to my opening rates?

Opening rates on mails are calculated by including a small image in the mail which is invisible to the recipient.  By monitoring when it is downloaded from the server we can measure who opened the mail. That way we can work out the percentage opening the mail as opposed to trashing it. 

This was never terribly reliable.  Email clients often have a 'preview' window, and this would be enough to trigger the download.  So opening rates tend to be over-stated. 

Now with Outlook 2003, opening rates will be under-counted for a change.  This is because recipients may read the mail without downloading the images.  However it is a factor that will grow with time as people upgrade, so opening rates will be less useful to spot trends. 

What about forms

I haven't tried submitting a form from an email.  I don't see why it wouldn't work but I have read that they don't.  As far as I can see you just get a warning message.  If you have forms in emails you might want to check that they work.

Non-outlook recipients

AOL 9 will be blocking images as well we hear.  As it has not been released in the UK yet this is not a big problem, which is just as well because I can't upgrade to AOL 9 and test it.  When I do I will include an update in this newsletter.

Some people can't deal with HTML emails. In particular a surprisingly large number of Lotus Notes users (due to misconfiguration or paranoia - either way few corporates are going to change it so people can see your emails).

The normal thing to do is to allow recipients to select text or html formats when they sign up.  What is that you say, "Users didn't sign up we just bought a list and mailed it" .  Shame on you!